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In climbing, a piton is a steel spike that is driven into a crack or seam in the rock with a hammer, and which acts as an anchor to protect the climber against the consequences of a fall, or to assist progress in aid climbing.
Pitons were the original equipment for protection and there are still times when nothing else will do. But the repeated hammering and extraction of pitons damages the rock, and climbers who subscribe to the ethic of clean climbing eschew their use.
The smallest pitons are called knifeblades; medium pitons are angles; the largest pitons are bongs.
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