UK and EU Split: Brexit Foretells Alpine Animosity

Following the UK’s 52% to 48% vote to leave the European Union, Active Junky’s got big questions to be answered.  One is whether British climbers will continue to use French and German terminology on the mountain as many ice and snow techniques and conditions are embedded in Continental history.  Even the supreme award in climbing, the Piolet d’Or (Golden Ice Axe) is linked to France’s innovators while a bergschrund could come from nowhere else but Germany to describe the perilous cleft between moving glacier ice (below) and static ice (above).   Moreover, the word “belay,” now largely accepted as English, began long ago as “beleggen.”  In Dutch.