Pounding pitons .....

Happy April fools day Ian ;)

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

Pins are expensive. they cost just as much as a stopper and more than a bolt. there really is absolutely no reason to carry pins in the north east unless you are doing an FA and if you gonna carry pins bring the damn hammer!

My pitons are ....Deaf ....Dumb .....and Blind 

Your claim that "There is absolutely no reason to carry pins...." is obviously only an opinion ..... carrying pins for emergency rappelling is an excellent reason.

I have just bought 3 pitons, and after close inspection they seem to be; ....... deaf, dumb and blind.

Dumb .... my pitons seem dumb, I think they only understand forces applied to knock them into constrictions, not if that force come from a rock, hammer or ice axe head.

Blind .... my pitons are blind and I don't think they can see if the mass used to hit them with comes from an ugly rock .... or pretty stainless steel hammer.

Deaf ... I can't find any ears, so I don't think they hear the nice high pitched "sound"  that tells them they are secure when driven into a hole with a hammer ....

What I don't know (yet) ... will a rock pounded piton hold a rappel. I highly suspect it will ...

As soon as my local crags dry out .... I'll go pound my new pitons with a rock ... and see if they will hold a rappel (with a safety rope of course !!) ... which was the question of my original posting ....

If you want to do emergency rappelling in the north East carry some extra cord. There is this little thing called ethics. The ethics of our game dictate that the FA party decides where and what the fixed gear is going to be.  So naturally that means if you are not putting up an FA you should not be pounding iron. If you are putting up an FA and you are pounding pins with a rock instead of a hammer you just might be a total hack....  I have been climbing and adventuring in the NE for over 40 years and never had to do an emergency rap from pins. The only piton rap anchor that I recall setting myself was on an FA and I replaced it with bolts not long after the FA.  the only pins I have placed for protection that were not on FA's or anchor replacement were on thin mixed ice climbs and that one time in 83 when I was a N000b and slammed a pin in for belay at the big pool on top of P1 of RBF,   again, ice climbing.  I have not brought pins ice climbing since the hammers disappeared from ice tools and haven't missed them.   would have liked a pin on P 1 of the Gent two years ago when it was super delammed but I managed without and realistically a brassy works well in that spot anyways and I didn't have that either....  or the green camalot.. 

Having driven many pitons over the years (I started climbing in 1957) and having climbed during a brief period when "nuts and pins" was rather standard in the backcountry, I'd say your plan to use a rock is likely to fail.  One of the drawbacks of rocks is they don't come with a handle, and it's the swing you get by virtue of the handle that drives the piton.  You might be able to bang a pin in a bit if you happen to find the right sized rock, but just as likely not, and if so you won't be able to drive it as hard as you could with a hammer, and of course the location has to allow you to stand there with a rock in your hands and hit the piton.  It is also rather silly to think that you can carry one piton that will somehow fit wherever it is you end up needing it.  Finally, the idea that you'll be able to rap safely off a single piton that is probably poorly driven is questionable.  So altogether, no.  Bring a hammer, carry a short thin, short medium, and short thick horizontal as well as a baby angle, or else forget about pitons and make do with what is now conventional gear.

A far more effective use of rocks that I've employed several times is to pick up that rock, wedge it in a crack as a chockstone, and rap off of that.

rgoldwrote:

Having driven many pitons over the years (I started climbing in 1957) and having climbed during a brief period when "nuts and pins" was rather standard in the backcountry, I'd say your plan to use a rock is likely to fail.  One of the drawbacks of rocks is they don't come with a handle, and it's the swing you get by virtue of the handle that drives the piton.  You might be able to bang a pin in a bit if you happen to find the right sized rock, but just as likely not, and if so you won't be able to drive it as hard as you could with a hammer, and of course the location has to allow you to stand there with a rock in your hands and hit the piton. 

Soon I'll find out myself ... .. I'll pound the pitons, try rappelling, and report my results .... my crude home experiments using rocks as hammers showed promise, my local crag is super-tough granite that should make a good striking force, I have a friend to help with safety, and I have the curiosity to actually know what will happen ... instead of hearing how much better metal hammers are.

In case you haven't already, go find a chossy boulder or garbage road cut and learn how to place and remove a variety of pins with a hammer first, so you understand what the end product looks like, sounds like, feels like to place well, and how easy/hard it is to remove. Aid on them while on top rope and bounce test the heck out of them. Then do your 'rock as a hammer' experiment to compare the difference.

