UKC

Howdy.

Finally got myself a selection of eBay pitons a couple of months back. After servicing (and discarding where necessary) I have a nice little selection of blades, arrows and angles of which some I will add to my winter rack.

The question is... what lengths?

I figured that longer would be better (shorter being more suitable for aiding) but in an article by that crazy Mr. Kirkpatrick, he suggested taking shorter ones as it means you can take more. Seems to make sense.

Any thoughts?

In reply to crayefish: no piton expert but on certain routes I carry 1x blade, 1 x sm angle and 1 x small arrow. All are 80 to 100mm in length.

In 6 years climbing I have never used them, so very rarely carry them now.

HTH Davey

In reply to crayefish:

Read this
http://www.bolt-products.com/Glue-inBoltDesign.htm

I'd aim for longer unless you know what the cracks are like - you can always tie off a long peg you can't get all the way in but you can't make a short one grip any better.

In reply to crayefish:

Unrelated to your question but in my reading I had gotten the impression that hook style (black diamond pecker / Moses tomahawk) pitons were where it was at for aid. In my limited experience they certainly have a more confidence inspiring geometry to them. They came to mind as even the biggest (that are designed for rock at least) aren't very long.

(Speaking of Andy, I read Driven on Saturday. Good book, even had a section on bolts.)

In reply to Toerag:

That's quite an interesting page.

In reply to crayefish:

Longer ones do give the option of Deeper placements, and can be tied off in shallower placements.

shorter can carry more pegs for weight.

Swings and Roundabouts i Suppose.

In reply to crayefish-
when ive used pitons/blades up the north cornish coast ive not worried about weight and taken short and long,thin and thick.if the long wont go in out it comes,an in goes the short.i cant say i have any reservations that a short one,ie:2"-2.5" wont do its job.even in a vertical crack,as long as you have used the right width one for a really tight fit(and clipped the side so it would twist if fallen on),i cant see it pulling out.after all its the stretch in the rope etc that reduces shock loading the peg.so i guess if you are limited take mostly short.

In reply to needvert:

I use beaks (Moses Tomahawk) a lot and always carry them. Size 1-2 for trad and 2-3 for winter. I have never fallen on one (or taken a lead fall for that matter) but I can tell you they are bomber. Often my seconds spend 10 mins getting them out!

They work really well in thin cracks as they are full strength (14kN) where as a micro wire would only be 1-4 kN. Plus they can be hammered into frozen turf so are very versitile. Only problem is they are rather heavy. Though that didn't stop the Polish mountaineers carrying a tonne of them... and they have 11 out of the 13 first 8,000er winter ascents!

Yes the problem is I am limited on weight heavily as I always climb with full 2-4 days bivi equipment as I love camping on the mountain rather than in huts. That means I have to be very careful of piton selection and I haven't done enough routes to know 'oh on that climb I'll need so and so.'

In reply to crayefish:

Depends on the rock type. In limestone/dolomite country we use mostly mild steel, fairly long and nearly all flat blades of variable thickness. If you were climbing pink granite you would want lots of hard steel angles. On our local salt and pepper granite (Tonalite) there is no point carrying anything other than knifeblades.

GB rhyolite is proabably mid way between limestone and granite, so a mix of small to medium angles and various pins and blades.
As for length, short to medium is best if you are expecting to remove them. Long pegs are more appropriate for leaving in place for fixed belays.

In reply to crayefish:

It's simple, you take them with a length that's the same as the crack you intend to use them in. If you're not sure take various lengths. The real hassle is guessing the thickness as this must suit the width of the crack, which is hard to see from the car-park.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

There in lies the problem! I always try a new winter route rather than repeating (though must try An Teallach again after we were forced off due to weather last time) so I never know what I need in advance.

Currently I have a knifeblade, arrow and angle in my rack - all about 100mm long. The hope is I don't need them but I'd rather retreat on pitons than a shiny hexes if the situation arose.

