alpenstock
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thumb|upright|Jacques Balmat carrying an axe and an alpenstock thumb|upright|1872 diagram of an early ice axe, showing how the alpenstock was modified by the addition of a pick and an adze
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thumb|upright|Jacques Balmat carrying an axe and an alpenstock thumb|upright|1872 diagram of an early ice axe, showing how the alpenstock was modified by the addition of a pick and an adze
An alpenstock ( "alpine" + "stick, staff") is a long wooden pole with an iron spike tip, used by shepherds for travelling on snowfields and glaciers in the Alps since the Middle Ages. It is the antecedent of the modern ice axe.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “alpenstock” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.