+1 to beaks/peckers being generally more versatile for what you are describing. a #2 and #3 pecker and a universal piton can go a long way in an alpine bind. 

another +1 to the sound and feel of pitons being driven (with a hammer) as a very useful indictor of their placement quality.

I often use a stone for tent stakes with good results. 

Man, the OP is going to figuratively AND literally die on this hill.

Darren Mabewrote:

I often use a stone for tent stakes with good results. 

If you have an open mind .... try a rock to "hammer" nails .... you'd be amazed at how well it works ....and how well your striking force gets directed exactly where you want it ... 

There is no understandable reason why a hard rock shouldn't be able to knock in a piton secure enough for a rappel ..... at the risk of being repetitive ...pitons are dumb... they only understand forces,  forcing them into a constriction .... I went yesterday to try a real life test.. still too much snow .... I'll try again next week

Just came here to say...

You could just take some ball nuts? No regrets leaving some of those behind in an emergency! 

Pounding pins is actually a finesse move . its not a blunt force use a rock move.  If you are doing ground up FA's by all means bring some iron and a hammer but be advised that in many if not most cases once you have the climb established it is better to replace the pin with a bolt for long term sustainability.  If you are not doing FA's then you have no buisness carrying pins... 

Apparently early pitons, mauerhaken ie rope hooks, were inserted by hammering with a stone. You might need to copy the link separately to see the images.

 https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb9ec3c89-21f0-470f-bce5-9bfd15a05a1e_763x1110.jpeg

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTPJwrpAbdznRtzIBtE7GeTFzJJ3UN_aiHNZ6VC0xCFIQ&s

Incidentally I think some of the intention of the OP has been forgotten in some of the posts; "I like the idea of having a couple emergency pitons for back country exploring but ....I hate the thought of carrying a heavy hammer knowing it would almost never be used ". No mention of using pitons in existing climbs or FAs but implies they might be used for emergency abseil anchors while exploring.

 The last time I used a piton was about 10 years back when I had a minimal amount of nuts and slings but wanted a good anchor to top rope from large, stepped, limestone ledges. There was a thin crack parallel to the edge on top of the ledges where a hand placed piton provided a safe anchor by leverage alone, but I just seated it with a few taps from a stone so it could never tip sideways and come out. It was easy to extract. Obviously such ideal placements are rare. 

The other day using a rock I placed a knifeblade and a lost arrow type blade piton with no difficulty in limestone at the back of a boulder beach. Both needed tying off and withstood vigorous bouncing. They would certainly have been OK as abseil anchors. It might have been hard to place them in a corner crack without a hammer.

 Taking a couple of pitons for emergency use even without hammer is worthwhile. It enables use of thin cracks where only very small and poor nut placements might be found and is ideal for horizontal cracks. 

I thought you grit stoners were not allowed to pound iron? 

Ian Dibbswrote:

My pitons are ....Deaf ....Dumb .....and Blind 

Your claim that "There is absolutely no reason to carry pins...." is obviously only an opinion ..... carrying pins for emergency rappelling is an excellent reason.

I have just bought 3 pitons, and after close inspection they seem to be; ....... deaf, dumb and blind.

Dumb .... my pitons seem dumb, I think they only understand forces applied to knock them into constrictions, not if that force come from a rock, hammer or ice axe head.

Blind .... my pitons are blind and I don't think they can see if the mass used to hit them with comes from an ugly rock .... or pretty stainless steel hammer.

Deaf ... I can't find any ears, so I don't think they hear the nice high pitched "sound"  that tells them they are secure when driven into a hole with a hammer ....

What I don't know (yet) ... will a rock pounded piton hold a rappel. I highly suspect it will ...

As soon as my local crags dry out .... I'll go pound my new pitons with a rock ... and see if they will hold a rappel (with a safety rope of course !!) ... which was the question of my original posting ....

Since weight is so important to you, I recommend you carry only the RURP.

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

I thought you grit stoners were not allowed to pound iron? 

Basically that's correct. To avoid a lynching    I bashed those pegs in on the back wall of an isolated boulder beach.   No climbs.....often overhanging limestone blocks topped by tons of loose earth. There have been quite a few rockfalls there this winter.

When I started climbing many UK climbs, especially on limestone, had some in situ protection pitons. My own use of pitons was largely in mainland Europe for abseils and protection.