Climbing with one tool

I dropped one of my axes near the top of the pitch with about 30' to go and thought I'd share some thoughts about climbing with one tool.

-- For the somewhat lower angle sections I was able to balance on my front points and plant my axe, walk my feet up and repeat.

-- For the more vertical sections, I could chop out a little hole for a few fingers of my left hand, use this as a hold while I swung my axe, and then walked my feet up, then repeated the process.

It was a bit dicey if the ice pick got stuck in the ice and I had to delicately wiggle it free.

BTW, the reason I dropped my ice tool was that I planted both axes planning to match hands on one, but other was not really secure, I bumped it and it fell off. Lesson learned.

My partner certainly gave me lots of crap when he returned my dropped axe.

In the right conditions, wool mittens or socks will stick to ice like velcro