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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Aw now, don't be too hard on CMI. They are dear to my heart for their pitons oddly enough! They used a stiffer steel than Chouinard and bent the opposite side of their blades so that you can keep the eye down on expanding features that face either direction. The several sizes of Cracktacks are indispensable for RURP sized placements too! I never saw a CMI catalog with all of their meticulously labeled pitons. Anybody got one? Their nut designs didn't thrill me either, so I never carried any of them.
If anybody ever runs into a rack of CMI pitons with "CC" stamped on them, please contact Charles Cole at Five-ten or me. His whole rack was stolen from the base of the NW Face of Half Dome while he was preparing to do The Queen Of Spades and a little payback is long overdue!
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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steve,
this love of pitons from the man who blamed ammon of placing one on a route? is something strange here?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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I like most everything else CMI makes - just not their attempts at pro. The pulleys and Figure 8's and about everything else is fine...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Hawkeye, I love a well designed piton right well and even enjoy placing them when it proves necessary. What I don't care for is scarring and crack degradation caused by excessive hammering where more challenging and sustainable options have been shown to exist. I once owned more than 200 pins and justified the accumulation by desiring to solo a first ascent on El Cap someday. I have the fistful of RURPS, the fan of knifeblades and all the other ironmongery to conquer whatever fantasy horrorshow crack that my fears can conjure up! The great irony is that I carried the pile of comforting little steel wedgies all the way up the Turning Point and ended up needing a rack of less than two dozen. The take home message for me; pin racks are a study in obsessive psychological cushioning and reassurance.
Most of my ascents on El Cap have been new routes. When you encounter cracks in their natural state, there are lots of possibilities that rapidly disappear once hammered force enters the picture. The difference between a beautiful RP placement that will challenge and delight every passerby for decades and another fixed trash c-head can so easily be one single lazy decision. I pound pins and place bolts but only as a last resort having exhausted the other options first. Still think that there's something fishy???????
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 3, 2007 - 01:05am PT
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Great story, Rocky!
Paul Sibley and Bill Roos produced a whole series of I-beam nuts in Eldo in the early 70's. They had a very good taper and worked better than hexes in many placements. I used 'em a lot in offwidths back then. Below is a picture of a never-reported climb that John Ruger and I did in 1974, the same year as Earl and Ed did Supercrack. This climb is called Sunglow Crack. It's 150', first half up to the little roof is entirely offwidth. Above that it's hands and fists and a little more offwidth. The offwidth was protected (sparsely) with those old I-beam nuts. The climb is 10+ or so. The area is near Bicknell, Utah. We did half-a-dozen cracks there, in the 10/11 range, often using the I-beams for protection.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jeff, that was burly then and it would be interesting to see how many folks would head up it today with the same pro. I used my IBeams, but they were definitely not the sort of pro you wanted to accidentally bump in any way.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Jello:
Paul Sibley and Bill Roos produced a whole series of I-beam nuts in Eldo in the early 70's. They had a very good taper and worked better than hexes in many placements. I used 'em a lot in offwidths back then.
Great to see these remembered. I had a set too, and climbed with them frequently until hexentrics came out. The smallest I-beam, about 1.75", looked unlikely but seemed to get the most use.
Shortly after their invention, Bill and I were belaying as Paul led the Turf Spreader. He placed a 3" I-beam and yelled down that it looked good. "Damn, they do work!" Bill called back.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Sad to say, it appears I no longr own any I-beams, I wonder what the break and enterers did with those?
We used to use them all the time in Vedauwoo and Devil's Tower in the seventies.
I had a little one that was on a swaged wire.
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wbw
climber
'cross the great divide
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Hawkeye,
I don't believe Steve's admiration of CMI pins in any way contradicts the points he has made previously. Without getting back into past debates, I only want to say that his words have been backed by action for many, many years. And not only on
wall routes. Go check out any Grossman route in southern Arizona, and you will conclude, without question, that his approach to climbing is extremely pure, and minimalist in the use of gear.
I know Steve doesn't need me to defend his viewpoints. Maybe I wanted to express my admiration for his approach to climbing back in the Ammon thread, and never got around to it.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Just as long as this doesn't turn into Steve's House of Balls.
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 3, 2007 - 06:18pm PT
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Yeh, Healjye, you did have to step carefully past those suckers in wide cracks. Good practice for big Tri-cams a decade later, though! Actually, it was often possible to sort of cam those I-beams and set them with a jerk on the sling, so they were a bit more stable.
Protection used to be a more subtle art...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Well, Granny did open that little afterhours place, The Mirrored Balls Lounge, right next to The House Of Smoke. Come to think of it, that must have been the snake charm that worked so very well in chasing the sidewinders out of town a while back!
WBW, thanks for the support! A little clarity goes a long way in my book. Sounds like you've sampled some of my AZ efforts! Any favorites or tales? As my partners will attest, I carried the full rack up most of my routes and there usually is adequate protection if you are skilled and determined enough to hang in there and arrange it before moving on by. Tucson can be a very challenging area to visit and climb if you aren't solid in your protection abilities. But then there's always the bolt routes..........
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jeff wrote: Protection used to be a more subtle art...
I used a car jack in a pothole on a new route in the Garden of the Gods. How is that for subtle??
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Ammon
Big Wall climber
El Cap
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Hey, check it out!! I’m finally learning how to “sack up”. LOL
I was actually thinking about SG when I took this pic up on the Zodiac a few months ago. It was SOO tempting to just clip the fixed piton (what’s it doing there, anyway?)…. But, I could hear this looming voice “Sack UP…. Sack UP…".
I was laughing wildly about it for hours, afterward. Sean and Timmy must have thought I lost the plot and had gone insane.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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They would have been right and that has been my point from the outset.....
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WBraun
climber
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I would have clipped the pin when I heard it call my name, as I was flying up the line to try and cheat the latest time. But that little nut on my rack was screaming for equal time, while I told it has no balls and it will lose all our time.
That little nut just wouldn't shut up, so I placed him and left him behind.
It'll never be the same again. We've gone on to new balls.
R.I.P. rurps, pitons and bongs. You were a wonderful song ...........
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 6, 2007 - 08:28pm PT
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Nice one, Werner. The essence of clean climbing in a few lines.
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Ammon
Big Wall climber
El Cap
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Very nice Werner, didn't know you were a rapper.
Steve, you missed my point AGAIN. I was laughing at YOU up there. You take yourself WAY to seriously. LOL
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jan 12, 2007 - 05:01pm PT
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Are angles solid when placed like the one above versus put in 90 degrees either way?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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May 19, 2007 - 04:31pm PT
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Back to the plot again.... Here is the Clog arsenal as available in the 1968 Chouinard catalog, pre clean climbing revolution!
Note the tiny brass Hex, possibly the first micronut!
Still OK to give the primitive nuggets a little tap as of 68. Not for long...
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