The Historical Story of the Alpenstock
An alpenstock is a centuries old stick, originally used to navigate rough terrain, primarily ice and snow. The pole itself, made of wood, was very long, and had a sharp iron point at the end to poke in the ice for better traction when walking. It was typically associated with sheep herders. Tracing its history back to the Middle Ages, the alpenstock was used to traverse the massive glaciers and snowfields. Now, it is mostly associated with sport mountain climbing. The word "alpenstock" is German and means "a stick from the Alps". Today, although some people still call it by the same name, it is often referred to as an "ice ax" or "steel pick and adze". Indeed, the story of the alpenstock is both interesting and very old.
Commentaries found in various books from the 1500s indicated that the alpenstock served two purposes. One was to travel across the ice and snow safely because herders each had a pick to jab in the ice, but the second purpose was to identify crevices or holes in the snow. By pushing the stick down ahead of them, they could find any "potholes" that might make them fall down. Usually, the leader of the group would be responsible for watching for the crevices, since he was in the first position and would presumably, take a tumble before anyone else. Further, they would lean on the alpine sticks to give themselves balance, keeping their bodies upright, and giving themselves better footing.
Moving forward to the late 1700s, more published stories and pictures show the alpenstock being used to climb high mountains covered in ice. The tool would actually help the men carve out rudimentary steps in the ice, so that they could ascend much easier. It seems, however, that by this time, the alpine stick had actually been integrated with an ax to make it more useful, particularly when climbing sloped areas. By the Victorian era, it was standard for mountain climbers to use the stick-ax combination.
By the early 1900s , the alpenstock had evolved into two separate tools to be used by mountain and winter-time climbers. The first was a walking alpine stick or mountaineering ax which had a long pole for balance, and the second was a climbing ax, sometimes called a technical ax which had a short stick for swinging. But, mountaineering historians say that the alpenstock did not change much over the next few decades.
As the alpine stick-ax was becoming more and more useful for sport activities, and not so much for farming any longer, new raw materials were sourced to make the tools, instead of the original wood of ash or hickory. The problem was, the older-version sticks broke under pressure, which proved troublesome for climbers. Later, sticks were made of wrought iron, which was incredibly heavy to carry when not on the ice. Thus, newer sticks, starting in the 1970s, were made of aluminum, steel alloy, and other lighter, yet durable materials.
Today, the alpenstock does not even resemble the original stick. Some are made with interchangeable components, while others are compact and light. Additionally, the sticks or axes are adapted to specific purposes such as walking, climbing and skiing. Most likely, in the last ten years, that is the 2000s, we have seen the most innovation in the story of the alpenstock.
For your interest, we tried to bundle some other interesting weblinks