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I say hang on the pin, and have your belayer send up the drill. I'll place a new stainless bolt for you.

Piggy, that truly made me bust out laughing. I think all the players have weighed in, so here's my solution....

Grab a larger stopper, one with a nice beefy wire. Hold it vertically, nut at the top, swage near the bottom. Slide the nut down a few inches. Push the loop created up through the eye of the pin. Clip a biner into this loop and pull it down so that it is held tight against the eye. Slide the nut up against the pin if you like. Clip a draw to the bottom loop. What you end up with is a nice strong loop of wire trying to pull a carabiner through the eye of a piton. Ain't gonna happen. The wire is in it's normal orientation, no funny loads, no cross-loaded biners. Most likely you'd only crimp the wire somewhat if you fell on it, at worst you'd break a strand or two. If that happens toss it.

What got me thinking about this was seeing leaders slide the nut down, push the wire through the eye, then bend the wire over and clip one end of a draw into the two loops. As soon as they let go the wires would spring back, the binner would be held between the two loops of the wire so that the webbing could easily cross-load the gate. Not good.

Does this make sense?

You run it out and are thankful that if you blow the exit moves you'll land in a snowbank since Eldo is under 3ft. of snow right now.

Sounds more efficient and better than my solution.

L K Day wrote:Grab a larger stopper, one with a nice beefy wire. Hold it vertically, nut at the top, swage near the bottom. Slide the nut down a few inches. Push the loop created up through the eye of the pin. Clip a biner into this loop and pull it down so that it is held tight against the eye. Slide the nut up against the pin if you like. Clip a draw to the bottom loop. What you end up with is a nice strong loop of wire trying to pull a carabiner through the eye of a piton. Ain't gonna happen. The wire is in it's normal orientation, no funny loads, no cross-loaded biners. Most likely you'd only crimp the wire somewhat if you fell on it, at worst you'd break a strand or two. If that happens toss it.

I see a potential problem with sliding the nut back against the pin. If the nut was to remain pinned against the pin (no pun intended) during loading, this would generate more torque on the pin since the load is offset perpendicular to the pin by probably an inch with a large nut. Thoughts?

The sliding nut moves too easy to keep it perpindicular, but yes the wire will be bent. It's still the best option.

Maybe I didn't describe my solution right, or give enough details. The crack is vertical. So the load will be more or less straight down through the eye of the pin. The only offset would be due to the pin flexing. Even if the wire is bent a bit the nut will slide back up over this spot. The orientation of the wired piece is just as if it was placed in a crack normally. Slide the nut down. Stick the top couple of inches up through the eye of the pin. Clip a single biner through this. Pull down so that the biner stops at the eye. Then clip your draw into the bottom (normal spot) on the wire.

Just to make sure, this solution requires two hands, right? You have to hold the wire in place while clipping the biner onto the end that was slipped through the eye?

Day wrote:Maybe I didn't describe my solution right, or give enough details. The crack is vertical. So the load will be more or less straight down through the eye of the pin. The only offset would be due to the pin flexing. Even if the wire is bent a bit the nut will slide back up over this spot. The orientation of the wired piece is just as if it was placed in a crack normally. Slide the nut down. Stick the top couple of inches up through the eye of the pin. Clip a single biner through this. Pull down so that the biner stops at the eye. Then clip your draw into the bottom (normal spot) on the wire.

Okay, for some reason I thought the eyeopening was 90 degrees off what you just discribed. I understand the orientation more clearly now.

What I don't understand from what you have explained then, is why you cannot just slot a large nut through the eye?

From your response to goodguys post, you described the nut slotted through the eye upside down. I believe he was discribing the nut slotted in its normal orientation.

I suppose if you could not get the swage through the eye, then your solution makes sense.