Top Rated: Blue Ice Bluebird (8.3 / 10)
Category: All-Round Trekking Ice Axe (Under 500g)
Blue Ice's Bluebird is a minimalist, lightweight classic Alpine mountaineering axe. A step up from a traditional "walking ice axe", the Bluebird is designed for mountaineering, ski and glacier touring.
The Bluebird features an aggressive pick, a good sized adze for cutting steps and digging holes and a tough, sharp spike, essential for self-belaying to prevent slips becoming falls. It's heavy enough to function as a serious mountain tool, yet not so heavy that the additional weight becomes a crippling burden. All I can say is that as long as you're not wedded to the self-arrest carry position, this axe is a delight to use.
In winter, the line between mountain trekking and mountaineering can get very blurry and in our opinion it's far better to have an ice axe intended for the latter for those spindrift days when goggles and crampons are a must and your week long trek from A to B just got a little bit longer and a hell of a lot harder. The Bluebird is one such tool; a great general purpose ice axe and our top pick in the Trekking Ice Axe category.