RRC Archives

Rawl 5 Piece looks like the best thing to use in the Red. It can be easily removed in the future for replacement utilizing the same hole. The latest hardware needs to be replaced, approximately, every thirty years. I have also found some ideas for drilling out the old bolt but, what a bitch that would be.

An idea for removing old bolts
http://www.drillcogroup.com/removal.html

Here is ASCA/Chris McNamara's web site for replacing bolts.
http://www.safeclimbing.com/info.html

Replacing bolts
http://www.safeclimbing.com/info.html#how-to

try placeing a thin piece of wood under the head of the crow-bar. this will protect the rock while you are prying out the old bolt. you can place thicker pieces of wood as you get the bolt to start coming out. you will need more than one piece of wood for this because the wood gets crushed rather quickly.

make sure the 5 pieces you use are stainless, not all rawl 5 pieces are stainless. Unfortunately, the SS are way more expensive but will last a lot longer

What do you guys think about glue ins?

In the long run, it does seem that old bolt holes/studs can get ugly - but I'd rather that replacing bad bolts and putting up more good routes be the top priorities. As time goes on, it would be great to have people focus on patching the old bolt holes, but, personally, I don't see it as a current top priority.

My current beef with bolting is the number of non-redundant anchors. For instance, think of the routes that have two bolts, one higher than the other, each with a section of chain, but they meet at only one quicklink. When you thread the rope to get off the route, you can only thread through the one link. I don't care how huge and fat that link may be. It seems critical to me to have two independent (thus, redundant) anchors!

Um, so you are saying that you are afraid of lowering off of a quick link that is rated to over 3,000 pounds? Man, go look at all the other "single" point of failures in your climbing system, and tell me that the quick link is the weakest. Those things are super strong. But, if you fell the need, be sure to back it up with some webbing and another couple biners. I will then be sure to score more booty.

You can use two draws to TR with no problem.

Wes

The rope you are on is a single point and has prolly been fallen on and weighted repeatedly on those sport routes and now its all mushy about 6 ft from each end.

I'm fine with TRing off of multiple draws, I just hate lowering off of any one piece of gear - even the fat-as-hell steel quick links. They've been sitting out there for who knows how long, and a lot of them are a bit worn through. For me it's about having a system that fails well - with multiple, redundant elements, any one can fail and there will be a backup. I know that those huge quicklinks are much stronger than they'll ever be loaded, but at the same time, I know that 1 in x of them will fail at low loads, I'd rather drastically improve the odds by having 2 of them.

As for all the other single points of failure in the system - I wish they weren't so 'single' (like the belay device and biner). But in contrast to some random quicklink that's been sitting around for years being chewed on by chipmunks (!) and hit by lightning (!!!), I trust that people take care of their belay gear.

I do lower off single quicklinks, I just don't like it.

I think I will be able to help with bolts pretty soon. Well, actually, since I know nothing about bolting, I thought I would take care of the clean up etc...
For instance, if someone cuts a bolts and replaces with a new one, I'd go get some gel-coat (epoxy, or similar) and touch up the existing cut bolt. That would add a little to the beauty of the red.
Just a thought.

I'm afraid I've had a rather pessimistic thought: how long until this discussion gets thrown in our faces by 'anti-climbers'? "The climbers drill huge holes in the rock and leave giant bars of rusting metal, then repeat the process - scarring the rock! All over the Gorge!"

(Never mind, of course, that most people can't see bolts from the ground, and certainly can't see the old bolt holes. That would be 'reality' creeping into things, which would be just silly)