Official Rebolting and Route Hardware suggestion thread

[JC w KC redux]

When we talked to Bruce and Clint on Tuesday, Bruce regaled me with tales of Daedalus. It took them 5 trips to get the whole route done. There is now an aid ladder at the start, where the tree died and fell over a few years back. The 4 bolt aid ladder was added with the permission of the FA party.

[NOAL]

Hey JC, thought you might get a kick out of this.  Just think if you ever move to Colorado all the Beyer routes you could re-bolt!  Maybe he will visit Pinnacles again....https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/116842150/really-jim

[JC w KC redux]

Hey JC, thought you might get a kick out of this.  Just think if you ever move to Colorado all the Beyer routes you could re-bolt!  Maybe he will visit Pinnacles again....https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/116842150/really-jim

Funny dude.
Let the Beyer beware 

[NOAL]

I must say the use of chain is very resourceful or maybe just plain thrifty.

[F4?]

Ha I saw that in Africa at a sport climbing place. There, bolts and hangers are $$, so it makes sense.

Plus you can fix the worn links.

[JC w KC redux]

I've seen a few anchors set up that way in the Alabama Hills.

[F4?]

Could be worse!!

[JC w KC redux]

Could be worse!!

I've replaced worse at Pinns by Beyer.
Atlas Shrugs had star dryvins that were partially driven, bent, smashed, cut-off nails.
Stuff that makes you shiver.
I could post some pics but I'd rather not waste what little free space I have left on Flikr.

[F4?]

Agree, not worth the effort, just move forward.

[Dirt Goblin]

Cataract Corner on the Monolith has some heavily rusted bolts. I heard about this forum and thought I'd spread the finding. Unfortunately, I did not have any means to take a picture to post here. The bolts are worse higher up. As it stands I'd be a little nervous taking a whiper on some of these.

Any plans to replace these?

[F4?]

I’d be down for helping out replacing the bolts.

[JC w KC redux]

Please excuse me but I know nothing of that climb other than what I can find in the guidebooks.

I looked up the FA and the bolt pattern on the topo.

Carville did the FA 33 years ago. Not absolutely sure what type of bolts he used but Rubine says they are 3/8 wedges. Unfortunately, I don't have the correct tools for pulling wedges (if that is indeed what he used). I have found that some of Rubine's info is incorrect with regard to hardware. I'd have to inspect them myself. I don't have a spinner tool for removing wedges (so the holes can be reused) and I would not be comfortable moving any of the bolt locations on a climb that difficult.

At 33 years old, the strength should not be compromised. Bruce and Dan have tested 30 year old bolts and they were just a hair below original specs. I'll bet the rust you are seeing is mainly the nut and washer.
Carville probably used carbon steel bolts on stainless hangers. The rust is likely only superficial (even though it looks bad).
Bruce and Clint went over stuff at the Monolith a couple years ago and didn't raise any red flags.

It also looks like the climb is well protected (cruxes right after the bolts) and the bolt spacing doesn't look far enough to take a whipper.

Let's wait and see if Gavin or Brad will chime in. Gavin is probably working and Brad is out climbing (not at Pinns).  

[F4?]

I say glue ins and be done with it!

[JC w KC redux]

I say glue ins and be done with it!

Above my pay grade.
It's all yours brother!

[JC w KC redux]

I did some work on Lichen to Lead yesterday - first lead bolt and summit anchor.
Here is the first lead bolt that people have been using for years as a backup to the belay position for Tilting Terrace and all the surrounding climbs. From the outside it looks like a 5 piece bolt but there are no ridges on the bolt head (carbon bolts normally have 3 ridges oriented like spokes). Unscrew it and poof - the truth is revealed. It is a 3/8 drop in anchor. The bolt shaft is a 1/2 inch long with about 1/4 inch of that length actually screwed into the insert. The hanger was homemade angle iron that looked beefier than a Leeper. I removed one of these bolts off Osiris a few years ago. I've removed several others that were allen screws in similar inserts at various anchors. The inserts are virtually impossible to remove without making a mess of the rock so there is no re-using the hole. I'll have to go back to Lichen to Lead and apply some patch material to the insert (I forgot mine yesterday).
In the interim, there is a nice new replacement bolt with a Petzl hanger. 

[squiddo]

It is a 3/8 drop in anchor. The bolt shaft is a 1/2 inch long with about 1/4 inch of that length actually screwed into the insert. The hanger was homemade angle iron that looked beefier than a Leeper.

MAN...my soul just died a little. Brad and I saw a couple doozies this past weekend. The highlight was two open cold shuts, each with a 5/8" split shaft button head directly into the shut. Maybe 3/4" into the hole. NO THANKS

[Brad Young]

Nice work, as usual.

Not worth its own thread, but I'd like to drop a few words about the small Lake Tahoe/I-80 corridor crags that Squiddo and I climbed on last Friday and Saturday. To say the least it could use a few days of careful and intelligent attention like you give Pinnacles.

By way of old bolts there that need replacement:

-  A 5.10a crack that ends at two un-welded, extremely rusty coldshuts that are of 3/8 inch diameter rod stock. These are bolted to the rock with 1 1/4 inch long, 5/16 inch buttonhead bolts. So all of 7/8 of an inch of each bolt is in the rock.

-  In two places, groupings of three 1/4 inch bolts as top anchors. In each case all the bolts used Leeper and/or thin SMC hangers (I backed up the one such anchor that we used with gear in a crack 10 feet behind the bolts).

-  Several routes on which the runout, crux moves are protected by old and rusty 5/16 inch buttonheads. Funny that we used to see these as such an improvement over quarter inchers (that death from a broken one in the Owens River Gorge, combined with the really bad fall in Josh from one that pulled out 15 years ago kinda changed my mind on these).

Even worse though are some of the attempted reboltings that we saw:

-  A rebolted top anchor that used gorgeous Fixe-looking all-modern stainless steel hardware. Neither bolt showed any threads though (so someone put them in too far). Worse, the replacer put both bolts at the same height while equipping one with a ring hanger and the other with chain to a ring (leaving the two rap rings about eight inches different in height!).

-  An old top anchor of two quarter inch bolts that someone (maybe more than one) had worked on. The first rebolter left both quarter-inchers in and simply threw in a 3/8 inch carbon steel bolt between them. Then someone, presumably not liking carbon steel, put in a 3/8 inch stainless bolt six inches lower, still not removing either of the old bolts, and simply unscrewing the 3/8 inch carbon bolt while leaving the sleeves and hole in place (thus making a good argument against lazy dummies being allowed to own or even used a motorized drill).

To say the least, these people could use some J.C. lessons about workmanship.

[Brad Young]

And there's an example of great minds thinking alike....

[Brad Young]

MAN...my soul just died a little. Brad and I saw a couple doozies this past weekend. The highlight was two open cold shuts, each with a 5/8" split shaft button head directly into the shut. Maybe 3/4" into the hole. NO THANKS

Obviously Squiddo meant 5/16 inch, not 5/8 inch (he kept saying it wrong too, each time we talked about that type of bolt). Dude's getting old 

[squiddo]

Obviously Squiddo meant 5/16 inch, not 5/8 inch (he kept saying it wrong too, each time we talked about that type of bolt). Dude's getting old 

And you kept correcting me. Also, you are still older.

Reminder to always bring my bolt kit out to the crags. Even a
Hand drill