We had a single, rather rusty, Stubai piton listed here initially, so we’ve tidied him up a bit and found a couple of pals for company. Stubai began making gear for mountaineers way back in the 1800s. Formed from a group of Austrian blacksmiths and based in a valley of the same name, they were prolific producers of pitons along with the iconic Aschenbrenner ice-axe. Just about every mountaineer in the UK had a Stubai axe back in the 1950s/60s, and most climbers had a jangle of Stubai pitons along with a Stubai hammer.

George Fisher is calling these guys ‘Verticals’ in his 1960s equipment catalogue above, though they were often referred to as ‘Blades’. We don’t have a record of where these fellas came from, though we think they date from the 1950s, maybe a little earlier. Pitons were pretty much consigned to history in the 1970s/80s with the arrival of various other forms of protection: nuts, chocs, wedges, Hexagonals, Friends etc. The fabulous cartoon above depicts the triumph of nut over piton.