Size
Ice-axe spike-to-head lengths generally range from 60 to 90 cm (or about 24 to 36 in.). This is too short to be used as a walking stick on level ground (the way its forebearer, the 5-foot (1.5 m) 19th century alpenstock, was), but is ergonomic when ascending steep slopes. Ski mountaineers often carry shorter ice axes (50–55 cm) for emergency use if unexpected conditions are encountered.
Read more about this topic: Ice Axe
Famous quotes containing the word size:
“The obese is ... in a total delirium. For he is not only large, of a size opposed to normal morphology: he is larger than large. He no longer makes sense in some distinctive opposition, but in his excess, his redundancy.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“There are obvious places in which government can narrow the chasm between haves and have-nots. One is the public schools, which have been seen as the great leveler, the authentic melting pot. That, today, is nonsense. In his scathing study of the nation’s public school system entitled “Savage Inequalities,” Jonathan Kozol made manifest the truth: that we have a system that discriminates against the poor in everything from class size to curriculum.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)