Plural form of alpenstock; multiple long wooden staffs with iron tips used for Alpine mountain climbing and hiking.
Standard English plural of 'alpenstock,' preserving the German compound structure. The plural form appears frequently in 19th-century mountaineering texts and travel literature.
Mountain expeditions in the 1800s would show entire teams lined up with dozens of alpenstocks—they'd jab them into the snow in rhythm like a synchronized swimming team, but for climbing glaciers.
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