The Scottish Mountain Heritage Collection
1268.2015.1
Forrest Titons and Chimney Chock
29/09/2015
Hermione Cooper
29/09/2015
Two T shaped Forrest Titons and a Chimney Chock
aluminium
a - 8.5(l) x 5 (h) b - 12.5(l) x 5(h) c- 17(l) x 5(h) cms
3
Forrest tree logo and sizes "10" "9" "13"
silver
Forrest
USA
A wee departure from our Scottish Heritage here as we head across the pond to check out these Forrest Mountaineering Titons and the much rarer chimney chock - that's the big one at the top of the picture.
American climber/ mountaineer Bill Forrest started his business in Denver, Colorado way back in 1968 and a plethora of innovative ideas followed over the following decades - there are several more Forrest Mountaineering items elsewhere in the collection.
Bill developed the Titon in 1973 with Chris Walker and while we only have two here in the collection there seems to have been 20 in a full set. We're not sure if there were more chimney chocks.
The Titons and Chocks were designed to wedge across cracks and fissures in the rocks at a time when protection in rock climbing was only just moving on from an era of chockstones and sling and when pitons were still king.
Very few of these items made their way over to the UK, so we are not sure how well used, or successful they were. We do know that Bill and inventor of the 'friend', Ray Jardine, worked together which is interesting as Friends and various other camming devices would ultimately consign Bill's Titons to the history books, or in this case the heritage collection!
Thanks to our fellow collector, Art McCarthy, over in California, for sending these little pieces of rock climbing history.
Donated by Art McCarthy
29/09/2015
29/09/2015
Spectrum : UK Museum documentation standard, V.3.1 2007
29/09/2015