‘Hammer in – chop out’ was the way to place and remove these early forms of protection on ice. The problem was getting into a position safe enough to hammer one in, though once they were in to good ice they were ‘bomb proof’ as the saying goes.

Ice pitons started to appear in the 1930s, often made at home or by the local blacksmith.

The Austrian company, Stubai, saw a market so started making them in the 1950s and the ones we have here in the collection are from that time. Their reign as kings of the ice was short since the first ice screws appeared in the 1960s consigning these lumps of steel to history.