A jumar is a handled mechanical ascender used to climb a fixed rope, gripping when weighted and sliding up when pushed. 'Jumar' is a brand name turned generic, and ascending a rope this way is called 'jumaring' or 'jugging'. It's essential for big-wall aid climbing, expedition fixed ropes, and crevasse rescue.
A picket is a sturdy aluminium stake, typically 60-90 cm long, used to build snow anchors. It can be driven into firm snow at an angle or buried horizontally as a deadman in softer snow. Pickets are the workhorse snow-protection piece for steep snow climbing, crevasse rescue, and snow belays.
A snow stake is a flat aluminium stake driven into or buried in snow to build an anchor where there is no rock or ice. Used as a vertical placement or a horizontal buried 'deadman', its holding power depends on the snow's firmness. It's a staple of the snow-anchor toolkit alongside the picket.
A Z-pulley, or Z-drag, is a rope hauling system that creates roughly a 3:1 mechanical advantage by routing the rope through anchors and pulleys in a Z shape. It is the standard system for hauling a climber out of a crevasse, letting a small team lift a heavy load with a fraction of the force.
A snow anchor is a point of attachment built in snow to hold a climber, belay, or rappel, since snow offers no cracks for rock gear. Methods include buried 'deadman' anchors like a picket, snow stake, or buried ice axe, and the snow bollard carved from the snow itself. Their strength depends entirely on snow quality.
Fixed ropes are ropes anchored in place along a route, left for climbers to clip into or ascend with mechanical ascenders. Common on big expedition peaks and steep snow, they speed travel and add security on terrain that would be slow or dangerous to climb unroped — but they rely on the ropes and anchors being sound.
A roped team is a group of mountaineers tied together on a single rope for mutual protection, most commonly during glacier travel, where the team can arrest and rescue a member who falls into a crevasse. Members travel at set spacing with the rope managed to minimize slack, ready to react instantly to a fall.
Glacier travel is the technique of crossing a glacier safely as a roped team, managing the hazard of hidden crevasses. Climbers travel roped together at set spacing, ready to arrest a fall and perform crevasse rescue, while reading the glacier's surface for sagging snow bridges and other signs of crevasses below.
Crevasse rescue is the set of techniques for extracting a climber who has fallen into a crevasse, using the rope, snow anchors, prusiks or ascenders, and mechanical-advantage hauling systems like the Z-pulley. It is an essential skill for glacier travel, practiced until it's second nature, because a real rescue must be fast and is physically demanding.
The death zone refers to altitudes above about 8,000 metres (26,000 ft), where the oxygen is too thin to sustain human life for long. The body deteriorates rather than acclimatizes, so climbers use supplemental oxygen and move fast. Prolonged time in the death zone leads to exhaustion, altitude illness, and death.