Ice Climbing

Ice Climbing

Ice Climbing
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 4 to 6
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	6.19

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		rigorous, unpredictable, spectacular, equipment, indoor, harness, saying, actually, material, alpine, climber, possible, exactly, packed, owner, different
	content words:		Oscar Eckenstein, Yvon Chouinard, North America

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Ice Climbing
By Colleen Messina

¹     Ice climbing is not so different from rock climbing...except that you are going up a frozen waterfall! Even though it looks like a crazy sport, ice climbers have to understand the science of frozen water. You could call ice climbing a "cool" science as well as an extreme sport.

²     In about 1,000 A.D. the Vikings had a saying about ice, "Praise not...the ice until it has been crossed." They knew that ice was beautiful but unpredictable. They studied the ice before they crossed it just like modern ice climbers do. Frozen waterfalls are dazzling formations of blue-white icicles, but every ice climber looks on them with a scientific eye so that they know exactly what they are getting themselves into. The bottom line is that they want to know the source of the ice.

³     The two different kinds of ice: water ice and alpine ice. Each is named for where it comes from. Water ice comes from liquid water, and alpine ice comes from snow. Even though ice looks like it sits quietly in one place, it actually creeps, or moves. Climbers like ice that does not creep quickly. Lazy alpine ice creeps more slowly than water ice. Even the color of the ice makes a difference in its "climbability." Dirty, colored ice has material in it that makes it creep more. It is harder to climb. Clear, pure ice is much better for ice climbing.

Paragraphs 4 to 9:
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