[Fiend]

to 'preserve' this at E1 when it's only E3 without seems madness to me. And the same principle should apply at whatever grade.

That does indeed sound elitist. You could equally say "to preserve this at E7 when it's only E9 without seems like madness to me...".

To avoid being accused of elitism then - by this argument you could equally end up 'preserving' a route at V Diff instead of Severe by adding a bolt where a 'crucial' peg once was. I think most on here would sniff at that, but the V Diff leader would be well within their rights.

Yup. And if it was a classic, well-reputed VDiff that had had a crucial peg protecting the crux on the FA and almost always since, and would be guaranteed injury withoit that peg i.e. a Severe solo, then exactly the same reasoning would apply, and exactly the same " cruciality" of the peg should be taken into account - along with the nature and tradition of the venue, of course.

[Fiend]

AndyE and SAChris are right about a few things above: Both of those reasons were given for bolting Glutton Crag, many routes there would be good trad routes, and Fidheal looks like an equal shambles (unless there is already a clear agreement that any new Torridonian Sandstone crag can be bolted and/or there's been widespread consultation with climbers who travel to this area that approved the bolting).

I remember the halcyon days of the Ratho retro-bolting debacle. Eventually got around to doing a couple of bloody good trad routes once they were repaired (and a sensible compromise lower-off was left in).

[GazM]

(unless there is already a clear agreement that any new Torridonian Sandstone crag can be bolted and/or there's been widespread consultation with climbers who travel to this area that approved the bolting).

Starting to stray  but it's probably fair to say that nowadays up here it's pretty much first come first served. If someone with a trad mindset finds a new crag it'll probably be developed as a trad crag. If someone with a sport mindset finds a new crag it'll become a new sport crag. At the moment sport developers are probably more active, hence more sport crags!

[ali k]

if it was a classic, well-reputed VDiff that had had a crucial peg protecting the crux on the FA and almost always since, and would be guaranteed injury withoit that peg i.e. a Severe solo, then exactly the same reasoning would apply, and exactly the same " cruciality" of the peg should be taken into account - along with the nature and tradition of the venue, of course.

But the talk of replacing old pegs with bolts hasn’t been confined to routes with ‘guaranteed injury’ (however you define that). It’s been about attempting to preserve the character of the route as it was on the FA. So the ‘crucial’ peg/bolt(s) might just be taming a runout as opposed to keeping you alive.

[mrjonathanr]

peg/bolt(s)

The word we have all been looking for.

[Will Hunt]

Just something to throw in here. Some people have talked about the importance of promoting onsight climbing and of having people choose to try and onsight stuff.

Why does it matter? If you'd asked me 10 years ago I'd have agreed, but now I don't really care what other people get up to. I have routes that I wouldn't headpoint/abseil inspect, but that's my choice and I wouldn't begrudge anybody else their own decision.

I can see why you'd want to avoid lots of headpointing at honeypots (I'm looking at you, the Peak) to preserve the routes from hordes of people who might quickly trash them, but for routes where the rock is not at risk then who cares?

[petejh]

If a bolt looking like what it is makes climbers feel uncomfortable, maybe they should interrogate why. It can't really be the aesthetics of it: there's a lump of metal sticking out of the rock that otherwise would not be there. Whether it's got a rounded or angular hanger is trivial.

Yeah this completely. If we're clipping bolts on trad then lets be open about it and place a bolt that everyone recognises as a bolt.

I went to Forwyn for the first time over the summer (what a crag!) and was pretty shocked to realise how many bolts there were on the crag. Is there one in Quickstep? I clipped something like one- but the natural pro is good. Manhattan Highrise and Katie's delight are potentially bold wall climbs that are bolted further right; if they are going to be sporty sport climbs, fair enough, but I don't like the disguising of the fact tbh.

Ace crag. But in the last 2-3 years it's been over-bolted imo with various bolts appearing that personally I don't think should be there. I climbed Quickstep around 8 years ago, it didn't have any bolts then, just a couple of old ring pegs. Haven't been back on it since but won't be surprised if it has bolts.
Manhattan Highrise and Katies Delight are fully bolted for the first half - 4 or 5 bolts iirc. And fully trad for the top half. One of those where there used to be lots of pegs and they've all been replaced but they're bolts. I don't think you would describe them as sporty sport climbs as you're going for it above gear on the hardest sections. The bottom half does have difficult climbing which is fully bolt protected. I thought it felt a bit weird having that many bolts - you get to 15m up a 30m trad route and you're very well protected, yet you haven't placed a single piece of gear. Could have used 2-3 less bolts to make it feel more authentic imo. But they're still great routes nonetheless.

