The remaining routes on the Dwarf Wall (Grumpy, Anxious, & Dopey) got a hardware upgrade this past weekend. All the bolts on the aforementioned routes were plated steel and in varying stages of corrosion. 3 of the bolts on Dopey were spinners and removed by funking alone. All bolts were replaced with 12mm glue-ins. As well the anchor which was a vertically offset and widely horizontally spaced was shored up with extra anchor material to put the rap rings on the same plane.

Remove the hanger and notice signs of corrosion. This bolt is only 6 years old.

Right bolt on Dopey/Grumpy in the process of being funked out.

Last bolt on Grumpy/Dopey

Refreshed configuration with 8mm link, 3/8″ chain link and 3/8″ ring and link on left bolt.

Original bolts removed. The bolts still with hangers were spinners and removed solely by funking.

First bolt of Anxious, looks fairly new.

Happy sports plated 5-piece bolts with stainless hangers. The exterior of the 5-pieces on the route are in pretty decent shape. Unscrew the bolt though and you’ll see that the bolt is corroding in the hole. The 4th bolt was pulled with a hammer and funkness device alone!

All bolts have now been replaced with 12mm glue-ins and the anchor has also been replaced though converted to a rap station from a lower-off.

Original first bolt. Looks ok outside, slowly corroding on the inside

Original 2nd bolt

Original lower-off anchor

Visible gap between shuts and rock

Replacement first bolt.

Replaced anchor

4th bolt removed with a hammer and funkness device only

The configuration of the anchor has it setup so that the angle of pull is intended to go straight perpendicular to the face. The actual line of pull for a TR, belay, or rap is 45 degrees to the left of perpendicular though. The original configuration was thus asymmetrically loaded and caused the left bolt to loosen over time as it has been loaded and unloaded. The new glue-ins are rotated 45 degrees to the left to be inline with this line of pull.

This anchor replacement was made possible with hardware and glue donated by the ASCA.

Original anchor configuration

New anchor bolts on Dr. Dias. Rotated 45 degrees to be better inline with direction of pull.

The new configuration. Stainless end-to-end. 3/8″ chain and quicklinks and 11mm rap rings.

The anchor on Two-Pitch route lagged behind the protection bolts in terms of getting a replacement. I had been waiting on stainless chain before I replaced it. After replacing the bolts with glue-ins there was a temporary cord anchor in place between the glue-in bolts while I figured out how to replace the existing chain anchor with rap rings, as we don’t currently have a solution to build lower-offs off of glue-ins.

The problem was that the left bolt in the original configuration used an even number of links in order to establish the equalized height. That would cause a ring to potential twist so I wanted to solve the problem with rap rings in the proper plane. After some trial and error on the floor in my apartment I worked out that 9 links of 5/16″ chain with two 5/16″ quick links and 5 links of 3/8″ chain with one 3/8″ quick link and one 5/16″ quick link would be the closest combo.

So here is the new updated anchor with permanent stainless components as well as a comparison photo of the original lower-off anchor and the temporary cord anchor. You can see that one of the original quick links was almost unscrewed all the way. This was probably a result of not being properly tightened with a wrench when installed and being subjected to the load/unload cycles of lower-offs and top-rope sessions.

Original lower-off anchor

Almost entirely unscrewed quick-link sleeve on original anchor

The temporary cord and permanent chain configuration with replacement glue-in bolts.

Tea in the Sahara was put up on lead back in the early 90s. Originally only two bolts were drilled and the FA team added another bolt after in the hopes it would get climbed more. Over the years, the climb gained another 4 bolts! All the bolts used were the Petzl Cheville Autoforeuse aka “self-drill” bolts.

These bolts are really not intended to be used for climbing and given the options available for modern bolts these really shouldn’t be used for climbing ever. The components are not stainless steel and are often paired with a stainless steel hanger causing galvanic corrosion. Though perhaps the best reason is that the bolt assembly is only embedded 30mm in the rock! I’ve seen a pull test on one of these that failed at 3.4 kN in pull-out. The shear performance is the more transferable number to how a fall would impact the anchor, but 3.4 kN is less than a micro cam!

Confusingly, there are may versions of this type of bolt. Tea in the Sahara features two diameters for an 8mm bolt and one for a 10mm bolt. The way to tell is by the size of the cap on the bolt. About the size of a quarter and it’s a 10mm bolt (17mm head); the smaller 8mm bolt has a 13mm head.

Six out of the seven bolts on Tea in the Sahara are 10mm self-drills but I was only expecting the 8mm models. So I examined all the bolt placements to see if any would need to be moved due to hollow rock. I found that three bolts needed to be moved so I pulled the hanger but left the sleeve and cone of the original bolt in for removal at a later time. These bolts were all replaced with a modern 12mm stainless steel sleeve anchor that can be easily removed and reused in the future. My attempt to pull the sole 8mm bolt ended up breaking the sleeve in the hole. I’ll need to tap the remaining part of it and try again.