In reply to crayefish:

Sorry, I was being flippant. In reality when taking a few pitons "just in case" I always too three or four quite long ones, a 3/4" angle and a 1/2" angle about 10cms long, and a thick and a thin blade of about the same length. The logic being you can tie a long one off. You usually become attached to certain favourite pitons anyway.

In reply to crayefish:

When i was interested in difficult pegging in about 1971-2, I would use pegs (like most people) that were all, as Bruce says, about 10 cmd long, some a bit shorter. The point was that you scarcely ever clipped a krab into the eye, but almost always tied it off with a tape cats-paw pushed right up against the rock.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

A cats paw? I am assuming that is a standard knot (lark's foot?) masquerading by another name...

In reply to crayefish:

Some Tying off stuff here.

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=566384

In reply to Choss:

Cheers. Yeah larks foot is what I would have though. Easy to tie (and possible one handed) which is always very important.

In reply to crayefish:


That was my Conclusion to stick with Larks foot.

Length, i Lean towards favouring Longer pegs, and Tying them off. The extra weight im not so bothered with. weight Probably more of a consideration if youre big walling Long Pitches Though.

In reply to crayefish:

Wow, pitons...I haven't thought about these issues for forty years.

BITD in the US when we were transitioning from all-piton racks to nuts, it was fairly typical to carry a few pitons on back-country climbs. I think I carried the three BD short sizes and a 3/4" angle in places like the Wind River range in Wyoming.

The short sizes are definitely not just for aiding, they've held all kinds of nasty leader falls. The long sizes in an appropriate crack are likely to be stronger, but the short ones are strong enough.

Here's the rationale for the short sizes: it isn't quite true that you can get the same thing by tying off the long ones. The final thickness on the short and long sizes is (or used to be) the same, the long ones just taper more slowly. So if you have a thick-width crack that bottoms, none of the long pitons will work, the long thick will bottom out before you get to the necessary cross-section and so will be loose. Consequently, the short-thin, short-medium, and short-thick give you a wider range of placement options then the long sizes tied off.

As mentioned above, the anticipated rock structure matters. Deep cracks with little internal variation, such as one finds in Yosemite granite, are where the long pitons shine. Hard rock with cracks that are internally irregular, like much of the limestone I've seen, is more suited to the short sizes; the long ones will bottom out and as I've said the ability to tie them off doesn't mean you'll have something that ends up fitting. However, if the rock is chossy enough (Canadian Rocky limestone comes to mind), the long piton may work better because after bottoming it just blasts its own hole in the crack. Of course, the ensuing destruction is what energized the "clean climbing" movement in the US forty years ago.

In reply to crayefish:
not being ignorant, but I thought pitons were used before the days of nuts,chocks etc ....joe browns day maybe,do climbers still use pitons these days ?

In reply to colina:


As their main gear in Scotland? No I doubt people do. But most would probably advocate taking a couple as backup or just another option to cover all bases if good gear is sparse. You can't use small wires effectively in heavily iced cracks.

In reply to colina:

Pitons are still of some use on winter and alpine routes (for example on chossy Canadian Rockies limestone).

Here's Andy Kirkpatrick on the subject: "...winter climbers on anything but the most well-travelled routes will still carry at least a couple of pegs. These pegs come into their own on real winter routes i.e. routes that don’t climb summer lines, as these often feature both shattered and dirty cracks into which, very often, the only gear that will go is a peg. A peg can also be the only reliable gear you can get in full ice conditions." http://www.andy-kirkpatrick.com/articles/view/winter_rack

In reply to crayefish:

My personal approach (although it is only that) is to take 3 shortish ones (blade lengths 2-3 inches). I tend to see them as an emergency get-out clause and don't use them a lot, so I'd rather not carry a lot of weight in the process. Tying off is also a faff, and I'd sooner place a shorter one to the hilt, so that the eye becomes part of the holding equation.