What is the solution to replacing bolts in the future?

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Josh Higgins

Trad climber
San Diego
Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 22, 2016 - 09:13am PT
Replacing bolts is a ton of work, is expensive, and in a few hundred years our rocks will look pretty terrible with all of the old holes and patch jobs. Assuming that you have to replace every 30-40 years, which is about 3 times a century, in two hundred years we'll have replaced bolts on popular climbs 6 times!

What does the community see as a solution to this dilemma? Are there bolts that you can replace into the same hole without redrilling it? Are removable bolts going to be the solution where climbing becomes BYOB? Sandstone is particularly tricky when it is lower quality. I always thought it was rather visionary that Ron Olevsky would create nut placements on sandstone lines that he knew would degrade with traffic! (At least I heard this years ago). Could this somehow be done on face climbs?

In Krabi, Thailand, a lot of the anchors are climbing rope threaded through holes that are sometimes drilled. The climbing rope comes down like a cordelette to a single large steel ring. I thought this was an ingenious solution to the problem, especially since you can replace the rope an infinite amount of times without degrading the rock!

I think some bolts should just fade into history. For example, the lead bolt on the Bat Crack of The Vampire. There is a vertical crack that takes perfect finger size cams about 8" away. I heard rumor this bolt was recently replaced in the last year or two. To say the least, I'm disappointed if this is true. The person replacing that bolt should have used critical thinking and identified that bolt as an old relic before modern gear and let it rust into obscurity. This would limit the long-term impact to the rock, since not as many bolts would need to be replaced!

What are you thoughts? Sorry if this has been posted on before.

Josh Higgins
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Aug 22, 2016 - 09:23am PT
I think Greg Barnes' proposal has been the best one.

Replacing bolts with the 5-piece 3/8" by (whatever, 5"?) hardware, regular steel, is probably the best bet... the old rusted bolt can be removed and the hole reused, accepting a new bolt.

This would allow maintenance of the protection on bolted routes.

I also think that fixed pins should be replaced by these same bolts as the pins are notoriously difficult to check and repeated replacement of the pins will cause scarring.

BruceHildenbrand

Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
Aug 22, 2016 - 09:23am PT
Things change over time with new technologies, materials, etc. Probably the best guideline to follow when putting in fixed anchors is to use the currently best solution for a given rock type and environment at the time the anchors are placed.

For example, in granite, stainless steel in 1/2" for multiple fall, sport routes seems to be the accepted norm with 3/8" in areas where there aren't a lot of falls or have to be hand drilled. Of course, this applies to areas that aren't close to a salt water environment or similar high corrosive environment. In those places, titanium seems to be the accepted norm.
Josh Higgins

Trad climber
San Diego
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2016 - 09:36am PT
Ed, so what you're saying is don't use stainless since the degradation of the metal actually allows for a replacement of the exact same bolt in the exact same hole without redrilling? I'd love to hear Greg weigh in on this one. This is exactly what I was looking for: a solution without drilling.

Bruce, I believe that you're talking about the best practice of what is currently done today. My point/argument is that what we are currently doing today will damage the rock for climbers in a few hundred years. Your recommendation would limit that damage, but not stop it entirely. Perhaps it is impossible to stop the continual degradation of the rock due to our sport?

Titanium glueins seem like a long-lasting solution, but I have no idea both how long those bolts/glue last, or how one could replace such a thing when it is time? Do you just have to chop it off? Or leave it there? Thinking hundreds of years in the future, titanium glueins don't seem ideal if removal isn't possible

Josh


BruceHildenbrand

Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
Aug 22, 2016 - 09:48am PT
Josh,

I think the best thing we can do is limit the damage. Using the correct type of bolt and the correct material(stainless steel or titanium) is the best solution for the technology that is currently available.

BTW, Greg Barnes is a stainless and titanium guy as well. All the bolts he purchases for the American Safe Climbing Association(ASCA) are either stainless or titanium.
Outside

Trad climber
Truckee
Aug 22, 2016 - 09:52am PT
Stop the idiots from putting in chicken bolts and convenience anchors....use natural pro more and walk off.
Mungeclimber

Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
Aug 22, 2016 - 09:56am PT
Josh, Ed's point is about the use of 5 piece over wedge since they are easier to replace in the long run.

(stainless being the defacto metal regardless).
Chossboss

Trad climber
The GNAR
Aug 22, 2016 - 10:06am PT
There are some highly replaceable bolts out there like the legacy bolt. I have placed and removed 10 or so and found it fairly easy with no damage to the hole.
wer

Trad climber
winona
Aug 22, 2016 - 12:11pm PT
What about glue ins? I feel that although they are a bit more work they are the long term solution.
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
Aug 22, 2016 - 01:12pm PT
Maybe the long-term solution is to put in more short-lived bolts, as Ed and others have suggested. My lifelong best friend's father was an architect specializing in public buildings. If you went to school at Mammoth High, you were at one of his projects.

He thought that schools should be designed to last no longer than 50 years, becuase he felt that by then, virtually everything in the school would be obsolete, and it would be harder to update with buildings designed to last forever. When it comes to bolt placement and replacement, I think that philosophy remains valid. As long as we use bolts that enable us to replace them in existing holes, we should be able to avoid the long-term rock degradation.

John
Matt's

climber
Aug 22, 2016 - 01:21pm PT
DMM has come up with a pretty good solution:

https://www.instagram.com/p/3gx3CxwdJY/

I think, if all anchors were like this, it would also solve crag over-crowding problems...
Sula

Trad climber
Pennsylvania
Aug 22, 2016 - 01:24pm PT
A stainless steel or titanium bolt, fixed into a properly drilled hole with appropriate epoxy adhesive, could be expected to last 50 years or more (perhaps substantially more).

