Top 7 mountaineering accessories
1) Warm layers: The temperature falls at least a degree Celsius per 1,000 feet of climbing. Add wind chill and conductive heat loss, and you can get cold fast.
2) Gloves: You’ll regret leaving them at home; rock and ice are cold.
3) Pack: To carry it all. Simple and light is best.
4) Carabiners: Multiple locking and non-locking ones for making anchors, glacier travel and belaying.
5) Cordellette and webbing: Each person on a climb needs two or three five-metre lengths for anchors and rescues.
6) Protection: Pickets and flukes for snow, screws for ice, and nuts and cams for rock. Clipped to a rope they’ll stop a fall. Depending on the route, you’ll want some or all of it.
7) Belay device: Yes, you could use a hitch for rappelling and belaying, but a friction plate is faster, easier and better for the rope.
