Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
| Messages 1 - 43 of total 43 in this topic |
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 27, 2010 - 10:47pm PT
|
A classic pictorial of an ice axe being fabricated from Summit August 1960.
Gerard Moser, left, and Jermarn Charlet are proud partners of a small factory in Camonix that makes ice axes and other climbing gear. Ira Spring photo.
Sweet selection of tools!
|
|
guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
|
|
|
Aug 27, 2010 - 11:46pm PT
|
Classic!
|
|
Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
|
Aug 28, 2010 - 12:09am PT
|
That may give BD some retro ideas. :-)
|
|
MeatBomb
Gym climber
Boise, I dee Hoe
|
|
|
Aug 28, 2010 - 01:29am PT
|
A+ for those gents.
|
|
Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
|
|
|
Aug 28, 2010 - 01:57am PT
|
I did almost all of my best snow mountain climbs with a Charlet Moser of that vintage!
|
|
Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
|
|
|
Aug 28, 2010 - 09:54am PT
|
Bought my first "Chuck Moser" in 76 I think.
50 cm, right hand tool on my first trip up Carlsberg.
Still have it and use it as well as a newer 65 for general utility.
I love the sturdy heft, it's a classic.
|
|
TomCochrane
Trad climber
Boulder Creek CA
|
|
I bought my first ice axe, a Charlet-Moser, from REI in Seattle in about 1962 when REI was still just a loft in a warehouse. It was a long axe, and I twice cut it down to shorter lengths. I still have a scar on my hand from an incautious move with the grinder in my ship's engine room where I was reshaping the shaft. That axe was later used as a prop in a movie and 'disappeared' from my possession. I've often wondered what happened to it and wished to have it back.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 2, 2010 - 10:40am PT
|
Time for ST personals---Guys seeking to reconnect with old lost equipment. Older equipment seeking younger user...hammer handling skills a plus! LOL
|
|
SGropp
Mountain climber
Eastsound, Wa
|
|
Sweet equipment in that shop !
I remember those axes with the crescent shaped cutout in the pick. I seem to recall that the intent was to be able to lock two axes together, head to head as some kind of ladder to get over a steep spot. [?!]
I had one of their piton hammers for years. It was made of some tough stuff as it never showed any wear
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 12:25pm PT
|
A couple of shots of their horizontals from this period.
|
|
jogill
climber
Colorado
|
|
My first ice axe from the early 1950s was a Mischabel (sp?), then later a C-M.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 11:20pm PT
|
Can anyone make out what the pile of hardware is right of the two carabiners? Looks like some kind of hard snow/ soft ice channel ring piton or etrier steps.
Anyone have a long channel angle or steel carabiners like the ones shown on the last page of the OP?
Where is that Universal?
Still have the axe, John?
|
|
Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
|
|
Anyone have a long channel angle or steel carabiners like the ones shown on the last page of the OP?
Cheers!
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2010 - 11:24am PT
|
Hazard a guess at the mystery widgets?
|
|
Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
|
|
Looks like some kind of snow/ice pro.
There's a photo of Ghastly in Neige et Roc aiding his way up overhanging glacier ice, but, looks like he's placing those channel pitons (!).
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2010 - 01:02pm PT
|
Got a Universal?
|
|
Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
|
|
Not a C-M, I don't think. CAMP, Stubai, Kong, etc.
Left one on a local limestone route here a couple years back. A friend plucked it with his fingers...hmmm...should get that thing back (orange color Kong, methinks)...
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2010 - 02:02pm PT
|
I have a couple somewhere. They had to make the head big enough to accomodate the gear stamp used on the horizontals shown above so you end up with an Eraserhead shape! LOL
|
|
TomCochrane
Trad climber
Boulder Creek CA
|
|
Steve, that top hammer in the picture looks just like the one I had that Jim Baldwin dropped on me from the Harding route on GPA. It was a great hammer. I could have laid out a similar photo with my hammer, ice axe and pitons. Their equipment was all a work of art. Their pitons were plated; as they were designed to be left fixed. The eye accommodates two carabiners, so you could stand in aiders on one and clip the belay rope to the other. They didn't stand up well to reuse. I had a whole rack of their pitons before Chouinard started selling me some of his first hand-forged items. My axe had that crescent cutout in the pick and a small scoop in the adz for placing one axe on top of another; but I didn't ever figure out a situation to use it that way. You are supposed to stack axes as a ladder and then the scoop was supposed to let you reach down and retrieve the lower axe.
|
|
Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
The pins may be what were called channel pitons. One variant had teeth along the edges of the channels, for use in ice.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2010 - 10:17pm PT
|
Tom- If you were standing on the tip of your mountain boot and directly over the shaft then the adze of the inverted retieval axe would act as a spacer and stabilize the whole show. Hopefully the stack is tied together somehow.
