How to Start Ice Climbing: Water Ice vs Alpine Ice, WI and M Grades, Dry Tooling, and Where Taiwanese Climbers Go

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In 2011, Lin Yi-fan from Kaohsiung saw an ice fall at the Banff Mountain Film Festival: "The Wings" in Shuangqiao Valley, Sichuan, graded WI4+. According to a go4mosa profile (in Chinese), from then on his rock climbing, snow training and hiking were all for ice. He first went to Sichuan to climb ice in 2018, went back in January 2025, and sent The Wings.

Taiwan has almost no natural ice, so anyone who wants to climb it has to take a similar route. This is Part 3 of the Other Climbing Disciplines series. It covers what ice climbing uses, how it is graded, what dry tooling and mixed climbing are, how accidents usually happen, and where Taiwanese climbers actually start.

What is ice climbing

The Wikipedia article on ice climbing defines it as climbing routes made entirely of frozen water, using two ice axes (or more modern ice tools) and rigid crampons. It began as one technique within mountaineering and became a sport of its own in the 1970s.

First, some reassurance: belaying and leading work the same way as on rock. Two people form a team; the leader climbs, places protection and clips the rope, while the belayer belays from below. In top-rope ice climbing the rope already runs through an anchor above. The difference is the protection. On rock you place nuts or cams; on ice you place ice screws, hollow threaded metal tubes that you screw into the ice.

Water ice and alpine ice

The AAC grade comparison chart published by Alpinist splits ice into two kinds:

• Water ice (WI): seasonal ice, such as waterfalls and seeping rock walls that freeze in winter.
• Alpine ice (AI): permanent ice in glaciers and couloirs high in the mountains. At the same number, AI may be easier than WI.

When Taiwanese climbers start abroad, it is almost always on water ice.

Gear

The gear list for a Korean ice climbing trip also names two technical ice tools, technical crampons and stiff or double boots, and anyone without them can rent from the operator (Goforwild Korea ice climbing training, in Chinese). No need to buy anything before your first trip.

How ice is graded

WI1–WI7

So WI3 and WI5 differ in more than angle. On WI3 you can stand, rest and place screws. On WI5 you face a full pitch of near-vertical ice with few rests, or ice so poor that protection is hard to place.

Grades are not consistent from place to place. The Alpinist chart itself notes that ice grades vary widely by region, are still evolving, and that it only describes averages. Canadians also often put a Roman-numeral commitment grade (I–VII) in front, for the overall seriousness of the approach, descent and avalanche exposure.

M grades and dry tooling

A route with both ice and rock is mixed climbing. Climbing bare rock with no ice, still on ice tools and crampons, is dry tooling. Both use M grades. The Alpinist chart runs from M1–3, "easy, low-angle, typically no tools", up to M12. M6 is "vertical to overhanging, with difficult dry tooling"; from M8 you meet near-horizontal roofs.

There is no agreement on how M grades map to YDS. The Terragalleria ice rating FAQ says it plainly: "There is no consensus".

OUTSiDERS' introduction to dry tooling (in Chinese) gives the history. Dry tooling began as a compromise: a way for ice climbers to keep their feel for the tools over summer, or to get past ice-free rock on mixed routes. In 1994 Jeff Lowe, in Vail, Colorado, dry tooled through a rock roof and then onto a hanging icicle; that route is seen as the turning point for modern dry tooling. Today dry tooling has its own D grades and a UIAA World Cup.

One line you must not cross: don't dry tool on established rock climbs. OUTSiDERS explains that sharp tools and crampons will scratch the rock and break holds, so dry tooling mostly happens on choss that rock climbers avoid, at purpose-built dry tooling crags, or on mixed routes that ice up in winter.

Where the risk is

Writing in Climbing.com (first published in Rock and Ice, 2020), Eliot Caroom analysed 2,770 publicly available ANAC accident reports from 30 years and tagged inadequate protection or protection pulling out as the most common factor in ice climbing accidents. The categories are the author's own, not official ANAC statistics, and he cautions that the results should be taken with a grain of salt. Among accidents where protection pulled, the most common contributing factor was runout (too much distance between pieces), at about 20%.

The article quotes an ANAC report from Mount Rundle in Canada that makes the point clearly: protection on ice is sometimes questionable, and in poor ice a screw that looks fine may hold little more than bodyweight. When you decide how often to place screws and where, factor in that your gear may fail.

In other words, you can't count on every screw to catch a fall. Wikipedia describes "the leader must not fall" as a core idea of ice climbing. That is very different from sport climbing, where falling is part of practice, and it is why leading on ice has to be learned and built up separately.

Three other risks to keep in mind:

• Falling ice and the sharp things you carry. The go4mosa interview notes that ice climbers carry a lot of sharp gear, so belayers usually stand further back, and when you fall you have to watch out for your own tools. Separately, ice knocked loose by the climber above falls on whoever is below, so always wear a helmet.
• Ice conditions change every day. The go4mosa profile says weather, humidity and sun all affect the ice; the day he sent The Wings, conditions were poor. With warming, many ice falls get worse year by year.
• Avalanches. In the same Climbing.com analysis, 13% of ice climbing accidents involved avalanches, more than the 10% for alpine climbing; ice falls often sit below snow slopes or in gullies. For how to take avalanche courses, see How a Taiwanese Climber Can Become an IFMGA Mountain Guide.

