Types of Crampons for Alpine trips

@1strider I couldn't have put it better bro, you pretty much covered it. @nzpixie If you guys are climbing rupes (any summit besides Te hue hue any way) I would really recommend either the seracs or these: http://www.petzl.com/en/outdoor/verticality/crampons/glacier-travel-crampons/irvis Possibly the seracs (with the S-strap system may be better for flexible boots like HarleyJ was talking about). Boots have come a looooong way over the past 15 years. I started in plastics, as it was all you could get stiff enough to front point, but these days you can get hybrid boots which are even stiffer. The problem with using a boot with too much shank flex is you can actually walk out of your crampons, and I have seen this happen. Usually occurs on steep ground too. I use an old pair of charlet moser black ice on my scarpa mantas and have found they perform well, but they are bloody heavy and well overkill so I have been looking for some lightweight options for a while now. The micro spike type thing is really designed for icy hard surfaces only could fail on slushy snow (which your gonna hit on any nth facing slope in nz at the wrong time of the day..and tbh crampons prob won't help much more) best uses are trail running etc really I'm sure they would be fine 75% of the time on nz slopes but do realise in nz our snow conditions are insanely variable compared to overseas, sometimes going from waist deep to boiler plate on the same ridge. Like anything it depends what to intend to use them for, but don't take a knife to a gunfight..