Shaky Flakes - rebolting story

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Clint Cummins

Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 27, 2007 - 09:57pm PT
Shaky Flakes 5.11a
FA - Chris Falkenstein, Ken Bishop, Edd Kuropat, Tom Carter, Mark McPheron, 1973

Rebolted 12/97 by ASCA, but the ASCA page currently warns: "THERE ARE BOLTS MISSING ON PITCHES 4-6!!".

http://www.safeclimbing.org/areas/california/yosemitefree.htm

This is a nice climb - check out Steve Grossman's photos of an ascent in the 70s with EBs and no chalk:

"One of my favorite slab climbing images, flat handing and reaching for a dime."

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=400384


Sometime prior to 12/97: A Japanese climber was leading the crux 5th pitch. Moderate climbing with optional crack pro leads up 40' to the first bolt. Then 15' up a tiny corner to clip the second (last) bolt, and the crux 5.11 traverse launches out right and then up on pretty smooth and steep rock to reach a flake and easy jamming to the belay. The leader set out on the traverse but whipped off. Batmanning back to the second bolt, he clipped directly into it and leaned back to see if there were some holds he was missing. Suddenly the bolt broke off, and he sailed backwards down the slab. When the first bolt caught him, something went wrong, and the biner and/or sling broke! So now he is surfing down the slab on his hip, taking the 110' factor-2 whipper onto the belay! Somehow, the only injury he got was a bad raspberry bruise on his hip, and they managed to bail from the route.

When ASCA rebolted the route in 12/97, they didn't see the broken bolt, so all the other bolts except the crux bolt were fixed. It turns out the warning on the page is a bit broad; the crux bolt is the only missing one on pitches 3-6 at least.

July 14, 2007. "Boldly" rapping in on 400' of rope and tensioning way over from p6 of Friday the 13th, I checked p6 for missing bolts and then fixed one of Roger Brown's static lines to the belay anchor atop p5. I looked down and it was pretty clear that the second bolt on p5 was missing. But my 3 days of work were about up, so I left it for Roger or another session.

July 22, 2007. I was back for more rebolting action. Roger hadn't gotten to Shaky Flakes yet, since he had been quite busy rebolting Friday the 13th, Midlife Crisis, Reefer Madness, a newer unlisted route, and Greasy But Groovy. So I jumped on the fixed lines and went down to look for the missing crux bolt. It wasn't that hard to find - there was really only one marginally usable sloping foothold in the tiny corner, and at the right distance above I could see something tiny sticking out from the rock.

Up close I could see it was a Zamac rivet, somewhat notorious for its unreliability. It is a 1/4" lead sleeve with a tiny nail driven down the center. The lead sleeve holds the hanger down onto the rock.
But lead is soft and can easily shear! Hence the 30-110' whipper!

Replacing it was a bit of a pain, because I didn't expect to see this type of bolt on a free climb, much less protecting a 5.11 crux. Although later I checked the 1987 topo and it included the note "rivet belay" atop p6. My tuning fork was too wide to fid the tiny nailhead. So I went back across the static line to check with Roger. He didn't have a claw hammer (my first choice), but he did have vicegrip pliers in his car. So I headed down the fixed lines, got the vicegrips, and back up to work.

After a couple of tries, I managed to extract the nail, by using a combination of the vicegrips and tuning fork.

Then I extracted the lead sleeve using a lag screw.

Finally I could enlarge/deepen the hole and put in a good bolt.
WBraun

climber
Jul 27, 2007 - 10:05pm PT
Excellent info and a superb post Clint.

Your stuff is always such a pleasure to read/view.

Thanks again.
James

climber
A tent in the redwoods
Jul 27, 2007 - 10:06pm PT
cool
Jaybro

Social climber
The West
Jul 27, 2007 - 10:10pm PT
Nice work, you guys, I climbed the first 2 (?) pitches of shakey flakes circa 1980, scared me away from that sort of nonsense.
Tarbuster

climber
right here, right now
Jul 27, 2007 - 10:14pm PT
Well done & thank you Clint.
Peter Haan

Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
Jul 27, 2007 - 10:39pm PT
Thanks also Clint. Your grip remains!!
Raydog

Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
Jul 27, 2007 - 10:47pm PT
wow Clint - you put in a lot of time doing a primo job pulling that zmac/nail thing - great pics. Two thumbs up!
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Jul 27, 2007 - 11:42pm PT
Great Job Clint and Roger.

I hope this doesn't tempt me to do something stupid like repeat that route again!

Zemacs, I'm glad I didn't notice that the first time.

Peace

Karl
Messages 1 - 8 of total 8 in this topic
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