About the Ice Climbing Commission

 UIAA’s Ice Climbing Commission is responsible for framing the rules and regulations for Ice Climbing competitions. It also ensures quality of the competitions as per UIAA terms and standards.

The commission is also responsible for the administration and development aspects of ice climbing as a sport. It has been organizing the Ice Climbing World Cup competitions since 2004. The commission has also been involved in making rules for these competitions simpler and fairer to encourage mass participation.

As part of its development activities the commission organizes courses for route setters and judges for ice climbing competitions. These technical courses help the aspirant judges and route setters to inform themselves about the latest rules and innovations for the sport which involves technical expertise.

At the Saas Fee Ice Climbing World Cup event in February 2008, the UIAA carried out a survey to get climber feedback on the organization of the UIAA World Cup events as well as their perception of the UIAA. Read the full report.

For more information, contact the UIAA office. 

Ice Climbing Commission, key members:

Pavel Shabalin (RUS),  President
Pavel is one of the great mountaineers of our time. His ascents of the North Face of Everest, Khan Tengri and leading of a new route on the West Face of K2 in 2007 are the stuff of legend. His involvement in the development of the Russian national team has produced some of the best ice climbing in the world. To round off his achievements he also works on the cutting edge of developing new ice climbing tools.

Urs Stöcker (SUI), Vice President
Urs has been national trainer of the Swiss National Ice Climbing team since 2006. His PhD thesis as a physicist was on theoretical muscle research at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His climbing achievements include the youngest ascent of Trango Tower (6285m, Pakistan) in 2000, the first ascent of Ogre III (6800m, Pakistan) in 2001 and in the same year the second ascent of Ogre (7280m, Pakistan) - the first time a man reached the summit after the celebrated first ascent in 1977 (Doug Scott and Chris Bonington).

Click here for a complete list of Ice Climbing Commission members. It is an impressive group of dedicated Ice Climbing specialists and includes past world champions (Launits and Maureau) of the sport.

Members of the Ice Climbing Commission at a meeting with UIAA office staff in Bern, June 2011