Artificial ice walls are far less risky. In a survey at the 2019 Ouray Ice Festival in the US, 75 participants reported 912 hours on artificial ice walls and 16 injuries, all minor, about 17.6 per 1,000 hours (Ganti et al. 2021). The sample is small and the walls were managed, so the figure doesn't carry over to natural ice falls.

Learning path: top-rope first, leading is a separate step

Wikipedia calls top-roping the safest way to ice climb and the usual way beginners start. A typical order:

1. Get your top-rope belaying, rappelling and basic knots solid at a gym (top-rope belaying at the gym, lower or rappel). The Korean trip requires "rock climbing experience, able to rappel and belay on top rope", plus the figure eight, double fisherman's, prusik, Munter hitch, water knot and clove hitch.
2. Take a top-rope ice course. Under a top rope set by an instructor, practise swinging the tools, kicking the crampons and standing in balance, over and over. Artificial ice walls and short ice falls are ideal for repetition.
3. Leading on ice is a separate step. You need to read the ice, place screws from strenuous positions, and accept that protection may not hold. This usually means going with experienced partners or a guide, after many hours on top rope.

Something you can do tonight: take that knot list and tie each of the six knots ten times, until you don't need to look. Ice courses don't start by teaching knots.

In Taiwan

Taiwan has almost no natural ice you can climb reliably. Goforwild's course page puts it directly: Taiwan's ice and snow season is unreliable and national park rules add restrictions, so people who want to learn often have nowhere to start.

What you can practise in Taiwan is an ice-tool variant of dry tooling. The go4mosa article says a gym in Kaohsiung has set routes on special holds designed for hooking ice tools, climbed in rock shoes. OUTSiDERS adds that indoor gyms use special dry tooling tools with rubber pads, like "a climbing shoe tied to a stick", so they don't damage the holds. It isn't ice climbing, and strictly speaking it isn't dry tooling either, since real dry tooling uses crampons, but it gets you used to gripping and pulling on ice tools.

Where Taiwanese climbers go for ice

Korea. Goforwild's course page describes a trip of one day of indoor ice in Seoul, then three days of ice fall training at Seoraksan, with instructors from a Korean mountaineering school. The course page says Korea's latitude means you can climb ice without going high, and the routes start close to the road.

Shuangqiao Valley, Sichuan, China. Lin went to Shuangqiao Valley both times; the 2025 trip took eight days: acclimatising on day one, climbing on days two and three, and trying The Wings on day four. OUTSiDERS also calls Shuangqiao Valley the winter base for mixed and dry tooling training for many Asian climbers, Taiwanese included.

Yatsugatake, Japan. Next to the Akadake Kosen hut in Yatsugatake, Nagano, there is an artificial ice tower called "Ice Candy" (アイスキャンディ). The hut's notice for its 2026 beginner sessions (in Japanese) says hut staff belay you for a few top-rope climbs; ice tools, crampons, harness and helmet can be rented; it costs 3,000 yen per person including mountaineering insurance, with up to 5 people per session. You must stay at the hut the night before, be 18–70, and never have climbed ice anywhere else, and you need to bring your own winter boots that take front-point crampons. The 2026 season ran five Sundays/holidays from January 18 to March 15; booking opened at noon on 10 December 2025, by phone only, and people who have joined this session before can't sign up again. Check the hut's site for next season's notice.

If you want an IFMGA guide to take you ice climbing, How to hire an IFMGA mountain guide covers rates and client ratios in Chamonix and Canmore.

Competitions, briefly

The UIAA Ice Climbing World Tour has a stop in Cheongsong, Korea; the 2026 event ran January 9–11. In June 2026, the UIAA announced that the organising committee for the 2030 French Alps Winter Olympics had not included ice climbing in its proposal for additional sports. In January 2025 Lin competed in the China Ice Climbing Open in Beijing and finished eighth.

Practice: three scenarios

Answers are below each question. Think first, then check.

1. Does dry tooling need ice?

2. One ice fall is WI3, another is WI5. Both are one pitch. What's the difference?

3. You've finished a three-day top-rope ice course in Korea and climbed well. On day four you want to lead a WI3.

Next

Ice changes the medium; alpine climbing then stacks multi-pitch, ice and snow, and the mountain's objective hazards together. Read Part 4: Alpine climbing, or go back to the series overview.

References

• Ice climbing (Wikipedia)
• Climbing Grade Comparison Chart (Alpinist, courtesy of the American Alpine Journal)
• Ice climbing FAQ: ratings (Terragalleria)
• Is Trad Climbing More Dangerous Than Sport Climbing? What 30 Years of Accident Data Tells Us (Climbing.com)
• Epidemiology of Ice Climbing Injuries Among Recreational Ice Climbers at the 2019 Ouray Ice Climbing Festival (Ganti et al., Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, 2021)
• What is dry tooling? Is there wet tooling too? (OUTSiDERS, in Chinese)
• An ice climber from Taiwan: Kaohsiung's Lin Yi-fan (go4mosa, in Chinese)
• Korea ice climbing training (Goforwild, in Chinese)
• Ice Candy beginner sessions 2026 (Akadake Kosen & Gyoja Hut, in Japanese)
• 2026 UIAA Ice Climbing World Cup – Cheongsong (UIAA)
• Statement on Ice Climbing and the Olympic Winter Games French Alps 2030 (UIAA, 2026-06-03)
• How to hire an IFMGA mountain guide