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General Climbing Discussion

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Rock and Ice: Bolting guide 9-Jun-2012 At 7:58:35 PM Olbert

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I found on the whole bolting in America to be pretty terrible - in the type of bolts and the way they bolted. At many of the older areas which have bolted and 'sport' routes, the only acceptable bolting method is ground up - meaning people place the bolts where they can rather than where they need to be. This effected places such as the Joshua Tree, Yosemite, the Gunks to name the ones I remember.

The second thing is that there are very few places which use glue-ins despite there being a multitude of examples of shitty rock with shitty fixed hangers. Indian Creek, Red Rocks, Red River Gorge (though clearly that's changing) and probably dozens of other sandstone crags I didn't visit had loose fixed hangers placed next to not that old fixed hanger holes.

In soft sandstone (and I mean soft! Red Rocks and Indian Creek are so soft that there are deep (~1-2inch) wear ruts from people toproping in the rock!) mechanical bolts grind out the rock over time and become loose. They have to be continually tightened and eventually they reach the end of their thread and can't be tightened any more. They then replace the loose bolt with another mechanical bolt for the process to begin all over again.

I remember climbing on routes in Red Rocks that had almost every single bolt loose, and not having a spanner, I tightened them by hand (not a confidence building experience) and these were otherwise brand new shiny hardware!

All the loose fixed hanger problems are so easily fixed by glue ins - they just don't use them. ...well clearly they are slowly starting to use them at some places

[end rant]