As far as I know, you are not supposed to wear crampons that are more flexible than your shoe sole.

So with tennis shoes or most non-mountaineering boots you'd want to have completely flexible crampons. The 490s are described as semi-rigid.

You could try this system:

http://www.summitpost.org/mountains/photo_link.pl?photo_id=127164&object_id=4109&type=mountain&mountain_id=4109&route_id=

Alternately, the afore-mentioned Camp sells adjustable 6-point aluminum crampons, lighter than any ice axe, and far lighter than any full 10 or 12 point crampons. I use these on glacier approaches in the Bugaboos.

at 216 grams a pair, in the Sierra they usually provide enough security that you can leave the axe in the car:

Another option in addition to these (on Sun Ribbon for example) is to kick steps up the approach snow in the afternoon, when the snow is soft, providing a secure and frozen ladder of steps the next morning.

Brutus

If the route goes clean, I have no problems leaving clean gear behind for bail anchors. So why take pins on clean routes again??

So I started thinking, how much would I use the adze, maybe a hammer [instead of the adze] and few pins might be better. No, I'm professionally employed so leaving a few pieces of gear for an alpine retreat is no biggie but sometimes, nailing a seam might be the quickest bet (if you had a few KBs).

Then I got to thinking, well, does the ax really need a hammer to hammer with or could you hammer with the side of the thing [or maybe even the adze] anyway and well, one thing and another and I figured somebody out there had to have tried this so I thought I would ask and blah, blah...

I'm not sure how your organic trekking pole qualifies as adjustable (I guess you could always adjust it shorter).

For morning approaches, crampons would be all that I would need, but I also worry about the [soft] snow on the descent [where you would want an ax instead of crampons]. Yea, a lot of times you can stay out of the gulley and just rock scramble, but what if you can't?

Or for your example of kicking steps the previous day, I would feel better being up there with an ax even if I didn't take it up the climb.

I had heard [but had forgotten] about the wool sock method. I'll check that out this spring during a training run.

and BTW, the 6-point crampons are not (as another poster mistakenly assumed) instep crampons. These babies fit right under the front part of the foot, where they actually do some good.

but how many free routes have you climbed that would have mandatory KB rap anchors?

if i was climbing in the winter and all the cracks are full of frozen crap, maybe pins would bail you out. but i think that free pro would do just as good a job as pitons in your average bail scene.

hell, maybe you hammer a small nut in or two, but you should be able to figure something out if the rock will take enough pro to climb.

unless you have a habit of escaping down blank faces on the other side of the mountain, i guess.

i think in a lot of situations where youd be carrying an axe, you coudl probably also find a rock. unless its bullsh* rock, it would probably do a better job than trying to hammer a pin with the side of an axe. ive pounded a few fixed pitons with a rock to firm 'em up a little. seemed to work fine.

News Flash: "Free" does not equal "clean". Free = no aid. Clean = no hammered pro. There is clean aid, and there is free climbing protected by pins, bolts, and other hammered anchors. As far as the average bail scene, it depends on where you climb. Most long, free alpine routes in the Canadian Rockies I'll take a hammer and some titanium KBs, possibly some LAs and even an angle or two. Some of the lesser travelled routes in the Tetons, too. California High Sierra I wouldn't bother, for most established CLEAN or HAFWEN routes, be they aid or free.

But in nearly every case where I needed to place pins on the descent, I've already been carrying a hammer and pins.