[andy moles]

Pretty sure Manhattan/Katie's has 3 bolts, unless my memory is failing or it's sprouted more in the last two years. I think I remember thinking two would be fine.

[SA Chris]

Starting to stray  but it's probably fair to say that nowadays up here it's pretty much first come first served. If someone with a trad mindset finds a new crag it'll probably be developed as a trad crag. If someone with a sport mindset finds a new crag it'll become a new sport crag. At the moment sport developers are probably more active, hence more sport crags!

Seems that way, looks like there are now 3 fully bolted crags on the SW shore of Loch Maree!

[Wicamoi]

Four I think. Plus 'Supercrag'.

Can it be a coincidence that Loch Maree is both wedge-shaped and pegbolt-shaped?

[mrjonathanr]

Pretty sure Manhattan/Katie's has 3 bolts, unless my memory is failing or it's sprouted more in the last two years. I think I remember thinking two would be fine.

I did an adjacent route; didn't count the bolts but thought 'wow, what a wall!' and then 'oh, it's been bolted'. If it still deserves trad status fair dos, but it looked like the wall was bolted so that it had spicey sport lines with E grades. Very happy to be wrong, it was just an impression gleaned from a neighbouring route.

[petejh]

Bottom half of the wall is around 7a on bolts. From where the bolts end to the top is around 7b+/c on gear. Defo feels trad as the bottom half is forgotten once on the upper half. But agree it looks very bolty.

[SA Chris]

Four I think. Plus 'Supercrag'.

Can it be a coincidence that Loch Maree is both wedge-shaped and pegbolt-shaped?

Indeed. Sorry, by "now" I mean since the last time I climbed in the area (admittedly quite a while ago!)

Definitely peg bolt shaped. And one of the holes in the peg has another bolt in it.

[Johnny Brown]

If a bolt looking like what it is makes climbers feel uncomfortable, maybe they should interrogate why. It can't really be the aesthetics of it: there's a lump of metal sticking out of the rock that otherwise would not be there. Whether it's got a rounded or angular hanger is trivial.

Yeah this completely. If we're clipping bolts on trad then lets be open about it and place a bolt that everyone recognises as a bolt.

I can’t agree. The crucial difference between bolts is you place them in blank bits of rock as far as possible from any lines of weakness. Up to now, afaik, these ‘peg’ bolts have only been placed in previous peg placements. The legitimacy of that is obviously what we’re debating, but let’s not simplify this to equivalence with drilling a hole in a blank bit of rock. Because the worst outcome of this is if people don’t make that distinction and start the trend of just bolting runout sections as in North America. This is also why the ‘peg’ bolts at Rhoscolyn remain but the bars have been chopped. The knee is still bent to the rock, however slightly.

This debate is often couched in terms of principles that could be applied to loads of routes (e.g. ‘…Scotland is littered with’). If it does, then it should be easy to draw up a quick list of candidates for debate. Then you can actually have a sensible debate. Although, I n my experience, when this is done you often find it isn’t that clear cut and typically someone will have done the route, not clipped the peg because it looked shit, and thought it the given grade and fine at it. Which is perhaps why the protagonists would like to keep it vague.

[Will Hunt]

Isn't Pete saying though that the pegbolts haven't just been glued into places that would have accepted a peg, but that their placements have been drilled out, often in places that you wouldn't have been able to get a peg.

This is a really important distinction. I could stomach like-for-like replacement of old pegs (with a rule that no new pegs or fixed metalwork should be placed on new or existing routes), even where that means drilling a new hole (and thus why not just make it a normal bolt); creating brand new placements and disguising them as pegs is totally wrong, especially where the rock does not even give you a peg placement.

[petejh]

Yes that's exactly what I'm saying Will.

I'm afraid JB you don't have it correct. That might be what you're aware of but it isn't the reality if you were to go and look. The reality is the bolts have been drilled into places where you wouldn't always get a peg, as well as into old peg placements. Nearly all are in features such as seams, pockets, cracks or other features in the rock, but many of these features wouldn't have taken a peg. I took a photo of two bolts on Adar that I posted here earlier in this thread, both of those aren't in natural peg placements imo. Consider that those are the only two pics I've taken. I could leave the house now and within an hour and a half get pics of maybe 15 replacement bolts - I'm confident they wouldn't be in 15 natural peg placements.

[danm]

I think you've got to the nub of the problem here Pete. When these pegbolts first appeared a few years ago, my first thought was "a bit cheeky them, but what a great idea". That however was totally with the mindset that they would be used as a more corrosion resistant and secure alternative to a peg. As there is a good chance that when replacing old pegs you'd need to drill the placement out if a stump remained, it didn't seem too much of a slippery slide to do this to make enough space for some resin.

