How has it evolved in 12 years??

I am looking into buying Ice & Mixed Climbing: Modern Technique by the venerable Will Gadd. It seems like the best book out there on ice climbing. However, it is 12 years old! So I was wondering,

How has ice climbing evolved in 12 years, since Gadd wrote his book? Obviously there have been some changes. For one, nearly everyone is climbing leashless. For those of you familiar with this book, is any of it out of date? Are the climbing techniques taught in this book still current? Have there been any significant advances since the publication of this text? I would appreciate your input.

Thanks!

Following

I've owned it for three years and never even checked the publishing date! Ha!

Honestly this book is way ahead of its time. So the only things that are different out of this book, over what is in it, is how the equipment looks. Seriously. He goes through all of everything you should know to be a great ice/mixed climber.

Even the section that Will goes over in the book about training is synonymous with New Alpinism. (Just not as in-depth). And in terms of you mentioning the "leashless tool use," Will brings it up in the first 15 pages that leashless is nothing new (Henry Barber was doing it over 25 years ago). It's just the manufacturers "lag time" with the style.

If you can get the book it is worth EVERY cent.

Cheers,
Mac

check out Chouinard's Climbing Ice, which was published in, I believe, the late 1970s. That text is still incredibly relevant for modern ice climbing, arguably more so than texts that explicitly treat leashless tools, load-limiting runners, gymnastic mixed climbing, etc.