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| | Patent Pending Blog - Patents and the History of Technology: Ice Axe Length |
 | | They also mention an axe, popular with some, that, for carrying, can be taken apart at half its length and which, because the strengthening made it heavy and unbalanced “is only usable on mountaineering where the major effort of the day is spent on rock, and the ice work is only occasional or simple”. |
 | | Steep ice faces, short and long, summer and winter, became the playground of the new two-handed exponents who by now have a range of specialised hardware, and a literature describing their impressive accomplishments. |
 | | The handbooks generally describe three methods, recommending control with the axe for the sitting and the crouching methods (the two most awkward and least controllable methods), but, for the obvious reason that the axe is too short, not for the standing method. |
| patentpending.blogs.com /patent_pending_blog/2006/04/ice_axes.html (2448 words) |
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