1971 Chouinard Piton Hammer

Vertical Archaeology has been fortunate in acquiring this fine example of an early Chouinard hammer and Dolt holster. The items were purchased through eBay and usually that can be a pretty anonymous way to buy gear. But this time we made a great personal connection with the original owner and he shared some of the hammer’s history with us. We knew we were dealing with a kindred spirit and an all around nice guy when we received the following email upon winning the auction:

“Hi, Thanks for buying my hammer. Although it has lain dormant for years in the bottom of my haul bag, I part with it with some emotion. I hope that you enjoy many years of use. If, heaven forbid, you break this second handle, through normal usage of course, send it back to me and I will replace the handle at no cost so that the hammer may continue on!”

We understood and respected the obvious attachment the owner had to his gear and really loved that he offered to fix it again if we ever broke the handle. That is a classy thing to do and shows a pride in workmanship that seems rare these days. We contacted him again and told him about our website and our goal to preserve our common history through the tools that made it possible. He graciously offered to provide the following account of his long history with this fine hammer:

“I bought this beautifully crafted Yosemite hammer in 1971, a time when tradition required all aspiring climbers to carry and use a hammer to place and remove pitons and to test the reliability of “fixed” pitons, those that had accidentally become irreversibly stuck in a crack or deliberately left in place to minimize crack scarring. I purchased the dolt holster several years later after discovering how clumsy my original leather holster was.

Loaded down with as much ironmongery as we could afford on our student budgets, my climbing partner and I headed west that same summer in the borrowed family station wagon for the mythical walls of Yosemite valley. We believed somewhat naively that, after only a couple months practicing on the 70′ walls of a limestone quarry in Bellefonte Pennsylvania, we ready for a big Yosemite grade VI and “racked for the Nose.”

Scratched initially by the granite of a two-day ascent of the north-face of Quarter Dome, our “warm-up” wall, the hammer pounded out a nearly 100% piton 4-day ascent of the Nose. Of course, it always went along on the many other shorter training climbs we clawed up during our month stay.

Subsequently used over the intervening years on other walls such as the Diamond, Cap Trinite (Quebec), NW-face of Half Dome, S-face Washington Column, Zodiac, and the Salathe Wall, the Hammer reinvented itself during the Golden-Age-of-Bolting in the 1990’s with the hand-drilled protection of many first ascents on the hard anorthosite of New York’s Adirondack crags.

I broke the original handle on the 2nd free ascent of the Adirondack climb Plate Tectonics, an terror-inspiring overhanging offwidth, when, after successfully using the hammer to place a home-made 7″-wide sliding dovetail wedge-chock of red oak at the crux section, I intentionally jettisoned the hammer as I squirmed up the crack. Unfortunately, the 150′ plummet generated enough force to cleanly sever the handle just below the head when it struck the rock ledge at the base of the climb. I replaced the handle with one from the local hardware store and made the handle rivet from a peened-over 10 penny nail.”

“Before you begin, never look up. After you start, never look down.”

Sincerely

Tim Beaman

 Mon, 4 May 2015

Thanks for the history Tim! We will take good care of it.