We can’t be 100% sure that this piton is made of titanium but it’s about half the weight of a similar steel one and it was given to its previous owner by Riccardo Cassin in the 1980s. Riccardo said it was an experimental titanium piton. The previous owner was our good friend Alex Gillespie, one time director of the outdoor equipment retailer Nevisport, who were the UK importers of Cassin gear back then. Riccardo came over for a visit in the 1980s and did a little deer stalking/poaching while he was here in Scotland.

The Russians had been making titanium ice screws for a while, and huge amounts of them appeared in Europe after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Experiments were made with rock pitons, mostly the thin versions like the one we have here, though it seems that titanium didn’t take too kindly to being hammered being rather brittle. We’re told the Russians still use them, and you can buy them in the markets of Kathmandu.