Find the equipment
Ice axes become available when you reach The Secret in the main game.
03
The Cairn Catalogue Field Guide
Chapter 03
Routes & Styles
The tags used throughout the Catalogue tell you something important about how a route is climbed, where it exists, or what makes it distinct.
Route Classification
A tag describes the route — not just your ascent.
Route tags are used to describe characteristics that belong to the route itself.
This distinction matters most with equipment-based tags. Using ice axes or pitons on a route does not automatically make that route Dry Tool or Aid. The equipment must be required for the route to receive the corresponding tag.
In This Chapter
Movement
Buffless
A Buffless route is intended to be, or is possible to be, climbed without buffs or chalk.
Buffless routes are rated 5c+ or lower.
Requirement
×
Buffs+
×
ChalkBuffless means both.
The route must be possible without buffs andwithout chalk.
Equipment
Dry Tool
A Dry Tool route is a route that requires ice axes to ascend.
Bring them elsewhere
Many Dry Tool routes require traveling back down the mountain with the axes before you can attempt them.
Required means required
Dry-tooling can be used on any route, but that alone does not make the route a Dry Tool route.
The Dry Tool tag describes the route, not the climber.
A route should only receive the Dry Tool tag when ice axes are necessary to ascend it. The tag is not used simply because someone chose to climb a normal route with axes.
Equipment
Aid
An Aid route is a route that requires pitons to ascend.
As with Dry Tool routes, the important word is requires. Simply using pitons on a route does not make it an Aid route.
Aid routes may require a maximum of four pitons. A route requiring more than four pitons does not qualify for the Catalogue as an Aid route.
Redpointing Aid
Hang before the fall.
To redpoint an Aid route, you must simply hang before you take a fall.
Aid Rating
Each piton adds a number.
The Aid rating reflects the number of pitons required for the route. The Catalogue's Aid scale runs from A1 through A4, with four required pitons being the maximum allowed.
1 PitonA1
2 PitonsA2
3 PitonsA3
4 PitonsA4
Challenge
King Line
King Line routes are the hardest routes in the game, lined up in sequential order so they can be climbed consecutively from the bottom of the mountain to the top.
Start
King Line Routes
Summit
Sequential
The routes form a bottom-to-top progression rather than a collection of unrelated hard climbs.
Buff-intensive
Most King Line routes require buffs.
Major challenge
Completing the King Line with survival mechanics turned on is one of the hardest feats you can accomplish in Cairn.
Location
Interior
NOT
A route inside a cave, room, or ordinary enclosed space.
INTERIOR
A route within Kami's interior.
Interior routes are accessed by glitching into the opposite side of the walls of Kami and discovering routes within that interior space.
There are already several established Interior areas.
Explore Interior AreasThe Important Distinction
Tag the route, not the attempt.
Equipment tags describe what the route itself requires. A climber choosing to use ice axes, pitons, buffs, or another technique does not automatically change the classification of the route.
Continue Reading
Records & Ascents
Learn how Cairn Catalogue records the history of a route, including FA, FR, FC, and the climbers who earned them.