UKC

how not to place pitons

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 blackcat 02 Nov 2014
Hi,dont know how to link vids on here,but for anyone who hasn,t seen this type in, setting up my anchor on thar peak north face couloir.You tube.
 gethin_allen 02 Nov 2014
In reply to davidbeynon:

I really hope that vid was a piss take. The second piton moved when he tested it with hand yet he still clipped it!
OP blackcat 02 Nov 2014
In reply to davidbeynon: thanks for that.
 Rick Graham 02 Nov 2014
In reply to blackcat:

I was waiting for the clip to show the belayer leaning back on the "anchor " and it ripping.

The limp wristed f wit disappointed
 Jim Fraser 02 Nov 2014
In reply to blackcat:

Yeah, I am surprised that I can't find a link to an obituary.
OP blackcat 02 Nov 2014
In reply to Rick Graham: What surprises me is they got up there in the first place,oh and that unequalised sling.

 Rick Graham 02 Nov 2014
In reply to blackcat:

And the larks foot, quickdraws rope krab to peg, clipped from wrong side, loose belay sling etc

trust it was a wind up ( did look a bit like Franco )
 Jamie B 02 Nov 2014
In reply to Rick Graham:
Good skills. I particularly liked the way his partner stood there like a spare tool when he could have been getting the rope ready, then equalised the sling in completely the wrong direction...

Post edited at 15:13
 jcw 02 Nov 2014
In reply to Rick Graham:
Perhaps it was what we used to term "mechanically sound" !! God looks after his own.
 Bruce Hooker 02 Nov 2014
In reply to blackcat:

I'm surprised no one has commented on the total lack of enthusiasm with which the pitons were just tapped in... you could hardly hear them ringing! Judging by the pristine condition of the gear this was their first trip though so we shouldn't knock them, as it were.

I wonder why they put it on utube?
 jcw 02 Nov 2014
In reply to Rick Graham:
Anyhow, he was singing even if the piton wasn't
 wbo 02 Nov 2014
In reply to Bruce Hooker: they have certainly uploaded plenty of climbing to youtube so I don't think it's their first time out. I suspect they're horsing around on easy ground so calm down.

 Bruce Hooker 02 Nov 2014
In reply to wbo:

> so calm down.

I'm not uncalm, I just assumed the OP wanted comments about his post.

That gear does look brand new though, especially the pitons.
 goose299 02 Nov 2014
In reply to blackcat:

Clowns!!
needvert 03 Nov 2014
In reply to Bruce Hooker:

It does take a certain bravery to post media of any anchor you've made on the net. The cumulative critiquing power of the internet horde may weld thousands of man-years of climbing experience, finding every flaw in design and error in implementation.
 JJL 03 Nov 2014
In reply to Bruce Hooker:

> you could hardly hear them ringing!

I agree it wasn't firmly bashed.

However, the notion that the sound of the strike tells you anything about the secutrity of the placement is nonsense. Thewre was a very good article on this looking at pull strengths. Google is your friend; I can't be arsed.
 zebidee 03 Nov 2014
In reply to blackcat:

On top of all the previous comments their axes weren't attached to their harnesses or fitted with leashes.

Dead simple to lose an axe in that situation which leaves you where?
 ewar woowar 03 Nov 2014
In reply to zebidee:

> Dead simple to lose an axe in that situation which leaves you where?

Standing exactly where you dropped it...
For a very long time!








Possibly

;~))

 d_b 03 Nov 2014
In reply to ewar woowar:

Just use the remaining axe to cut steps
 Bruce Hooker 03 Nov 2014
In reply to JJL:

Can't agree with that, the way it goes in tells you a lot about the holding power of a piton.
 Billhook 03 Nov 2014
In reply to blackcat:

The same crack was used for both pegs, OK for some cracks but this one could be the back of a large flake. Knocking in those pegs may just have loosened it.

I've always been told/read the sound a peg make when its in firmly is an indicator of how well its in. Have you any other methods of proving its strength?

And why two slings for the first peg when one would have done?
 BnB 03 Nov 2014
In reply to Dave Perry:

No one has pointed out what I discovered on my first winter outing. Never try to build a belay with mitts (unless you're a lot more dextrous than these two, and me, anyway).

 andrewmc 03 Nov 2014
In reply to Dave Perry:

> I've always been told/read the sound a peg make when its in firmly is an indicator of how well its in. Have you any other methods of proving its strength?

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

Search for 'Myth 3'.
 george mc 03 Nov 2014
In reply to andrewmcleod:


> Search for 'Myth 3'.

There is more to placing pegs than the sound they make for sure - although they sound they make does help to indicate how good the placement is - other factors such as how much force you need to hammer it home, how you placed it initially, the type of rock etc.

Like placing wires - you don't just tug em to check if they are OK - you check the soundness of the rock, assess the wire placement for being mechanically strong e..g how the nut fits the crack etc.

So placing pegs. Generally the best placement is a horizontal crack, which takes the whole peg up to the eye and is angled down into the rock. The peg would be mechanically secure and could then be hammered home.
In real life it’s a case of finding a suitable crack (which will tend to be vertical) and selecting a peg that best fits it. The peg is then placed by hand: half to ¾ of its length. It is then driven home by well aimed hammer blows to the head of the peg. I must admit I've found listening for the sweet music of a rising, ringing tone indicating a good peg. If the tone changes it may mean the peg has bottomed, or the placement has failed e.g. the rock has fractured. I'll stand by this as a/ I've placed more than a few pegs in my time - in winter b/ I've abseiled off them c/ I've fallen on two different occasions onto pegs I've placed - they held both times.
In reply to george mc:

I am with you there. Empirically there seemed to be a very strong (sic) relationship between the pitch of the sound and the soundness of the peg. Also, the moment the pitch stopped rising, one stopped hitting, because after that one could over-drive the peg. Surely, too, there is some scientific basis to the link between the sound and the soundness: that the long wavelength harmonics get increasingly "shorted out" by increasingly firm contact between the peg and the rock.
 Bruce Hooker 03 Nov 2014
In reply to andrewmcleod:

All that that article says about pitons isn't much good - for example, just looking at the myths, soft steel pitons can usually be got out, and you can tell how they are going in by the noise, using pitons is common sense really.
 Toerag 05 Nov 2014
In reply to John Stainforth:

Surely the rising note simply denotes that the length of piton free to vibrate is getting shorter?
 d_b 06 Nov 2014
In reply to Toerag:

My very rusty physics tells me that's a big part of it, I suspect that a loosely gripped piton might be damped a bit more than one with a firm interface with the rock and give a less "pure" sound . Perhaps that is the effect people are listening for.
 Bruce Hooker 06 Nov 2014
In reply to davidbeynon:

It's also to do with the soundness of the rock and the crack - if it's a crack behind a flake which opens as you knock it in then you will hear this straight away.

Here's a good peg, for a belay: http://www.windmillweb.info/climbing/HinduRaj/images2/095_good_piton.jpg

 jcw 09 Nov 2014
In reply to blackcat:
What no one seems to have asked is what belay the leader used to bring his second up to where he is? Or am I simply missing some thing?
In reply to jcw:

I'm assuming they soloed to that point. There doesn't seem to be a rope kicking about either.

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