Patent Pending Blog - Patents and the History of Technology

The Inventor of Crampons

Crampons in some form have been around for many centuries.  A page on the history of crampons by Grivel shows one type of crampon carved on the Arch of Constantine of Rome, built in 315 AD. 

Crampon design took a major step forward in at the beginning of the twentieth century.   At that time purists advocated against the use of crampons as making climbing the glaciers of the Alps too easy.  In 1908 the British inventor and climber Oscar Eckenstein designed a pair of crampons with ten points and a hinge between a front frame and a rear frame.  With Echenstein as an advocate the purists quickly lost the fight to ban crampon use. 

Eckenstein's design was turned into reality by the Italian blacksmith Henry Grivel.  Grivel made the Eckenstein design crampons, and they were so well received that many more were made.  Grivel used the hardest steel he could find, and thus used railroad rails in the early years of crampon production.   In 1929 Henry's son Laurent designed the 12 point crampon, with two points extending horizontally forward from the front of the boot, a design which proved tremendously popular.  The photo below is a Grivel 12 point crampon which is essentially the Eckenstein design.

            

The First Snowmobile?

Here is an early (1913) snow machine or snowmobile which predates the Eliason and Bombardier early snomobiles.  I don't know if this was ever commercially manufactured.  This machine is basically a motorized horse drawn sleigh, with runners like a sleigh.  The body is very sleigh-like, and the occupants would basically freeze their ass off.  Other early snow machines are here.

The Inventor of the Snowmobile

There seem to have been two paths to the invention and development of the modern snowmobile (snow machine, skidoo, snow mobile).  Carl Eliason has to be listed as inventor of the snowmobile, since his patent is 30 years earlier than the other contender for that honor, Joseph Armand Bombardier.  Carl Eliason of Sayner Wisconsin built what is basically a motorized toboggan in 1924, which was patented in 1927.  The other path to development started when Joseph Armand Bomdardier of Valcourt Quebec built his first snow coach in the 1930s.

From the first motorized tobogan, Eliason began to make his machine larger and less like a toboggan and more like a modern snowmobile.  The Eliason's motorized toboggan started out with a 2.5 hp motor, and by 1937 used a 25 hp motor.

Meanwhile, in Quebec Bombardier built a propeller driven snow buggy in 1922.  Not entirely successful, his father made him take the propeller off so it would not decapitate any of his siblings.   

More development led to a 1927 snow vehicle which resembled a Model T on skiis.  Many other inventors converted Model T Fords and other cars to ski and track drive.

His next effort led to the successful B-7 model in 1937, which was more of a car on tracks and skis.  This was the first model that Bombardier patented.  Bombardier then made a number of tracked snow vehicles, including a school bus version, and other larger industrial vehicles.

In 1953 the Eliason machine was the K-12, which was the last production model.  Eliason went out of business in 1963, but a number of other companies like Polaris made snow machines based on the expired Eliason patents.

It wasn't until 1959 that Bombardier marketed the Ski-doo.  Bombardier had started with larger snow vehicles and worked down to the smaller snow machines.  It would be an interesting marketing study to figure out why Bomdardier was successful in this field and Eliason wasn't.  A good part of it could have been timing, but an insider to this industry could fill in some history here.

Bombardier became a huge company, with activities in aerospace and transportation, with subsidiaries like Challenger and Global. Bombardier bought the Lear Company, of Lear Jet fame, and also Rotax, makers of small powerful engines.  In general, in anything to do with transportation, a Bombardier subsidiary is involved.

 

North Face Tent Uses Wind to Stand up to Wind

Popular Science has an interesting article in the September issue and the online Popular Science magazine about a new North Face tent, the Spectrum 23.  The Spectrum 23 has a wind scoop which faces into the wind and scoops air into the tent.  As the wind increases, the volume of air scooped into the tent also increases, so the tent is inflated by the wind and does not get flattened by the wind. In wind tunnel tests the tent never flattened but failed in winds of 130 mph when the anchors holding the tent down failed. In the online article there is a movie of the tent in wind tunnel testing.  You would not want to be in the tent when it is carried off by the wind.  Not only is the tent stable in high wind, it only weighs 4 lbs 3 oz.

