[T_B]

That wall is cool and quite unique. But I don't get the continued placement of pegs in sea cliffs thing? Seems a bit, er, backward, especially for routes literally right above the waves? I guess it depends whether you can keep bashing another one in where the last one was, or do you just end up with loads of broken off rusty stumps over time? They are getting whittled away (i.e. not replaced) in Pembs, but not on Gogans/the Lleyn? It's a shame that Pearson's walk of life was given a silly grade because actually his statement of wanting to do it without pegs was pretty bang on IMO.

[shark]

That wall is cool and quite unique. But I don't get the continued placement of pegs in sea cliffs thing?

I do. You would only place them if you thought you needed them to get up the route and the prevailing ethic/peer pressure wasn't strongly against them.

It's a shame that Pearson's walk of life was given a silly grade because actually his statement of wanting to do it without pegs was pretty bang on IMO.

IIRC ironically the previous pegs helped create the gear slots so as statements go it was unfortunately a little muddied   

[petejh]

That wall is cool and quite unique. But I don't get the continued placement of pegs in sea cliffs thing? Seems a bit, er, backward, especially for routes literally right above the waves? I guess it depends whether you can keep bashing another one in where the last one was, or do you just end up with loads of broken off rusty stumps over time? They are getting whittled away (i.e. not replaced) in Pembs, but not on Gogans/the Lleyn? It's a shame that Pearson's walk of life was given a silly grade because actually his statement of wanting to do it without pegs was pretty bang on IMO.

    
Placing non-stainless fixed kit on sea-cliffs is undefendably short-sighted and an unsustainable way to equip routes on tidal cliffs, imo; it's comparable to placing non-stainless bolts on sea-cliff sport routes - you'd get called out for doing that, and for good reason. It could justifiably be argued that any bolts/pegs are 'unsustainable' depending on your timescale but stainless kit with a lifetime of at least 25 years, and realistically quite a bit longer than that - they're still going strong on Dave Lyon's n.wales sea-cliff routes, versus useless snappable pegs/bolts which repeaters will want to replace after just a few years following placement      

It's a total no-brainer - and a proper elephant in the room for trad climbing in the UK. I can't see how hammering yet more mild steel pegs into a sea-washed wall to replace the previous rotten pegs is a justifiable way to equip climbs with fixed equipment. I can see how a sometimes twisted view of 'trad ethics' in the uk makes it seem ok.

[csurfleet]

  I have never placed a peg and know little past 'I gave it a tug and it didn't come out, its probably ok'

Are stainless pegs produced? Why not/why aren't people using them?

[petejh]

Stainless pegs have been produced by a few private individuals, as well as Bolt Product in Germany (Jim Titt). I've got about 50 stainless pegs in the garage (not Bolt Products ones, another private fabricator, who had them pull tested to approx 25Kn). Some of these have been 'placed' on trad routes on the Ormes where a peg is crucial for protection and where it's been thought (wrongheadedly in my opinion) that a peg will attract less fuss from idiots than if they saw a bolt. I say wrong-headed because I think 'placing' even good quality stainless pegs is just masking the important issue and encouraging the view that it's ok to place pegs on sea-cliffs, when it's clearly a senseless and unsustainable thing to do.

Below is what Jim Titt, from Bolt Products, wrote about stainless pegs. Taken from his informative web site (http://www.bolt-products.com/Glue-inBoltDesign.htm) :

In-situ - is it good or not?

I started this series of piton tests as I was looking into the possibility of producing stainless steel pitons for permanent placements, primarily in the U.K. where many areas do not allow bolts. In particular the sea-cliffs are a problem as corrosion very soon reduces normal pitons to rust and the in-situ gear is well known to be unreliable.

If you´ve been around a long time and have an encyclopaedic knowledge of piton manufacturers you have some chance of identifying what you are clipping into, otherwise it is going to be pot luck whether it was produced from steel rejected by an Italian car company or the best the U.S (and British) steel industry could produce.
And just looking at the head tells you little about the rest.

Identical appearing eyes before testing but the top one held 18kN, the lower 4kN!

Rock erosion is a major factor, most who have climbed at Portland will be aware of the `sticking out staples´which show an alarming rate of erosion of the cliff face, perhaps at the rate of 0.5mm per year. Naturally enough a piton in a crack eroding at this rate is going to be useless in a very short time, exactly how short is hard to say but it should not be overlooked that friction forces only work at atomic level. One of the pitons in my tests was removed from an abseil point by hand!
And it doesn´t matter what sort of rock it is, that only affects the speed.

Rock movement- all cliffs are moving, some slowly, some quickly. The cracks are there to prove it! Places like Swanage are moving quickly, one of my earliest first ascents there used a knife blade peg, later that year a Moac and a few years later the entire butress was gone, what use would a corrosion resistant peg be in this situation? There was a well reported court case a few years ago in the U.S.A. concerning 2 pitons which failed, almost certainly due to seismic activity, food for though before you trust your life to a peg.

Freezing is another potential problem, either opening the crack or forcing the piton out, with reports of pitons being loosened by this from the U.S and the Alps.

Climbers from previous generations rightly mis-trust in-situ pegs, rusting or not and anyway usually have a healthy aversion to falling off but the the modern sport and indoor climbing generation will tend to see `shiny´ and think `strong´ with the inevitable consequences.
A piton can only be trusted on the day it was placed and only the climber who placed can give an opinion on its reliability, anything else is only a guess.Reports of pitons found on the ground below climbs or being removed by hand within a few years of placing are commonplace and give a fair indication of their unreliability, as does the number of serious and often fatal accidents involving in-situ pitons.

