Clean Climbing - Rock Preservation

Rock Preservation

Drilled and hammered equipment such as bolts, pitons, copperheads and others scar rock permanently. Various protection devices became widely available around 1970, which were far less likely to damage rock and much faster and easier to install, when used sensibly. Such "clean" gear, as of contemporary times, now include spring-loaded camming devices, nuts and chocks, and slings, for hitching natural features.

Contemporary alternatives to pitons, formerly called "clean climbing gear," have made most routes safer and easier to protect, and have greatly contributed to a remarkable increase in the standards of difficulty notable since about 1970. Pitons are now regarded as highly specialized equipment, needed by a small minority of climbers interested in routes of peculiar difficulty.

Even clean gear can damage rock, if the rock is very soft or if the hardware is impacted with substantial force. A falling climber's energy can drive a camming device's lobes outward with great force. This can carve grooves into the rock's surface, or, if the cam is in a crack behind a flake, the expansion can loosen the flake and eventually (or suddenly) split it off. Wedges (nuts) can also be forced into a crack much harder than the leader intended, and cracks have been damaged as cleaners try to chisel or pull stuck nuts out of their constrictions. In very soft rock, nuts and cams both can blow right through the rock and out of their placements, even with forces as small as those generated by tugging to "set" the piece. Although hooks are often categorized as clean, they easily damage soft rock and can even damage granite.