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Worthy to read and to ponder....

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practical jokes belong on private land. anyone seen windy corner in a while????

I have read that glue is really strong. Pig? you know anything about it?

The reference to Torrent is right on. Read that letter from the Head Ranger. There is no reason given for his suspention of bolting/bolt replacement. At least from the letter, it seems to be a great example of someone taking an incident as an excuse to do something he probably wanted to do anyway.

My point is that people create "thin ice" situations to do what they wanted to do regardless, then wait for the slightest fart or sneeze to then claim that "the ice has cracked - see what you made me do?"

Yeah, glue works pretty well. Too bad it's getting a bad rap from the reckless prank played in the NRG.

A couple pix here of ongoing testing of JTitt glue-in bolts in side-by-side comparisons with Powers expansion bolt/Fixe hanger bracket configs.

A few interesting results. This particular set of tests was done in a hunk of rock many developers would call “choss.â€

most retirees are breakin' balls - Rick's breakin bolts.

tomdarch wrote:The reference to Torrent is right on. Read that letter from the Head Ranger. There is no reason given for his suspention of bolting/bolt replacement. At least from the letter, it seems to be a great example of someone taking an incident as an excuse to do something he probably wanted to do anyway.

My point is that people create "thin ice" situations to do what they wanted to do regardless, then wait for the slightest fart or sneeze to then claim that "the ice has cracked - see what you made me do?"

I met the NRG ranger, Mr. Hartley, at the National Climbing Management Summit earlier this year and he did not seem like the type of person that would have a hidden agenda to spring on climbers at the slightest sneeze. Instead what I think we are seeing hear is a CYA move. The ranger here is acting with concern of how his superiors will view his response. His action is couched in terms of his superiors, "I have asked the Superintendent to suspend the blanket permit for bolt replacement." His reason is given, "The National Park Service considers visitor safety a priority and we must err on the side of caution." I know that still sounds lame from a climber standpoint, however, an NPS attorney from DC Headquarters was also at the NCMS and I did get the impression from her that the NPS is very thorough on covering all legal aspects of their responsibilities.

What should be of concern for all climbers is precedents set from incidents like this. Through the NCMS, the Access Fund was encouraging land managers to treat their approach to regulating climbing in a more consistent manner. At the same time climbers have been trying to further the idea that we are a self-regulating community that requires minimal manager oversight. Incidents like these fake bolts and the Dean Potter Arches incident, driven from personal agendas, give the climbing community a black eye and make land managers doubt that climbers can in fact police themselves.

Even from any bizzaro-world bureaucratic viewpoint, I still don't see how suspending bolt replacement relates to their "priority" placed on "visitor safety". In fact, the suspension allows potentially dangerous bolts to remain in place, further endagering "visitors". I'm not saying that Mr. Hartley isn't claiming to have given 'a reason' for his action, I'm saying that his 'reason' doesn't relate to the action, and is thus, crap.

One might argue that suspending "the blanket permit" would have somehow interfered with the 'pranksters' adding fake bolts to a route. But given that they were not out there with crowbars and drills, they still could have quickly glued the hangers onto the rock face without being noticed - I assume they did the gluing 'covertly' anyway. I don't see how suspending bolt replacement could be seen as anything other than a short-sighted, punitive action against climbers, even by Hartley's bureaucratic superiors.

Suspending bolt replacement is going to improve climber safety about as much as placing our little bottles of liquid in ziplock baggies at the airport will prevent a terrorist attack.

(I think it almost goes without saying that the 'prank' was astoundingly stupid, and that, yes, climbers really do need to think about how our actions will be interpreted - or, more specifically, over-reacted to and misinterpreted.)

Tom, your problem is that you use logic, and the most of the rest of the world doesn't. You are going to have a frustrating life.