Yaktrax or Stabilicers?

I'm pretty sure it was watching a typically gory film about Everest on the Discovery Channel that did it. All that talk about crampons and ice axes, bodies in the snow and fit guys reduced to wrecked husks with bits dropping off with frostbite...

the next thing I know I'm down at the running store looking for something to help me keep my feet in the snow and ice. I couldn't face another training session in the garage.

The options are Yaktrax, a kind of wiry worm-like thing that clips on the bottom of your shoes, or the much more substantial (and slightly heavier) STABILicers, which are a rubber and plastic, metal-studded sort of skeleton galoushes.

Word from those in the know is that STABILicers are more, well, stable. A plus is you can replace the metal studs. Given that I'd been out on a trail run recently and met a guy whose Yaktrax had`sprung off his feet without him even noticing -- I spent the next hour with my eyes oh the ground, as he told me if I found 'em I could keep 'em -- I opted for the STABILicers from 32north.

On a five-mile night run where I really couldn't see where the snow was firm nor where the ice began, they performed faultlessly. Getting them on my La Sportivas was a bit of a wrestling match, as the shoes were alreday caked with mud, but once on they bedded in after a few minutes and I didn't notice any susbtantial alteration to my footstrike.

More test runs to follow. Anyone else tried these?

* More info: http://yaktrax.com, www.32north.com