We don’t think there is a collective noun for a group of pitons and ice screws so we might suggest a ‘jangle’ for this fabulous mixture of ice pitons, ice screws and a rock piton which we have kept together since that’s how they arrived.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a note of who donated them…thanks in absentia.

Held together with a piton ring, these would have been in the armoury of a 1960s ice climber as he/she hacked their way up an ice wall or gully. They demonstrate very nicely the transitory nature of the times with the long drive in ice pitons of earlier decades slowly being replaced by the first ice-screws to hit the market, all made by the Austrian company, Stubai, who were way ahead of the field at this time. A mint condition rock piton completes the ‘jangle’ fit for an ice king or queen.