SummitPost.org

Rocker Paully wrote:I guess the main thought I'm trying to invoke is: when is it okay to badly scar the rock for the sake of climbing it?

Paully, IMHO ..... This is chipping. So to answer your Q, never.

gk

Over on the Taco..... I read some credible reports that the deadly climb known as "Double Cross 5.7" PG has been, in the interests of common safety, BOLTED......

We are on a mission, today, to remove the atrocity.

No power removal tools will be used.

Who wishes to join me?

Hidden Valley parking lot 12/30/09 at hi noon....

Happy New Year.

tell me this is a joke. i don't believe until i see it!

Guyzo wrote:Over on the Taco..... I read some credible reports that the deadly climb known as "Double Cross 5.7" PG has been, in the interests of common safety, BOLTED......

We are on a mission, today, to remove the atrocity.

No power removal tools will be used.

Who wishes to join me?

Hidden Valley parking lot 12/30/09 at hi noon....

Happy New Year.

Cool. In the coming weeks, I might be doing something similar in a Death Valley canyon. This canyon has natural anchor possibilities at every rappel, and we have descended the canyon using those methods, so the bolts aren't necessary. They were placed a few years back by another party.

I have had some difficulty completely removing bolts in the past, because, of course, they're not designed to be removed, at least not the ones I've attacked. So does anyone here feel like describing how this is done? We also don't plan to bring any power tools, but I suppose I could if I actually knew what to do with it. In these canyons, there is nobody else around for miles, so the only people that would hear a power tool are those in our group. And we don't care about the sound because we would be the ones using it.

The appropriate removal technique depends mostly on the type of bolt used. The kind of rock and quality of placement matter also, but in order to know what tools will do a clean job you have to know what kind of bolts were used.

Some can be disassembled and removed easily, some can be pried out with a "tuning fork" type tool, some are nearly impossible to pull without scarring up the rock badly. In my experience a material called "instacrete" works well for patching the old holes, or mix some local crushed rock into epoxy putty.

My tuning fork for 1/4 & 5/16 inch bolts:



Got a close up picture?

Seems pretty lame setting uneeded fixed anchors in a wilderness canyon. PM me if you can id or photograph the bolts.

ksolem wrote:The appropriate removal technique depends mostly on the type of bolt used. The kind of rock and quality of placement matter also, but in order to know what tools will do a clean job you have to know what kind of bolts were used.

Some can be disassembled and removed easily, some can be pried out with a "tuning fork" type tool, some are nearly impossible to pull without scarring up the rock badly. In my experience a material called "instacrete" works well for patching the old holes, or mix some local crushed rock into epoxy putty.

My tuning fork for 1/4 & 5/16 inch bolts:



Got a close up picture?

Seems pretty lame setting uneeded fixed anchors in a wilderness canyon. PM me if you can id or photograph the bolts.

Here is a photo of one set of bolts. Note the two different types:

http://www.rickkent.net/ViewerPlus/viewphoto.aspx?ID=91606

There is no way to link a medium-size photo, as the medium-size jpegs on Rick's site are transient images, so I have to just link the page. Click on the photo to see the original size which is much larger.

Obviously, more of the bolt becomes apparent once the hanger is removed, but the above is the best photo he's got of those. The hangers weren't removed until a year later, when I joined him for that same canyon, and we started our bolt-removal "mission" there. We presumably had to spend some work and time creating the usual cairn anchor to use, before thinking about bothering to remove the existing bolt anchor.

Ironically, with that hard metamorphic rock, it likely takes more time and work to drill a good bolt hole than it does to gather some large boulders into a pile. Usually some rocks are available. They're often a LOT of work to get into place, but they're available, unlike some of those rappels in Utah slot canyons.

Here are a couple of my photos from the same canyon:





Even after removing the hanger, a bolt is still mostly hidden in the rock, so you can't see it all in a photo, but we couldn't see any more in person either. My close-up shows the most you're going to see. I would have taken close-ups of the other bolts if I knew I would need the shots for this purpose. At least I got SOME photos.


By the way, bolts are not the only metal that has found its way into this particular canyon:
http://www.rickkent.net/ViewerPlus/viewphoto.aspx?ID=91659

Who's up for removing this thing?

Well at least they’re not the Petzl “tamper proof” Long Life bolts.

In Rick’s pic, the top bolt is a 5 piece Rawl or Powers.





Unscrew the bolt a few turns, then tap the head sharply. This will drive the plug out of the back end of the sleeve.

Unscrew and remove the bolt, hanger, washer and crush ring (if there.)

Now fish the sleeve out. I use a pointed machinists punch or sharp screwdriver to separate the sleeve from the wall of the hole (be careful not to drive the sleeve back down onto the plug - it will get stuck and you might not have enough hole left to repeat step one) so you can get on it with good needlenose pliers and pull it out.

All that is left now is the plug, which you can usually get by threading the bolt (with the hanger) back into it and pulling.

The other bolt looks like a Fixe, maybe Stainless Steel. That one is tough. You would need a puller capable of generating many thousands of pounds of force and the hanger will likely deform and break. You can hope someone used a power drill, and over-drilled the hole which is common. I would cut or break the bolt off flush, and then hope to be able to drive it further into the hole with a drift. The hole can then be patched.

The stripped one in your picture will have to be cut or broken since you can’t get a hanger on it. I’m not sure what kind it is, usually the one’s where the sleeve comes to the top have heads, not nuts.

The other one in your pic looks like a Fixe. You can google up Fixe Hardware, go to their site and inquire as to the pull out strength or see if they have a better idea than I…

ksolem, thanks for the experienced information. I appreciate it.

I like how Norway chops:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afI58PRm ... r_embedded