Wart Hog Ice Piton

Original Vintage Chouinard Wart Hog Ice Piton

Warthog - drive in, screw out, ice pitons. P shaped. Wedged point.

Seems that fat, spiral toothed pitons first appeared on the mass alpine meets of the Soviet Union in the 1960’s when Russian mountaineers had little choice then but to use them since they were the only ones the state provided.
A Czech climber called Milan Doubek later produced some slimmer carbon steel versions which could be driven in and screwed out. Herman Huber of Salewa then took on the task of producing them commercially, though they were not a big seller, no doubt calling them SpiralZhanHaken - spiral toothed piton didn’t help. American mountaineer and equipment manufacturer, Yvon Chouinard, got in on the act around 1974/5 producing a more refined version and creating the name we now use, Warthog.
Wart Hogs ( subsequently Warthogs)were popular with Scottish winter climbers as they could be ‘wellied’ into cracks, frozen turf, rotten ice and occasionally, good ice! This led a guy called Hugh McNicol to produce a Scottish Warthog in his Mountain Engineering Company in Glasgow. They were not a success. He did produce a better version later on, some of which are still available in 2020 - probably the last, so get one quickly!
N.B. Warthogs have never received the UIAA safety approved certificate - one reason being that there is no international standard for frozen turf to test them on!

Condition: New
Weight: 0.127gr.
Lenght 190 mm

Made in USA