DMM Fly Ice Axes – Review

I’ve been using this for: 1 Month

Where?: Scottish winters,

Official website: http://dmmclimbing.com/products/new-fly/

And here on Amazon.

I’ve only been using these Ice Axes for a month, but thought I’d write a quick “First Impressions” review.

DMM have updated their whole Ice Axe range for this winter season, and the DMM flys have had a few little tweaks to the original design.

The Flys used to be a bit of an “Old School” axe, with their straight shaft design and leashes, but the update has added enough that I thought I’d get a pair for easier routes and to loan to clients for winter climbing.

Good Stuff:

The removable hand rest is good, comfortable enough and big enough to use with your big gloves.

The hand grip at the bottom of the shaft is flush with the rest of the shaft, so the axe plunges fine with no problems associated with rubber grips peeling up in hard snow.

I’ve used these axes on some grade IV ice, and a little mixed and they seem to swing and perform well. The ice stuff was good, the only problem I had was swinging over bulges in the ice which is where a straight shafted axe doesn’t perform as well.

A really good feature of the new Flys is that with a pick change, you can turn the axe into a “Raptor” which is a really nice general mountaineering axe.

The Flys are at the cheaper end of the price range.

Compared to the old Flys, these new ones look really smart and modern.

Not so good bits:

The Flys aren’t the lightest axe on the market. It’s nice to have a bit of extra weight if your wellying the axe into hard Ice but when your not ice climbing the extra weight isn’t an advantage.

The picks have the raised lump on the back, allowing you to hammer the pick into ice. Personally i don’t find this massively useful, and found it hard to remove the pick if I overdrove them because of the “lumps”.

DMM have left these so that they are compatible with the old model I think.

I’ve mentioned the ice bulge issue because of the shafts, but for the type of climbing you would buy this axe for, you wouldn’t notice it.

This is nit picking, but, the bolt heads are raised and the nuts aren’t completely flush with the head of the axe, so mine are pretty battered after a very short amount of time. To be fair I have this issue with most Ice Axes out there…

Conclusions:

As with any Ice Axe (or gear purchase) you need to work out what your going to be using the kit for.

The Flys are great for mid grade routes on Ice or Mixed, but if your going to be getting onto harder Ice routes (Grade V and above) soon then I’d go for a more technical model. If your new to winter climbing, or not planning on any hard Ice Routes then these are a good value all round axe.