A nice portable foothold at counter height could come in handy!
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2010 - 12:14am PT
|
Some classic hardware shots from Gaston's On Ice Snow and Rock, 1971. Some Charlet items ten years forward.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 16, 2010 - 12:51pm PT
|
Classic hardware Bump!
The Universal design is pure Charlet-Moser! The first new piton design in quite a while and still a beauty!
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 30, 2010 - 08:12pm PT
|
Universal Bump!
|
|
philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
|
|
|
Oct 30, 2010 - 08:49pm PT
|
There is a great stylistic elegance to those pins.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 16, 2011 - 09:58pm PT
|
A winter's bump!
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 5, 2011 - 03:25pm PT
|
Charlet Bump...
|
|
Spider Savage
Mountain climber
SoCal
|
|
Great craftsmanship in hardware. I look forward to a point in the future when that comes around again.
Thanks for keeping this thread up. It's a gudun.
|
|
pocoloco1
Social climber
The Chihuahua Desert
|
|
Thanks Steve.You always post great stuff. Do you have any articles on the Simond brothers?
|
|
local
Social climber
eldorado springs
|
|
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 6, 2011 - 12:50pm PT
|
The Super D has to be the prettiest of the older style axes. Matching North Wall hammer? Nice quiver local!
|
|
local
Social climber
eldorado springs
|
|
The axe has a 'blood groove'. The hammer doesn't, but I always thought of them as a pair. By the time I acquired them, it seemed silly to climb with anything other than curved picks, so they've languished in the locker for 30+ years.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 20, 2013 - 03:49pm PT
|
An interesting variation with duplex teeth.
Screams Piolet-Ancre at you.
Any idea what the deep notch near the adze is supposed to accomplish other than giving the wrist loop a place to hide while wrapped?
I assume that the hole in the adze is to allow the axe to be retrieved from above using the pick rather than the curved adze cut out. Seems like a great way to drop an axe.
|
|
bachelarno
Social climber
Chamonix France
|
|
Hello from Chamonix, France.
Do you know if this is possible to get this magazine somewhere ?
This is all my childhood, as Gérard Moser was my great uncle and Germain Charlet is my great cousin. The factory is no more in Chamonix, and that magazine is a good way to have nice memories of that.
Thanks for all your informations.
Arnaud Bachelard
|
|
jaaan
Trad climber
Chamonix, France
|
|
Charlet Moser used to make a step cutting axe as recently as the 90s. It was basically destined for Swiss aspirant guides who had to use a step cutter as part of their assessment, and was sold in Switzerland by Mammut. I bought one just over 20 years ago. It's a good workhorse at the end of the season when the glaciers are very dry and icy.
Now, not Charlet, but there are a couple of old firms in Switzerland that make hand-made axes à l'ancienne. There's Willitsch in Täsch, just down from Zermatt and there's Bhend in Grindelwald. Bhend now makes a very limited number every year. Mine came from the first batch to be produced after a quite long lay-off after 'old man Bhend' died. It's so beautiful that I can't bear to use it - despite knowing that Bhend can return it to its former glory very easily!
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 16, 2018 - 11:27am PT
|
Long Overdue Bump!
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2018 - 11:42am PT
|
Quels beaux piolets!
|
|
Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2018 - 11:59am PT
|
Cool Charlet Moser article.
Joseph Willisch, in Täsch close to Zermatt, was the first ice axe smith in the Willisch family. He made some beautiful axes in the early 1900s.
|
|
nutstory
Trad climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2018 - 12:04pm PT
|
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2018 - 12:12pm PT
|
Zermatt door handle...
|
|
Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2018 - 12:46pm PT
|
Steve! & all who have posted! Thank you for another fun gear thread. I don't think I've seen it before. I had better post my one item of CM gear. An ice screw I bought about 1971.
It is about 8" long & 5/16" thick. I never had the guts to use it on ice, but it worked well on wine corks.
It shows up at top in this Sept. 1972 gear photo in the Bugaboo roadhead parking lot.
|
|
Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2018 - 01:36pm PT
|
Back in '90 when Charlie Fowler was working as a guide certification examiner he assumed a "client" identity as Charlie Poser.
|
|
| Messages 1 - 43 of total 43 in this topic |
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!