Conclusions
The result of producing nice corrosion resistant pitons is that climbers may blindly trust them with potentially fatal result and my feeling is that to put them on the market for permanent placements would be irresponsible and other solutions need to be found.

[Bonjoy]

Rock movement- all cliffs are moving, some slowly, some quickly. The cracks are there to prove it! Places like Swanage are moving quickly, one of my earliest first ascents there used a knife blade peg, later that year a Moac and a few years later the entire butress was gone, what use would a corrosion resistant peg be in this situation? There was a well reported court case a few years ago in the U.S.A. concerning 2 pitons which failed, almost certainly due to seismic activity, food for though before you trust your life to a peg.

This reminds me of climbing on Taipan Wall Australia. Runner were often left insitu while folk seiged things and due to the nature of the rock and the big temp difference between shade and sun it was not unusual for runners to drop out due to thermal expansion/contraction affecting the placement!

[webbo]

That also reminds me of the year Mount Helena blew up 1981 ? Folk in Yosemite claimed things were moving so much that as they led things the cracks were changing shape and all their nuts/cams fell out.

[tomtom]

Mt St Helen's was 82 iirc.. Long way from Yosemite.. I doubt seismic activity in Washington state was changing the cracks on Yosemite.. Nice urban myth type thing though..

[webbo]

I actually was on a route when there was an earth tremor and you could hear rock falls round the valley. However I was some what doubtfull when my climbing partner claimed that the reason he'd fallen off was the finger crack he was climbing suddenly be came an offwidth crack.

[BenF]

the finger crack he was climbing suddenly became an offwidth crack.

Lucky it didn't turn from an offwidth to a finger crack.

[Jaspersharpe]

Mt St Helen's was 82 iirc.. Long way from Yosemite.. I doubt seismic activity in Washington state was changing the cracks on Yosemite.. Nice urban myth type thing though..

1980. I was 6 and we flew to Seattle shortly after the eruption.

[Oldmanmatt]

Funny, I was there the same time! Visited the area about 3 months after. I was 9. Indelible memories of flattened trees and sad faces...

[Bonjoy]

We climbed Controlled Burning on Lundy the month before one half of the crack fell off! Was confused at the time as to why the crack looked like a handcrack in extreme rock but was a wide fist crack in real life, and full of sand!

[Teaboy]

IIRC ironically the previous pegs helped create the gear slots so as statements go it was unfortunately a little muddied

Can this be true? The route wasn't previously an aid route with multiple aided ascents was it, so it seems a bit unlikely that placing and removing a peg once would turn a crack from blank to protectable.

[cheque]

We climbed Controlled Burning on Lundy the month before one half of the crack fell off! Was confused at the time as to why the crack looked like a handcrack in extreme rock but was a wide fist crack in real life, and full of sand!

 

[shark]

IIRC ironically the previous pegs helped create the gear slots so as statements go it was unfortunately a little muddied

Can this be true? The route wasn't previously an aid route with multiple aided ascents was it, so it seems a bit unlikely that placing and removing a peg once would turn a crack from blank to protectable.

I was basing it on the below comment which as Ben said could be a load of bollocks

Having been involved in the FA of Dire Straits (I couldn't lead it just held Ians ropes) I think the majority of the gear on walk of life goes in the old peg slots. (we had a really good cam (2?) and a rock 1, but the rest was insitue pegs for Ian's ascent). As Daves line hasn't had lots of pegs in it it won't have these slots, also it doesn't follow a crack so potentially even less gear chances.  It is a long time since I was down there so this could all be bollocks.

[chillax]

 

We climbed Controlled Burning on Lundy the month before one half of the crack fell off! Was confused at the time as to why the crack looked like a handcrack in extreme rock but was a wide fist crack in real life, and full of sand!

Bugger. Is the route entirely gone? Always liked the look of it from Extreme Rock. Pity.

[duncan]

Hard steel pitons and sea water don't mix and the use of pegs for both ascents is unfortunate in my view. Better to have taken them out again after the ascent, they will be worthless in another two or three years and will look a right mess. I've placed pegs on  routes (not sea-cliffs) in the past but, on reflection, it was selfish and I wouldn't do it now.     

I don't completely buy Jim Titt's instability of pegs argument, not in areas of low temperature fluctuation and minimal seismic activity. I've hung on and taken wingers onto pegs that have been in-situ for decades in numerous places! Am by being too cynical to suggest he has an interest in promoting bolts!  I do understand that stainless steel is not the ideal metal for fabricating pitons and there have been reports of stainless steel pegs failing unexpectedly so I don't think we can look forward to a new range of Black Diamond stainless pegs any time soon (even though they seem to think it is a suitable material for crampons...). 

We climbed Controlled Burning on Lundy the month before one half of the crack fell off! Was confused at the time as to why the crack looked like a handcrack in extreme rock but was a wide fist crack in real life, and full of sand!

When was this? Controlled Burning had some rockfall from the top overhang in 2004 but has had a number of ascents since then. My pal thought still very worthwhile, no change of grade, top section now rather crumbly not surprisingly. It's always been wider and grittier in reality than the photos would suggest though.