Loose bolt on The Rising at Muir Valley

[Guest]

Climb trad, or give thanks that someone donated the money and time to set up the route in the first place. A simple email to any of the route setters to notify them is sufficient. Insulting the route setters by claiming that people are going to get hurt on their routes gets nothing done besides spreading panic.

I for one am grateful for all the hard work, time, and finances donated to those that are developing Muir Valley.

Explain to me how an immediate public notification of a very clear and present danger is insulting. This is a public notification by Terry Kindred "route setter" and fixer of routes: If anyone anywhere at anytime finds a loose bolt on a Team Suck route feel free to tighten it if you are in possession of this basic skill, if not, find someone who is. If all that fails make a public statement. I, nor any of my fellow "route setters" will be insulted.

Terry Kindred

Terry, would you find this insulting?:
"The guys that equipped that route suck. They are pansies so they added extra bolts." (exact quote from page 1)

I would. My whole point was just as I posted it, but I guess it was misinterpreted. A simple message stating the problem to the route setter avoids all this feces spewing.


...back to your regularly scheduled pissing match... (further proving my point)

oh I wish you could see the irony here... Solomon was just trolling. I'll leave it at that. Damn admin ethics!

Trust me, it's funny.

[Guest]

Toad, please don't protect my feelings. Okay?

[SCIN]

Public Service Announcement:
Rock Climbing can be dangerous

My friend from Germany laughs about the petty arguments concerning bolt jobs, etc. He climbs in Frankenjura where you are lucky to not have a chance of decking while clipping the anchors. Plus there are about 1000 times more lines in the hard (5.13-5.14) range than here.

I think we should remove half the bolts from each line in the Red to make things more exciting. Imagine how cool you would feel if each line you sent on a weekend involved the threat of groundfall? We could start speaking in British accents and calling this place Red River Grit.

[weber]

My first post didn't seem to go through, so here's another try at it. If this dual posts, I'll remove the duplicate. Sorry.

Now low and behold the Weber’s have been beyond accommodating to allow us to climb on their amazing piece of property and unsafe situations are popping up all over the place.

I would ask posters to this forum to keep matters in perspective. I don't believe that unsafe situations are "popping up all over the place" at Muir Valley.

There are approximately 2400 bolted hanger brackets in Muir Valley on over 300 routes. We occasionally find loose bolts and we fix them. Others find loose bolts elsewhere in the region and they fix them. Bolts do not loosen because they were improperly installed. They loosen because the crumbling crap they are affixed to abrades away when we fall and torque the hangers. The more falls we take, the more the bolts loosen. The loose bolt reported that started this thread has seen a huge number of hangs and falls. It will soon be replaced with a FIXE 5.5-inch glue-in.

We at Muir Valley, NEVER EVER purposely make things dangerous for you down here. Any of you who are aware our testing of sandstone anchors know we are doing everything possible to reduce risk. But we can never completely remove it. If you don't want to accept the danger and take appropriate steps to mitigate the risk, then please stay the off the cliffs

Again, a huge THANK YOU to all of you who recognize the need to pull routine maintenance on fixed hardware in the RRG and put out tireless effort to do so.

Rick

[alien2]

It's the climbers taking falls be it voluntarily or not that are causing unsafe situations to pop up all over the place. They know when they have loosened a bolt and by not fixing it or notifying someone who can and will fix it, they are the ones to blame. That means just about everyone who has taken a fall is responsible.

[weber]

Public Service Announcement:
Rock Climbing can be dangerous

My friend from Germany laughs about the petty arguments concerning bolt jobs, etc. He climbs in Frankenjura where you are lucky to not have a chance of decking while clipping the anchors. Plus there are about 1000 times more lines in the hard (5.13-5.14) range than here.

I think we should remove half the bolts from each line in the Red to make things more exciting. Imagine how cool you would feel if each line you sent on a weekend involved the threat of groundfall? We could start speaking in British accents and calling this place Red River Grit.

Last Friday, Barry Brolley and I rapped off the summit of Castleton Tower in Utah. 400+ feet up on a flimsy anchor that included a quarter inch bolt - uh, make that some kind of rusty iron widget - holding a castoff Porter Jarard bedframe hanger spinning in the breeze. Comparatively, any top anchor in the Red is an "OSHA-approved bomber." And, the Kor Ingles line we climbed is not some obscure choss pile. It's listed in the Top 50 Classic US climbs.

Perhaps new climbers coming out of the gym expect a higher degree of safety than this KY brown sugar can offer. Everyone has a choice of the level of risk they wish to accept. No one is kicking us up a wall of rock. It makes no difference in principle whether we choose to trust a scary wire placement or a bolted hanger bracket. The choice to trust or not to trust is solely ours to make in this sport.

All those I know who attach hardware to RRG rock do so very conscientiously, but they and the rock itself are not infallible.

Rick

[Artsay]

Well said, Rick.

[weber]

Speaking of risk level, Barry and I found ourselves in the company of Dean Potter and Steph Davis on Castleton Tower. Dean showed us his ultra fast descent technique. Just run like a screaming banshee and take a freakin' leap off the summit... with a penta parachute of course. Almost to the parking lot in under a minute.

Rick

[Yasmeen]

LOL! That's awesome! I wish I could've been there to see it! Did Steph get stuck carrying all the gear down? So much for chivalry.

[weber]

LOL! That's awesome! I wish I could've been there to see it! Did Steph get stuck carrying all the gear down? So much for chivalry.

Yep. In fairness to Dean, he provided others with excellent beta in that @#$%^& climber-eating 3rd-pitch chimney. And, he offered a coat to a chilled climber and food to one of our party. A real gentleman.

Rick