Grivel Crampons: The Full Lineup Compared

Grivel has been forging climbing hardware in Courmayeur, under Mont Blanc, since 1818, and made the first 12-point crampon with Laurent Grivel's 1929 front-point design. The house style hasn't changed: hot-forged steel, conservative geometry, and durability that borders on stubborn. If Petzl crampons are precision instruments, Grivels are anvils you can climb in — and for many mountaineers that's exactly the right thing.

Hot forging is a manufacturing choice rather than a marketing line, and it explains most of what a Grivel feels like to own. Instead of being stamped out of sheet steel, the points are pressed into shape while hot. That aligns the grain of the metal and leaves the tip dense, so a point blunts slowly, keeps usable length as it wears, and takes a hand file cleanly rather than thinning into a fragile splinter. On ground with rock in it — torquing into cracks, standing on rugose edges, scraping across slab — the difference against a stamped point shows up inside a single season.

The cost is mass and polish. A Grivel is usually the heavier crampon in any head-to-head, the straps and plastics are plain, and carbon steel corrodes if left in a wet pack. None of those are safety issues; all of them are the price of a range built around service life rather than gram-counting, which is why only the Ski Race steps away from steel at all.

Weights are catalog figures for a pair and shift by a few tens of grams between binding versions, since a strap cradle, a toe basket and a wire bail do not weigh the same. Each linked review carries the figure Grivel quotes for that model.

The bindings: Grivel's three suffixes

Grivel sells most models in three attachment versions: New-Classic (strap-on, C1 — any stiff boot), New-Matic (heel lever + toe basket, C2 — needs a heel welt), and Cramp-O-Matic (wire bail + lever, C3 — needs both welts). Same crampon underneath; match the suffix to your boots using the compatibility guide.

• New-Classic — C1. Plastic toe and heel cradles joined by webbing, fitting any genuinely stiff-soled boot with or without welts. Slowest with cold hands, and the only version that can serve several different pairs of boots.
• New-Matic — C2. Plastic toe basket, steel heel lever, heel welt required. Goes on in seconds with gloves and does not creep loose over a long day.
• Cramp-O-Matic — C3. Wire toe bail plus heel lever, requiring both a toe and a heel welt. The fastest and most secure, restricted to B3 boots.

The forged frame underneath is identical across all three, so the suffix is a decision about your boots and nothing else. Fitting a heel lever to a boot with no heel welt is the one ordering mistake here that is genuinely dangerous: the lever has no ledge to seat against and can be pulled off under load. The technical end of the range drops the strap option — the G14 comes only as New-Matic or Cramp-O-Matic, because a strap binding flexes where a technical crampon needs to be precise.

How the range ladders

Ski Race to Air Tech. The only jump in the range that changes material. The Ski Race is aluminum at ~380 g and belongs on firm snow and nowhere else — alloy points skate on water ice, round off on rock within days and cannot be filed back to their original profile. The Air Tech is a full steel 12-point at ~800 g. Step up the moment you cannot promise yourself the day is snow only.

Air Tech to G12. ~800 g becomes ~980 g, and the direction is counter-intuitive: the heavier crampon is the cheaper one and the one that lasts longer. The Air Tech saves mass by using less steel — slimmer frame sections, finer points — so it wears through its usable point length sooner. Step down to it only if steel is already non-negotiable for you and you are trying to carry less of it.

G10 to G12. The decision most first-time buyers actually face. Both are hot-forged and both come in all three bindings; the G10 has ten points, the G12 twelve. The extra pair are the secondaries just behind the front points, and they are what supports the boot when you tip forward onto your toes. Without them, front-pointing gets unstable above roughly 45–50°: the heel drops, the points lever, and the boot wants to shear out of the step.

G12 to G14. Two horizontal front points become a modular, vertically oriented, replaceable front section running mono or dual with adjustable projection. Step up when steep ice is the route rather than an incident on it — the G12's horizontal points hold, but they displace more ice per kick and tire your calves faster. Stay on the G12 if you mostly walk: the G14 at ~1060 g is clumsy and snag-prone on long approaches.

Antibott plates and spare parts

Antibott plates are spring-loaded plastic panels that flex with each step to pop packed snow off, fitted front and rear across the steel range. In wet spring snow a crampon without them builds a smooth ball under the boot within a few dozen steps, at which point you are wearing platform shoes on a slope. Keep them fitted, tap the frame with the axe shaft when you feel the boot rise, and replace cracked plates before the season rather than during it. In warm, saturated snow they clear a little less cleanly than Petzl's system, which is the one place Grivel gives ground.

What wears out on a Grivel is almost never the frame. It is the consumables — straps, plates and the occasional bent linking bar — all sold separately and all findable in valley towns worldwide, which matters more than it sounds the evening before a route. On the G14 the front points are replaceable too, so a bent or worn point is a spare part rather than a new crampon. Sharpen with a hand file following the original bevel; forged steel takes a file cleanly. Never a bench grinder. Dry the crampons at home, and surface rust never becomes structural.

Which Grivel for which person

• First mountaineering crampon / best value: G12 New-Matic — the eternal recommendation, and our best-value pick of 2026.
• Trekking and easy glaciers: G10 — the G12 minus front-pointing ambitions, and usually the cheapest safe crampon anywhere. Compared in G10 vs G12.
• Weight-conscious alpinist: Air Tech — 12 steel points at a hybrid-ish weight.
• Ice and mixed climber: G14 — hot-forged points that hold an edge on rock longer than anything else we've tested against.
• Skimo racer: Ski Race, understanding the aluminum trade-offs.

Who should buy a different brand

Winter trail walkers. If your season is packed snow, frozen trail and the occasional icy traverse in flexible boots or trail shoes, no crampon on this page belongs on your feet — points catch, the frame works against a bending sole, straps creep loose. Chain-and-spike traction devices are the right tool for that ground. Crampons begin where a slip would run rather than stop, terrain that also asks for an ice axe you can self-arrest with and the instruction to use it before you need it.

Gram-counters. Grivel's answer to weight is to use less steel, not different steel, and there is no cord-linked featherweight here that folds into a jacket pocket. If a ski tour is why you are shopping, hybrids elsewhere in the category undercut everything above and pack far smaller — the material trade-off is set out in aluminum vs steel.

Buyers paying for refinement. The straps, plastics and finish are plain, the G12's front-point projection cannot be tuned, and the Antibott plates give ground in warm wet snow. If snow shedding and hardware polish are what your money is for, Vasak vs G12 shows where it goes, and the wider field is ranked in best crampons.

Check current prices

G10 on Amazon G12 on Amazon G14 on Amazon Air Tech on Amazon

Listings often abbreviate the binding suffix or leave it out of the title. Confirm New-Classic, New-Matic or Cramp-O-Matic on the specific item before ordering.

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