At the start it was just Dieter and myself that consistantly went out to try new routes, tecniques, and equipment. Right away we found that a lot of the equipment that the rest of the world was using did not work very well with the sandstone/conglomerate that was in the Gorge. I reluctantly brought out the bolting equipment that we used in caving and we gave it a trial.
There's a particular face on Tower where a lot of new climbers felt unsafe. (Looking back, we now laugh at how easy it was!) It is about 40' up on the cavers route. We decided to put a bolt there. To our horror, it stuck out like a sore thumb. We decided we had to do something to improve the looks of it; clean climbing was all the rage then.
I was a Mechanical Designer for IBM and had some tool and die design experience under my belt so I set about, with Dieter's imput to design a bolt hanger that could be removed from the bolt head and thus be almost invisible from the untrained eye. We did design such a hanger and pooled our money to have 20 or so made. It had a unique upside down "keyhole" slot in it with a shallow bend in it. One could pass the large diameter of the slot over the head of the bolt and then pass the smaller end of the slot onto the shank of the bolt. Once a carabiner was passed through the larger opening, the hanger could not be removed. (I believe there is another keyhole hanger at the top of the layback just around the corner on Tower.) The rest are gone. We never did patent the idea.
A couple of other inventions came out of the group. Bill Rogers came up with an idea for long rappels where the weight of the rope caused too much friction at the top to make a descent. He devised a steel rod, with a welded loop in one end to fasten into a swami belt and bent in a series of "S" curves (6 or so) so that one could add in another "wrap" as increased friction as needed the further down the rope you got. We later saw a copy of his device in prominent climbing/caving magazines. Again, never patented.
History of the Cumberland Climbers, Part 4
i have climbed on what we called "naked" bolts, which were bolts that you slid a removable hanger on just like you talked about. i climbed on them in NZ about 7 years ago but when i was there last year most of them had been replaced. just thought you'd like to know that others had a similar idea and that it worked well
Sand inhibits the production of toughtosterone, so get it out and send.