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armstrong
Mar 8, 2005, 9:58 PM
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I was just wondering what climbers used before the invention of carabiners? And when were they first made or sold? Sorry if this has already been brought up. Thanks!
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michhiker
Mar 8, 2005, 10:09 PM
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Yellow labs for offwidths
---MH
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montafoner
Mar 8, 2005, 10:31 PM
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and wood shavings on dental floss for thin cracks
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montafoner
Mar 8, 2005, 10:35 PM
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On a more serious note, I believe carabiner-type clips were used initially, and as the sport progressed (and people realized that they needed to be very strong), stronger carabiners with notched gates came into play.
Just my under educated $.02
I'm curious too and will look into it myself and post what I find.
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brianinslc
Mar 8, 2005, 10:46 PM
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In reply to: I was just wondering what climbers used before the invention of carabiners? And when were they first made or sold? Sorry if this has already been brought up. Thanks!
They either tied the rope directly into a piton ring (or eye) or used a short piece of cord to go through a piton ring and around the rope. Crazy stuff.
I think biners came into being around 1910 or so, in Europe. Borrowed from the fire brigade by Otto Herzog (according to the history on Middendorf's website). Makes sense, as some routes done right after that in the alps would have utilized them (Dulfer, etc). Made from steel, they were pretty heavy.
Fun stuff...
Brian in SLC
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outdoorsie
Mar 8, 2005, 11:06 PM
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The guy who owned the gym I climbed in all the time in Indy was an awesome climber, who had been at the sport for 50 years, mostly in the mountains of North Carolina. When he first started climbing, he knew people who had climbed on hemp ropes (like you use in gym class). When they wanted pro, they would pound the piton into the crack and then untie the rope from their harness, put it through the hole in the piton and then tie back in. Of course the metal around the piton hole can be sharp and hemp ropes are not known for their tensil strength, so a lead fall on this system would most certainly result in a severed rope. I guess it was one more reason "the leader must not fall!" That and the second using a body belay with a hemp rope was probably not looking forward to the resulting full-body rope burns they would recieve.
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thegreytradster
Mar 8, 2005, 11:26 PM
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In reply to: and then untie the rope from their harness, .
Harnesess did not come into general use untill the 70's. Swami's predate that by a few years. They would have tied in directly to the rope with a Bowline and later a Bowline on a coil.
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fredbob
Mar 8, 2005, 11:46 PM
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Brian hit the piton on the head, so to speak. carry
In reply to: The guy who owned the gym I climbed in all the time in Indy was an awesome climber, who had been at the sport for 50 years, mostly in the mountains of North Carolina. .......
While this may have been what this person did in the NC mountians, in no way did it reflect standard climbing practices or the state of the art for climbing equipment in the early 1950s.
Use of caribiners and "running" belays (no...not the belayer running) was first brought to the US in the early 1930s. Consequently, climbers were not untying from ropes to run the rope throught the eyes of piton. After WWII, better ropes (hemp was out), caribiners and pitons were being domestically made and became both readily available and were comonly used.
____________________________--
(edited to say WWII not WWI, typo with a big difference in time frame)
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jgill
Mar 9, 2005, 2:57 AM
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I have a photo of Perry-Smith leading a traverse on Falkenstein in Saxony in 1913, his rope running through what looks like a large loop of rope attached to some hidden anchor, perhaps an iron ring, which the leader was permitted to imbed in the rock.
In 1953-54 I used manilla rope at first (as did Jim Langford and Joe Brown in the late 1940s), but converted to Army surplus white nylon rope pretty quickly. The hardware I used I got from Holubar in Boulder - I believe it was imported - and directly from Sporthaus Schuster in Munich. I still have several of the old carabiners.
There was some US Army stuff around, like angle pitons, wafers, and steel carabiners, but I don't recall where I got them. They did not have a good reputation. The pitons were all pretty soft, and this motivated Chouinard to experiment with harder alloys in the late 1950s, producing pitons usable a number of times on the big Yosemite walls.
I do not recall anyone producing pitons and carabiners for others to purchase and use here in the US in the early to mid 1950s. But Salathe and Steck may have. And it's possible I simply was unaware of such commercial activity. 8^)
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rossgoddard
Mar 9, 2005, 4:07 AM
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i read about a "san juan piton" in andy selters "ways to the sky"
it was a pin that after you pounded, you put the rope through a small hook type arrangement, and whaled away a few more times on the pin, permanatly encasing the rope in a small steel ring. no biner=lightweight and no fuss for leader, but bitch and a half for the second!
those boys (and girls) were hardcore
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