Climbing cats

Until the beginning of the 20th century, climbing cats - a device for increasing anti-skid when moving along a snow-ice terrain - consisted of a metal frame with four (six, eight and sometimes ten teeth), and there were also exotic variations in the form of special plates that shove mountain boots (the so-called triconi ) ^[1] .

In 1908-1909, Oscar Eckenstein, analyzing all the options for cats available at that time, proposed his design, which he described in detail in his work “Ueber Steigeisentechnik-Crampon” ^[2] . For the manufacture of cats, Eckenstein turned to the Italian blacksmith Henry Grivel ( Italian Henry Grivel ) from Courmayeur , and since then, Eckenstein model cats have become an integral attribute of climbing equipment (curious, but Eckenstein made part of the difficult rock-climbing ascents without them ^[3] ) ^{[ 4]} . In 1929, the son of Henry Grivel Laurent perfected cats by adding two horizontal teeth to them ^{[1] [5]} .

By mounting method

• Rigid cats - suitable for special shoes with one or two welts (welt is a special protrusion along the edge of the boot, providing protection and the possibility of fixing hard cats). Cats with this mount are best controlled and sit tight on the boot. Most often, such a mount is used to overcome vertical walls, ice climbing .
• Semi-rigid cats - with a soft bracket (loop) in front, and a frog mount on the back. Suitable for boot with rear welt. The most universal mount - fits a wide range of mountaineering shoes.
• Universal cats - with a sling mount (the so-called wicks ) both in front and behind. Can be worn on any boot. It is much harder and longer to wear than stiff. Even if they were first worn very high quality, after a while of walking, play appears in them. But in most cases this is not critical, since such cats are mainly intended for walking on glaciers and firn slopes.

Design

• Platform cats - have a single base, without any movable joints, which provides a more reliable transfer of athlete's efforts and, therefore, more precise control. Platform cats are characterized by ice front teeth , often forged.
• Soft cats - consist of two parts connected by a metal strip, the length of which is adjusted to the size of the legs. They are found both with firn - horizontal, and with ice front teeth .
• Segments are a rather narrow class of exclusively sporting, competitive cats. They are two segments, a toe and a heel, screwed onto the boot with screws. The heel is most often with a spur, the toe is a mono-tooth.

Anti-slip - a special device, worn on the bottom of the cat, which does not allow the snow to stick to the bottom of the soles of the boots. Antipodlips are made, as a rule, from high-strength grades of rubber , as well as from latex . The simplest and most effective method of dealing with snow buildup is to stand cats on a piece of polyethylene so that the cat’s teeth pierce it.

• Lazes are universal
• Triconi
• Cat (values)

1. ↑ ^{1 2} A bit of history, about great people (Wilhelm Wielzenbach), inventions and inventors of climbing equipment (Rus.) (Neopr.) ? . Mountain.ru. Date of treatment February 10, 2015.
2. ↑ Ueber Steigeisentechnik- Crampon Manufacturing in 1908 . Alpinist LLC. Date of treatment February 13, 2015.
3. ↑ Error in footnotes ^? : Invalid <ref> ; no text for footnotes pdf
4. ↑ From the history of climbing cats (before the Second World War) (Russian) (neopr.) ? . 4sport.ua. Date of treatment February 13, 2015.
5. ↑ Way to 200 years of Grivel srl - ITALY