How to Store and Transport Crampons Safely

Crampons are the only piece of climbing kit designed to puncture things. Every other item in your pack — the rope, the down jacket, the shell, the bladder — is exactly what a set of twenty-four hardened steel points is good at destroying. Storage and transport are therefore two problems in one: keeping the crampons in good condition, and keeping the crampons from wrecking everything around them.

The routine below covers both. It is the same sequence whether you are packing for a weekend or putting the pair away until next winter.

Step 1: Clean and dry them before anything else

Never bag a wet crampon. A sealed bag turns residual moisture into a slow corrosion chamber, and damp nylon straps go mouldy and lose strength.

Rinse off grit and any road salt with fresh water, flush the linking-bar slot by sliding the bar a few times under the tap, and leave the pair somewhere with moving air for a full day before it goes anywhere. Set the crampons on their sides so water drains out of the slot rather than sitting in it. The full routine, including what to do about rust you have already got, is in crampon care and maintenance.

Step 2: Fit point protectors

Point protectors are rubber or plastic caps that push onto individual points, or moulded strips that cover a whole row at once. They cost very little and they solve the puncture problem at its source.

Caps are fiddly with cold hands but travel well and stay put. Strips are faster to fit and remove, which matters if you are taking crampons on and off through the day. Either way, the front points and the outer secondary points do most of the damage, so those are the ones to cover if you are only covering some.

Protectors also stop the points blunting themselves against each other and against zips and buckles inside a bag — a small but real contribution to how often you need the file.

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Step 3: Nest the pair points-to-frame

A nested pair is a compact, rigid block that behaves itself in a pack. A loose pair is two independent hazards.

How you nest depends on the crampon. Fully rigid twelve-point models stack sole-to-sole, with the points of the upper crampon sitting in the gaps of the lower one so the two frames sit flat against each other. Flexible and hinged models fold at the linking bar first, which halves the length before you stack them. Cord-linked crampons such as the ultralight aluminum designs collapse smallest of all — that packability is part of what you are paying for, as covered in aluminum vs steel crampons.

Once nested, hold the block together. Some crampons come with a strap for exactly this; a length of accessory cord, a Velcro strap or a stout rubber band all work. The test is simple: pick up the block by one crampon and the other should not swing free.

Step 4: Put the pair in a crampon bag

A dedicated crampon bag is the difference between a system that works and one that works until it does not. Three types are worth knowing.

Whatever you use, close it completely. A half-zipped bag lets a front point work its way out over a few hours of walking, and by the time you notice it has already found your jacket.

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Step 5: Pack them against the back panel with points inward

Dense, heavy items belong close to your spine and roughly between your shoulder blades and your hips. Crampons are dense and heavy, so that is where they go — flat against the back panel, low to mid height, with the frames vertical rather than lying across the pack.

Orient the block so the points face into the pack, toward the soft contents, never toward the back panel and your spine. Modern packs have thin, unpadded back panels in the name of weight saving, and a bagged crampon pressed against one for six hours will make itself known.

Two more habits worth building. First, keep the crampons on the same side of the pack every time, so you always know where they are when you need them in the dark. Second, pack them so you can reach them without unloading everything — a crampon at the very bottom under the sleeping bag is a crampon you will put off fitting until after you should have.

Step 6: Protect the rope and the down jacket

These two items deserve naming because they are the expensive casualties.

A rope sheath cut by a crampon point is not always obvious and is genuinely serious. Keep the rope in a separate compartment, in its own bag, or on the opposite side of the pack from the crampons, with something soft between them. Never coil a rope directly around a bare crampon, and never drop crampons on top of a rope stack in the boot of a car.

Down garments fail differently: a small puncture leaks feathers for the rest of the garment's life, and every baffle that loses down loses loft where you needed it. Down jackets and sleeping bags go in dry bags, on the far side of the pack, above or beside the crampons rather than pressed against them.

The same reasoning applies to a hydration bladder, an inflatable sleeping mat and a soft shell. Anything that fails from a single hole belongs away from anything designed to make holes.

Step 7: Carry them outside the pack only as a last resort

Crampons strapped to the outside of a pack are a compromise, and usually a bad one. They snag on branches and rock, they swing into your legs and into the person behind you on a boot pack, and they are the classic item to arrive at a hut without because a strap worked loose two hours ago.

Sometimes there is no choice — a small summit pack, a full load, or crampons too caked in snow to bring inside. If that is where you are:

• Keep them bagged and with protectors fitted regardless.
• Use the pack's dedicated crampon patch or lid straps, not a random compression strap.
• Cinch them so tight against the pack body that they cannot swing at all. Movement is what defeats straps.
• Point the points inward, toward the pack, not outward toward whoever is behind you.
• Check them by hand at every rest stop. Every one.

Never clip loose crampons to a harness gear loop or dangle them from a shoulder strap on technical ground. A swinging crampon can cut a rope, snag a runner, or be lost entirely at the moment you need it. If you are on terrain steep enough for that to matter, take the time to stow them properly first — the wider habits around this are in crampon safety basics.

Step 8: Store them somewhere dry and stable off-season

Humidity, not time, is what ages a crampon in storage. The worst places are the ones people default to: an uninsulated garage, a garden shed, a damp cellar, or the boot of a car where daily temperature swings drive condensation onto cold metal.

Choose an indoor space that stays reasonably cool, reasonably dry and reasonably stable — a wardrobe, a gear cupboard, a shelf in a spare room. Keep the pair off a concrete floor, which wicks moisture, and out of direct sun, which degrades straps and anti-balling plates.

Store them loosely bagged rather than sealed airtight, unless you are adding a desiccant pack, since sealed containers trap whatever moisture was inside when you closed them. Loosen the straps so the webbing is not held in a tight fold for months, and leave the linking bar at its normal setting rather than compressed to the shortest hole.

Take the anti-balling plates off if they detach easily, and check them for cracks while they are off — replacing a cracked plate in September is much easier than discovering it in February. Why those plates matter so much is explained in anti-balling plates explained.

Step 9: Leave a light oil film on carbon steel

Most crampon frames are carbon steel, and carbon steel wants a barrier between it and the air. Before long storage, wipe the frame, points and linking bar with a rag carrying a small amount of light machine oil, a dry PTFE spray or a corrosion-inhibiting film. Thin is the goal: the metal should look faintly dulled, not feel greasy.

Keep the oil off the anti-balling plates and off the webbing. A slick plate sheds snow less reliably, and oiled nylon attracts grit. Stainless models need this less, and aluminum does not need it at all. Wipe the oil off with a cloth at the start of the season before the crampons touch a boot.

If you are building a kit from scratch, protectors, bags, spare straps and files are collected on the crampon accessories page, and the pack-level view of what else should be in there is in the winter hiking gear checklist.

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