If these are now being placed in drilled holes which are being drilled anywhere the installer pleases, rather than improving what would be an existing viable peg placement, then it's pure deception and window dressing to be using these. Furthermore, a proper bolt will be so much better and longer lasting, so we end up with a substandard technical solution in this case, whereas when used as a peg substitute (rather than a bolt substitute) they are an improvement.

I guess this is why we can't have nice things, someone always pushes things too far and ends up taking the piss. A very disappointing state of affairs.

[ferret]

Dan, agreed (Pete too).
It's as much a peg issue as a bolt issue though, let's face it pegs on new routes have been bull shit for a long time.
With the quality of modern natural protection and the existence of Uber wads climbing e11 there is no excuse for pegs on new routes under any circumstances. All they do is further muddy the waters.
When it comes to existing pegs either remove entirely or replace with a bolt on a cae by case basis. Using a peg bolt in these circumstances does seem a good way of communicating that this was done to replace an existing peg in poor condition.
Adding extra pegs bolts where a peg didn't previously exist isn't acceptable IMO. If you don't fancy a route with its current level of protection there's plenty of other routes out there to climb.

[Johnny Brown]

Ah ok. I guess the Rhoscolyn ones mostly fall into that too, I didn’t realise the same was happening on routes.

Might be worth having a thread listing any people spot, and which category they fall into?

[Fultonius]

Open to suggestions/corrections/edits...

[mrjonathanr]

Based on that flowchart, The Bells is due a bolt-that-looks-like-a-peg.

[Fultonius]

Based on that flowchart, The Bells is due a bolt-that-looks-like-a-peg.

Well, that's that settled then 

[T_B]

Jub Jub Bird doesn’t need its peg. Was shit 2 years ago when I did it. There are cams above. Has this been peg bolted does anyone know?

[andy moles]

Might be worth having a thread listing any people spot, and which category they fall into?

I think this would be a good idea, because this debate has sometimes been cross-threaded by people having slightly different things in mind.

Sample Route PB #
Does it replace a pre-existing peg? Y/N
Does the piece make a significant difference to the boldness of the route? Y/N

There are a couple of things that have been said that would be good to clarify:
Reference to one of these failing, which should not be possible if they're properly glued?
Dan's description of a proper bolt as longer-lasting - if these are 316 stainless same as twisted leg glue-in bolts, shouldn't they last just as long?
Also when did these start to appear? There's one on Yellow Belly at Pillbox Wall that I assumed was fairly recent but it's referred to in the existing NWL guidebook as 'a good stainless steel peg'.

[petejh]

Also when did these start to appear? There's one on Yellow Belly at Pillbox Wall that I assumed was fairly recent but it's referred to in the existing NWL guidebook as 'a good stainless steel peg'.

I can give you the timeline on this.

The person who created these first started having them made in the early 2010s. They were first used as a replacement for the pegs on a couple of bold routes on Pen Trwyn, each relying on one old peg protecting the crux. The routes were Beaverbrook on Excursion Wall, and Yellow Belly on Pill Box Wall. (Beaverbrook has since been fully bolted as a 6c).

When me and Andy were writing the NWL guide we knew these were glued and stainless, I (and I assume Andy) didn't know the drilling involved in placing them as at that point neither me or Andy had seen these things being installed. So we wrote it up as a 'good stainless peg'.

I know the person making these things quite well. Sometime shortly after doing the NWL guide (so around mid 2010s) he asked me to help him replace the ab-point on The Strand with these stainless glue-in pegs. I went along and helped carry stuff and helped him put 3 of his new 'peg-bolts' in the top of The Strand. It was then that I realised they were obviously just glue-in bolts - drill a 12mm hole and glue in a stainless bolt. At Gogarth... felt v.odd.

I thought at that time it was pretty cheeky, but kind of better than the previous Strand abseil/belay if quite disingenuous. I also thought that was the extent of his plans for these things - a couple of old pegs on Pen Trwyn and the Strand belay/ab-point. I didn't think much more about it for a few years tbh. Until the last 3 or 4 years as stories of these things have started coming out of them appearing all over the place, on Citadel, Cruise, Barbarossa, Dead Mans Chest, rumour of a belay on main cliff. Then I climbed on Adar last year and saw that crag had had the glue-in bolt treatment on all the good routes. Then the Painted Wall routes. And Craig y Forwyn has been steadily becoming covered with them. And I read this year in BMC area fixed equipment policy that they're 'eco pegs'. And the Moelwyns guide calling them pegs, and route descriptions on ukc calling them pegs. And think it's big whitewash of bolting by deception.