[at-l] Crampons

[l_parker at cacaphony.net (L. Clayton Parker)]

> I did my first crampon trip of the year up Blackhead in the Catskills. I
> stay in pretty good shape, so why did my calves feel like they'd been
> flogged with a tire iron?!?
> It was a toss-up between snowshoes and crampons. The trail had a lot of
> water on it earlier in the year and I was more afraind of ice than snow.
> Only punched through a couple of times, but there was enough snow that
> snowshoes would have worked fine.

You walk differently when wearing crampons, just as you walk differently in
snow shoes, so no matter how good of shape you thought you were in, you
simply hadn't been using those particular muscle groups. I have found that
elevated toe-raisers in sets of three alternating toes pointed outward,
ahead and inward helps. I usually do three hundred or so a day in the fall.

Lee I Joe