“Where is the line between chiseling and silver-lining a failed attempt at a beak tip?”
So the small seam on my Blood and Coin route (“Sansa’s Folly” pitch) were barely there, just small holes in the seam that a #1 pecker would sometimes fit and sometimes not. When it wouldn’t fit I decided to rivet rather than chisel a head. Later on after talking to Mucci and rapping past the section over and over I realized that the holes left behind that wouldn’t accept the pecker (and fucked up my beak tips) were ready-made chiseled placements for #0 or #1 heads. Maybe not the best for bigger climbers, but for skinny climbers like me, this could be something to prevent unneeded holes without resorting to intentional chiseling of the rock.
Thus, one can come across a small seam with the intent to place #1 beak tips, if the beak tip goes in, awesome, get some monkey! if the seam rejects the beak tip, you’ll be able to gingerly place a #0 or #1 head in the placement, move up on this head and go for the next beak tip.
Does it work? I was able to test this out on an abandoned project from last year and yes, it does work, but it’s tenuous and I would not suggest a climber over 140 lbs try it unless they’re climbing without a heavy rack.
Here’s an archived Bigwalls.net forum thread that discussed the ethics of such a process on a wall.
