Mixed climbing

Mixed climbing is a climbing discipline used on routes that do not have enough ice to be pure ice climbs, but are also not dry enough to be pure rock climbs. To ascend the route, the mixed climber uses ice climbing equipment (e.g. double ice tools and crampons), but to protect the route, they use both rock-climbing equipment and ice climbing equipment. Mixed climbing varies from routes with sections of thick layers of ice and sections of bare rock, to routes that are mostly bare rock but which are "iced-up" in a thin layer of ice and/or snow.

While alpinists have used mixed climbing techniques for decades (most north-facing alpine routes are iced or snow-covered), it came to prominence with Jeff Lowe's ascent of the partially bolted Octopussy (WI6, M8 R) in 1994. Mixed climbing also led to the sport of dry-tooling, which is mixed climbing on routes that are completely free of all ice or snow. The equipment used — the lengths of ice tools and the use of heel spurs and ice axe leashes — has become more regulated to avoid concerns of being more like aid climbing than free climbing.^[a]

Mixed climbing routes are graded for difficulty on an M-grade system, and the development of specialized mixed climbing techniques (e.g. stein pulls and figure-four moves), and equipment (e.g. fruit boots, heel spurs, and advanced ergo ice axes), led to dramatic increases in mixed climbing grade milestones, particularly from 1994 to 2003, and have been credited with pushing standards in the wider field of alpine climbing. Many modern mixed routes are bolted like sport climbing routes, but some routes require traditional climbing-type protection.
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