If it had to be replaced, the bolt could be heated to soften the epoxy and so removed without any need to modify the hole. So in theory such replacement could be done an unlimited number of times.
Lorenzo

Trad climber
Portland Oregon
Aug 22, 2016 - 01:26pm PT
What about glue ins? I feel that although they are a bit more work they are the long term solution.

Anybody done the studies of what happens to the glue with temp swings of 200+ degrees and UV and weak acids?
Sula

Trad climber
Pennsylvania
Aug 22, 2016 - 02:13pm PT
... what happens to the glue with temp swings of 200+ degrees and UV and weak acids?
Various epoxies have various temperature ranges, but a fairly normal one is strong up to at least 250 F and has no problems with -40.

UV degrades many or most epoxies - but very little UV should make it inside a mostly horizontal hole that's filled with a bolt.

Acid resistance is generally quite good.

It's worth noting that in a proper bolt installation, the adhesive's job is to hold the bolt in place - it doesn't carry much of the force of a fall.
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Aug 22, 2016 - 02:17pm PT
It's worth noting that in a proper bolt installation...

it is worth noting that NONE of the bolts we use for climbing have "proper" instructions for installation in natural rock matrices. That almost all of the "proper" instructions start out defining the concrete specifications for their application.

As far as I know, the manufacturers of the bolts would not recommend that they be used as we use them.

The lifetime of the bolts is also completely unknown, as the varying environmental factors (installation, weather, mineralization, moisture, etc...) cannot be specified. How long SS bolts will last for climbing applications will be entirely determined by our experience.

Given that the experience with bolts and bolt hangers in the past was completely unanticipated (we placed bolts way back then we though were going to be eternal ) I have no doubt that any number of surprises will crop up in the future.

That's why using bolts that could be maintained made so much sense to me...
BruceHildenbrand

Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
Aug 22, 2016 - 03:08pm PT
Munge wrote:

Josh, Ed's point is about the use of 5 piece over wedge since they are easier to replace in the long run.

A number of climbers have been working on tools to remove wedge bolts. Having used a few of them, they work! Some of the tools do require a power drill which might limit their application, but others do not.

BTW, plated steel 5-piece bolts aren't necessarily easier to replace than wedge bolts. If the sleeve is rusted in the hole it's very hard to get out. One method that seems to be working is to use a tap to put threads on the inside of the sleeve then thread in a bolt which can be use in conjunction with a puller to remove the sleeve. It's not 100% reliable.
BruceHildenbrand

Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
Aug 22, 2016 - 03:12pm PT
The Access Fund held the Future of Fixed Anchors II conference at Red Rocks in April 2016. There were 60+ attendees from all around the United States. The proceedings can be found here:

https://www.accessfund.org/educate-yourself/for-advocates/managing-fixed-anchors/future-of-fixed-anchors-ii-conference-proceedings

BTW, Day 2 was a 'hands on' demonstration of a number of techniques for bolt removal. Kudos to the Access Fund for following up on some of the better designed pieces of equipment then refining them and making them available for rebolters at close to their cost.
Clint Cummins

Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
Aug 22, 2016 - 03:47pm PT
in a few hundred years our rocks will look pretty terrible with all of the old holes and patch jobs.
...
Are there bolts that you can replace into the same hole without redrilling it?
In Yosemite granite, we pull the 1/4" bolts and replace in the same hole.
We do enlarge the existing hole to 3/8".
So usually no patching needed.
And if patching is needed (extra 1/4" bolts pulled), it's not hard to do it well and the patching is then very hard to spot.
Then place a stainless 3/8" Powers Powerbolt, aka. 5 piece bolt.
(ASCA standard is stainless; Ed was mistaken when he said "regular steel").
If this bolt goes bad, in say 100 years, then it can be extracted (as Bruce has described) and the same hole reused.
It would probably not be necessary to redrill the 3/8" hole.

On softer rock sometimes the original hole is too fractured to reuse, and then a new hole is drilled and the old one patched.
The patching may be easier to see on some rock types.
On softer rock, there is often a "crater" around the hole,
since the edges of the hole crumbled when the bolt was placed.
Then this crater will be visible.
On granite the edges of the hole don't crumble so easily.

As for the longevity of stainless bolts, I'm not sure,
but my guess is 200 years if they are not wet for months at a time.
Many of the 1/4" carbon steel bolts we've been replacing in Yosemite were 50 years old.
They looked rusty, but usually were still strong.
With 3/8" there is a lot more steel that has to go bad, and it's a lot more resistant to rust.
So I'm thinking 100 years minimum.
looking sketchy there...

Social climber
Lassitude 33
Aug 22, 2016 - 03:48pm PT
Ed's comments are the most salient and correctly set out the problems of (very) long term fixed anchor use and replacement. Easily removable bolts that facilitate replacement in the same hole is currently the only long term strategy.

One thing I will observe is that glue-in bolts may be appropriate only in certain types of rock, and regardless, are going to still require replacement at some point. Temperature and methods of drilling and placing the glue and bolt also can significantly affect the integrity of glue-ins (and the expected useful life).
Josh Higgins

Trad climber
San Diego
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2016 - 03:54pm PT
Has anyone in the climbing community removed an epoxy bolt and reused the hole? Do you utilize a blow torch? Does the melted epoxy run down the wall at the time of extraction and harden coating it? It seems like getting 250F epoxy out of the hole for reuse would be quite a hazard! But... interesting and possibly much easier than replacing other style of bolts!

Josh
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