My Spectre vs. Your Spectre

[Paul_Warner]

Question for y'all: I've owned a Spectre "ice piton" for about four years, and only used it once, banged into a frozen soil/root ball on a thin mixed piece of choss in Montana, and clipped a "fixed" spectre on Red Man Soars a few years past. Does anyone else own and regularly carry an ice hook?Have you ever used it?

The testing data I've seen doesn't inspire much confidence in their holding power for a fall. I've seen it written that they make good "panic" pieces, but if you're that pumped, how easy is it to place? (I use both an ice hammer [left hand] and ice axe [right hand], so it seems like it would be hard to pound it in with the side of the adze. I qeuss that's a topic for another thread- "Two hammers or one of each?/Which hand?")

I'd really like to know other people's opinion/experience with these pieces.

Thanks

PW

[Paul_Warner]

BTW, the thread subject title is classic Bond, James Bond.

[Dru]

I find they are good in dirty cracks full of moss when winter alpine climbing below treeline or dry tooling around unformed pillars at Lillooet. BTW DMM ice hook costs $20 less than Spectre at MEC.

I think you have to be pretty desperate to place them in ice. But if you put them in your last pick hole at waist height and tap them wih the mammer they place real fast. putting them in a brand new placement with no starter hole, i have heard, can be a mistake.

[willstrickland]

Spectres, about as confidence inspiring as a new argentinian president. TG placed one in ice last Sat as a second piece with a tied-off screw...I cleaned the spectre with a half-assed tug on the sling. I think Wes mentioned (that day) that they work well in the top of a small bulge or shelf where you can drive the tip almost straight down.

[Dru]

when you forget all your rock gear at the car they work great as hand placed pieces in limestone cracks. from personal experience on Gibraltar wall.

[al]

Last year I tried hammering my Spectre in with my left hand (hammer hand) and found I was pretty lame. Since then I've switched hammer to right hand and adze to left. Your right about minimal fall protection. The fall testing they did on ice pro a couple years ago bore that out. I think most hooks failed at around 400 lbs load. I've thought that maybe it could serve to enhance an anchor system or your last screw.

[Dru]

think its mainly designed as a quick piece to dog on if you are pumped, or protect you while you place a screw, in situations where it is only holding body weight, not a fall. also could be used to lower off if you want to bail but ice is too crummy to make an abalakov or place a screw.

[gregm]

i once played around with a spectre on some serac ice. i could hang on it but it failed consistently when bounce testing.

[wdietsch]

They definatly can be funky to say the least and like Dru mentioned one of the mfg'rs (I think CM) originally marketed them only as a "rest" piece not a desperation piece. Personally I think the boys in Salt Lake kind of turned it into a "fish" story.

To Will's comment a few years back I was climbing with a buddy out at Vantage on Fug's Fall. At the top of the second (last pitch) my partner placed a Spectre in an old pick placment on a nice bulge below the mantle onto the final shelf. A fall would load the piece pretty much straight down, not much outward torque. Anyhow..... my buddy, now off the ice pitch, the climb basically done, thinking he was Greg Lowe or something decides to dry tool about a 10-12 foot vertical step that fades away at the top. About 6 feet above the shelf he's standing one foot on a 2" diameter sage brush growing out of a rotten, F#%&* ROTTEN, crack scratching for anything to tool on and the bush blows, he peels and ends up taking a 15 footer onto the Spectre and it held. The ice was thick, it was one of the best years out in the desert (winter 96-97), temps were in the 20's, my buddy came out with only a cut under his check from his tool

[wdietsch]

I would also be interested in hearing from anyone who has any experience with the "Platypus Crude Spade" units that Pika Mountaining make. A while back I think Mountain Gear was dumping them pretty cheap.

Wes