Approach Shoes with Crampons

May 29, 2024

How to use approach shoes beyond their intended design and get traditional mountaineers to shape their alpenstocks at you in dismay.

Limitations

Right off the bat I want to highlight that combining crampons with approach should not be used as a replacement for mountain boots, you will hit limitations on steep snow far sooner with approach shoes than mountain boots. That said lots of the snow climbing people do for summer rock climbs is very modest, and the approach shoes are far more agile on rock than mountain boots. Combining the approach shoes with crampons extends your capability far beyond just micro-spikes, climbs rock better than mountain boots, and makes for lighter footwear for long days.

You need to make your own decision whether you have the experience to safely walk through the terrain in approach shoes. Climbing is often a game of compromises in safety for speed and efficiency. Extra caution should be exercised if you will be committed to a snow slope on a descent or traverse.

All that said, it is a common set up in places like the Bugaboos, and does very well for alpine rock in many places.

Crampon Selection

You will need to get strap on crampons. You also want a flexible crampon that flexes with the shoe rather than breaking. I have used semi-rigid strap on crampons like the black diamond contact crampons fairly successfully with approach shoes. Far better though are flexible dyneema crampons like petzl’s cord-tec crampons. These flex with your shoes, and I find I can get them much more secure to flexible footwear than crampons with steel centre bars, especially if I run the crampon strap underneath the cord as shown below. There are also reports of people breaking steel centre bars due to the cyclical loading of repeatably bending them as you walk. Aluminum vs steel is an old debate, I would say that anywhere you need steel crampons, you probably shouldn’t be in approach shoes. However steel is more versatile if you also intend to use them with boots.

Footwear Selection

Ideally get a bit of a beefier approach shoe, one that is more stiff and has a beefy rand. Without a decent rand you will get brutal pressure points on your toes from the toe bail on most crampons. Even with a beefier rand, I still would choose mountain boots for any extended snow travel out of comfort.

The lack of toe rand is an issue with trying to use crampons with most trail runners, it can be very uncomfortable. One could also use hiking boots in a similar way. But hiking boots have almost all the limitations of snow travel that approach shoes do, and none of the climbing benefits. I personally wouldn’t choose hiking boots for anything technical.

Technique

Front pointing is out of the question. Ideally you find yourself on softer snow with easy bucket steps, if not you will need to use french technique. This means stepping sideways up and keeping all points in contact with the ice/neve. There are many in depth resources on how to do this technique so I won’t open that can of worms here. I can’t imagine doing french technique beyond about 45 degrees. Freedom of the Hills suggests that it is usable up to 70 degrees in neve if you are proficient. However, nowadays you will see very few people on that steep terrain without two tools and stiff boots.

Sources:

The Mountaineers. (2017). Mountaineering: Freedom of the hills. Mountaineers Books.

Petzl, Crampons Cord-Tec. Download: https://www.petzl.com/sfc/servlet.shepherd/version/download/068Tx000001cUMJIA2