why crampons for hiking

would snowshoes be better suited?

They’re not much cop in the UK for a number of reasons. The snow is often not deep enough for them to be of use and when it is you can usually pick an alternative route up a wind blown ridge to avoid the deep stuff. They’re also much heavier and difficult to use on the kind of steep or rocky terrain that many walking / scrambling routes follow. I know a few folks that got snow shoes to access the backcountry in the UK with their snowboards and after a few goes they either reverted to walking or bought a split board.

f you really need 4 season boots, just buy some Plastic boots with a separate inner.

The 80’s called, they want their boots back. 😉

I’ve had some plastic boots I really liked but things have moved on a bit since then.

I’ve got some Salomon B3 boots (probably about 17 years old now and sadly underused lately) and they are actually surprisingly not-uncomfortable to walk in.

You need to be confident that you’re going to get the use out of stuff like that though for the investement you’re making.

Wow, what a car crash of a thread… I’d suggest you visit a decent outdoors shop and tell them what you’re actually planning on doing / aspiring to and have a think. Somewhere like Outside in Hathersage rather than a London-based chain.

Modern flexi crampons with the cradle-type plastic fittings will work on quite flexible boots for walking and won’t break ime. They won’t, however, allow you to front point, but for walking – yes, even including the extreme horrors of the Devil’s Kitchen path – they will do fine and will probably work with your current boots.

What three season boots won’t do, which proper winter ones will, is kick steps into hard snowpacks / nevé, which will save you time on easier ground and be quicker than using crampons in some circumstances.

For walking boots get crampons with straps,

You’ll be lucky if you can find crampons with straps, you want the cradle-type attachments, Grivel calls their’s New Classic, but everyone pretty much uses them now. Much faster and easier than classic straps and don’t cut off your circulation.

This is indeed like going back to the 80s… things have changed a little since then 😉

Wow, what a car crash of a thread.

Oh come on it’s not that bad, just the usual sort of thing, people getting confused by using different names for the same thing, recommending what they’ve got rather than what’s needed, overplaying the equipment requirements for a given activity, suggesting wholly inappropriate kit and giving well meaning but out of date advice.

I’ve rather enjoyed it.

🙂

It was a journey back through time… I was waiting for someone to recommend tricounis and a stout, ash-shafted walking axe with a head optimised for step-cutting. Oh, and a Kapok-lined, war-surplus flying suit.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the Alps, Killian Jornet is running up 4,000m peaks wearing a pair of Salomon S-LAB X Alp Carbons because he couldn’t find any plastic boots his size.