Tag:  climbing

 A narrow, acute ridge of rock formed where two planes of a cliff intersect, like the corner edge of a building. Can be blunt and rounded or knife-sharp.

 A deep crevasse that forms where a glacier pulls away from the headwall of a mountain. Often the last major obstacle before a summit push, and sometimes impassable.

A prominent projection of rock from the face of a mountain or cliff — a rib, a pillar, a flying wall of stone standing proud of the main face. Buttresses are some of the most sought-after climbing objectives: they catch light, shed water, and offer continuous lines of ascent that feel like climbing the mountain's spine. The word comes from architecture, but the mountain's buttresses came first.

A knobby protrusion of rock, most common on granite, resembling the head of a chicken. Often good enough to sling with a runner for protection.

A rock or boulder naturally wedged into a crack or chimney, often immovable and sometimes used as an anchor. The landscape's own hardware.

 Loose, rotten, crumbling, or otherwise terrible rock. A "choss pile" is an entire cliff made of the stuff. To climb on choss is to negotiate a continuous betrayal of trust between your hands and the mountain.

 A steep mountain gully, often filled with snow or ice, that channels everything falling from above — rockfall, avalanche debris, spindrift. A natural chute, beautiful and dangerous in equal measure.

 An open crack in the surface of a glacier, formed when the ice moves over uneven terrain or flows at different speeds in different places, and the brittle upper layer fractures under the stress. Crevasses can be 150 feet deep, 60 feet wide, and hidden beneath a thin snow bridge that looks solid until you step on it. They are the constant, invisible danger of glacier travel.

A very small edge on the rock face, just wide enough for the pads of the fingertips. To crimp is to curl the fingers over such an edge and lock the thumb over the index finger, concentrating enormous force into a tiny contact patch.

The Welsh word for a cirque — a bowl-shaped, glacially carved mountain basin with steep headwalls. Cwm is used internationally in mountaineering: the Western Cwm of Everest, the valley between the Lhotse face and the West Ridge, is the most famous application. The word is one of the few in English with no standard vowel.

A slab of rock partially detached from the main face, sometimes paper-thin and resonant when tapped, sometimes thick enough to stand on. In climbing, a flake can be a gift or a hazard depending on how committed it is to staying attached.

A rock tower or pinnacle on a mountain ridge that blocks progress along the crest, forcing climbers to detour around or over it. Gendarmes guard the ridge the way policemen guard a street — you don't pass without dealing with them.

A natural hole or cavity in rock, especially in the desert Southwest — a hollow in a boulder or cliff face that collects rainwater and holds it. Huecos are critical water sources for wildlife in arid terrain. In climbing, a hueco is a pocket or scoop in the rock face used as a hold.

A steep, heavily crevassed section of a glacier where the ice flows over a cliff or sharp increase in gradient and fractures into a chaotic maze of seracs, crevasses, and unstable ice towers. An icefall is a waterfall made of ice, still moving but shattered by the terrain beneath it. The Khumbu Icefall on Everest is the most famous and most feared.

A crack too wide for fist jams but too narrow for the whole body to enter. The most dreaded size in crack climbing — nothing fits well, everything is strenuous, and progress is ugly. Offwidths demand the awkward, grunting techniques that no one wants to practice.

 A tower or pinnacle of ice, formed where a glacier fractures into chaotic blocks as it flows over a steep drop — an icefall. Seracs are unstable, beautiful, and lethal. They can be the size of houses, standing at improbable angles, and they collapse without warning. Climbing through a serac field is a calculated gamble with time.

A perfect, clean, parallel-sided crack in the rock face, often running for dozens or hundreds of feet without variation. The most prized feature in crack climbing — consistent, protectable, and deeply satisfying to climb. Splitters in sandstone or granite are what climbers travel across the world to find.

 A thin, transparent glaze of ice over rock. Extremely hazardous — crampons can't penetrate it and rock shoes can't grip it. The rock looks bare until you touch it and your hand slides.