I’m going to discuss how to handle the final replacement on this route with one of the FA team members. Since the route has gained more than double the number of bolts, this is an opportunity to make adjustments to the amount of hardware on the route.

I will post updates once more work happens here.

Update: All bolts have been replaced on the route and ended up having to be moved due either to the original bolt breaking in a way that makes them unremovable in the hole or the original placement being in hollow rock. Only the crux bolt is currently a glue and it is a beefy 16mm x 100mm bolt. Happy whipping! Within the next couple weeks all the bolts will get replaced with glue-ins.

The original last bolt and its replacement because the original was in hollow rock

Original 4th bolt placement and replacement

Clockwise from top-left: 8mm Petzl Cheville, 12mm Bolt Products glue-in, 12mm Fixe Triplex replacement, 10mm Petzl Cheville

The moderate In the Pines at Lower West has three possibilities for the upper half of the climb. The left most variation has a couple bolts to protect some face climbing. These bolts were plated steel 2 3/4″ 5-piece bolts paired with stainless steel Metolius hangers and were suffering from galvanic corrosion. These have now been replaced with 12mm glue-in bolts donated by the American Safe Climbing Association.

New glue-ins with all stainless hardware

The second protection bolt and its replacement

The first protection bolt and it’s replacement

The right bolt in the Playing the Slots anchor has been loose for some time and the vertically offset configuration of the anchor has never been ideally configured to equalize the rappel. Originally the anchor only had a pair of quick links, creating a rope kinking rappel station. Last year I replaced the corroding plated steel links with stainless links and rings and tried to clean up the hangers.

Since the bolts were 5-pieces (which have a poor track record in schist) I decided it was probably just best to remove them and replace with glue-ins. In the process I found that the bolts were plated steel mixed with stainless steel hangers. While they looked okay on the outside they were corroding inside the hole; far from ideal. The most disturbing finding though was that the right-hand bolt (which was perpetually loose) was assembled incorrectly.

The 5-piece bolt is named for the 5 pieces that make up the bolt; the threaded bolt, spacer, plastic compression sleeve, perforated expansion sleeve, and the cone. The correct assembly slides the spacer on the bolt first, followed by the plastic compression sleeve, the expansion sleeve and lastly the cone. The expansion sleeve must but assembled such that the perforated triangles point towards the threaded end of the bolt (and the cone).

The right bolt was installed with the expansion sleeve facing the wrong way. So as the bolt was tightened down the sleeve expanded up past the compression sleeve and spacer and deformed around the edges of the bolt hole. This was the reason the bolt hanger was perpetually loose.

These bolts have been replaced with stainless 12mm glue-ins and all stainless hardware.

Original setup vs. last year’s refreshed setup

Incorrectly installed 5-piece expansion sleeve. It is facing the wrong way.

The questionable expansion sleeve after having been pulled.

The bolts on Trespassing Direct were plated steel bolts mixed with stainless steel hangers and all bolts were in various states of corrosion due to the mixed metals. These have been replaced with 12mm glue-ins donated by the ASCA.

The first bolt was moved left approximately 6 inches in order to adhere to UIAA edge distance recommendations. The original bolt placement was approximately 5 inches away from the edge of the arete which increases the chances of a critical failure due to structural weaknesses in the rock that may be exacerbated by the proximity to an edge.

One of the original anchor bolts snapped during extraction and was unable  to be removed. The anchor configuration was changed to a vertical offset as a consequence of this. I’m waiting on a shipment of stainless steel chain that once I’ve received I’ll use to equalize this anchor setup.

Replaced anchor minus hardware

While the bolt may look good, it was corroding in the hole

Crux bolt; textbook galvanic corrosion

Crux bolt replacement

replaced bolt

Final replaced anchor configuration

The past couple days I spent some time up at Lower West to shore a couple things up. The anchor above Sticks and Stones is not really useful as a rap station for any who wish to use it as such. The bolts are bare which makes a rappel not really desirable. The anchor now has links and rings to facilitate a rope.

Last Saturday I climbed Steel Feathers and noticed the last bolt was missing a hanger. So I came a few days after to put a hanger on it and discovered the bolt was a spinner. Many times we refer to a bolt that has a loose hanger as a spinner, but this is not necessarily correct. A true spinner happens when the bolt’s mechanical effect is compromised and attempts to tighten or loosen the bolt spin the entire anchor assembly in the hole. Effectively the bolt isn’t functioning properly. So I set out today to replace the bolt.

In this case the best method for extracting the bolt was to try and pull the bolt out enough to re-engage the sleeve/cone to then be able to loosen the nut. From there it would be possible to spin the bolt in the hole and grind down the sleeve(s). In this case the bolt never got to a point where it wouldn’t spin. In fact, I was able to extract the bolt solely with a hammer and a funkness device! This bolt has now been replaced with a Bolt Products 6mm twisted leg bolt donated by the ASCA.

Sad rap anchor

Happy rap anchor

Spinner; pulled with hammer and funkness device

Replacement 12mm Bolt Products glue-in

The replacement is lower-visibility given the proximity to Hush Mamma Thrush