The Petzl/Charlet Snoscopic Ice Axe

Ice axes started out in the 19th century being long staffs with a point at one end, and were called alpenstocks.

By the 1970s the typical mountaineering ice axe was much shorter, but was still long enough to be used as a walking  aid, especially on sidehills.  In the 1980s and 90, ice axes got shorter and shorter, lighter and lighter.   However, the short ice axes were not much good for walking, but great for overhead chopping.  Petzl/Charlet has a model which is the best of both worlds.  It is very light, fairly short, but has an extension with a ski basket which makes it a great walking aid.  It is called the Snoscopic.  I used this little gem on a climb of Mt. Shasta and Mt. Borah last year, and really like it.  The only drawback is that when you use the ice axe point as a rudder when glissading (sliding down the mountain on your butt) the basket pops off, so you have to remove it for glissading.

Here is the Petzl/Charlet Snoscopic helping me scramble up an ice chute on 14,100' Mt. Shasta in northern California.

Ultralight Backpacking

Kelly Kitchens, founder of MacLife, was the guest speaker at my college backpacking class recently, and brought us up to date with the state of the art when it comes to ultralight backpacking.  Kelly and others who practice this discipline get their pack down to 17.68 pounds for an overnight trip, including food.  This is in contrast to the usual backpack weighing in at more like 30 pounds.  The secret: don't take anything you can do without.

I thought I was already practicing that rule, but too often my pack felt like my partner Mark Gibson's (below)  when we did the Ptarmigan Traverse many years ago.


Some ways to achieve the 17.68 pound packweight: a 10 oz backpack, a tarp instead of a tent, a tiny MSR water treatment pen instead of a water filter, a super light sleeping pad, a pop can alcohol stove (similar to a Trangia) instead of something like a Snow Peak or an MSR stove, a tiny headlamp like the Petzl Zipka, and a super light down sleeping bag. 

One place to see some real ultralight gear:

http://www.golite.com/products/equipment.asp

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The Petzl Zipka Headlamp

I have been getting lighter and lighter outdoor gear lately, and my latest toy is the Petzl Zipka Headlamp.  It is a strange little headlamp that attaches to your head with a string that is kept snug with a reel which draws up the string.  I thought it would be binding, but it was very comfortable.  I had the chance to try it out the past weekend, when the crazies I was with decided to hike in to our first lake for 4.2 miles in the dark.  I had the light on for 3.5 hours, at the lowest setting of  three settings, and it was still quite bright.  using three AAA batteries makes it very light.  Petzl has a patent on a similar lamp, and the patent and the Zipka are shown below.  Photos of our hike are here.

Optimus Camp Stove Windscreen

Here is a nice windscreeen and cooking stand for a gas stove, patented in 1922 by the Nystrom, and assigned to the Optimus company of Sweden.  This is not too different from the Svea Optimus stoves offered by Brunton Stoves, with the Optimus 123 shown below.  More on the history of Svea Optimus is here.

The First Tent Camper

OK, its quiz time.  When was the first tent camper patented?  The Conestoga wagon of the early wagon trains doesn't count as a camper, nor as a tent camper, because it was really a freight wagon.  The earliest tent camper I found was from 1928, and looks pretty cool!

The Trangia Alcohol Stove

As backpackers have moved to lighter and lighter gear, many have rediscovered an old favorite, the alcohol stove.  Some people make an alcohol stove from pop cans, with instructions from a number of sites on the web, such as this posting in Wikipedia.

A nice commercial version is made by Trangia, a Swedish company started in 1925 by John E. Jonsson and his father-in-law.  Besides the nice alcohol stove shown below, Trangia makes nice cook sets for the stove, available at any outdoor stove, with the full line viewable at the Trangia site.  These stoves are lighter than gasoline or compressed gas stoves, and many people swear by either the Trangia or the homemade version of the alcohol stove. 

Below is an 1896 patent on an alcohol stove that is pretty similar to the Trangia stove.