The Black Diamond Crampon report

"A piece of climbing gear you don't trust 100% is probably best retired or simply destroyed. eBay is not a good answer here."




Dane Burns @ Cold Thistle







The full BD report is well worth the effort and the read imo.

QC LAB: Gear Doesn’t Last Forever – CRAMPONS




http://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en-us/journal/climb/all/qc-lab-gear-doesnt-last-forever--crampons

Bottom line from Black Diamond

• Vertically oriented front points are best for climbing water ice and/or heavy climbers, and tend to do better in cyclic fatigue.
• Horizontal front points are best used for the alpine.
• Flexible center bars can increase the lifespan of your crampons, but at a cost of performance.
• Boots aren’t as rigid as they used to be and break down/wear in quicker.
• Use flexible center bars with truly non-rigid boots.
• Gear doesn’t last forever.




My take from the report is there is still a lot of guess work as to what is really reliable and what is not for boot and crampon combos at BD. I tend to want my own gear to be 100% reliable without having to second guess every little decision. And I'd like to enjoy what I consider the highest performance currently available from both boot and crampon. That combo for my own needs would seem to be labeled as "unreliable" by BD. Anecdotal evidence would seem to back up that conclusion.







A crampon and boot combination I really like on steep water ice. But not a combo either I or BD recommends.






While I don't agree with every conclusion or all the numbers as they have been presented I think the newest BD report does go a long ways in telling us how Black Diamond has decided to answer the problems they have experienced with stainless crampons. Any answer is a good answer imo when it comes to climbing gear.




From BD's own data:

Sabre Pro SS
Average Cycles to failure: 12,312 +/- 3,047

Sabre Pro CrMo
Average Cycles to failure: 15,079 +/- 2454

In summary, the CrMo fails after completing 23% more cycles than the SS.













A rather esoteric boot here in North America, the Scarpa Phantom Ultra.





Previuous masthead photo...dbl click for full effect



Because of this year long discussion, my current crampon choice, with a rigid center bar and this boot is obvious in the masthead photo and below, Petzl Dartwins. While not perfect imo they and the Dart have no significant history of failure that I know of with any boot combo.















" Flexible center bars can increase the lifespan of your crampons, but at a cost of performance" BD QC