UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => get involved: access, environment, BMC => Topic started by: Fiend on October 18, 2022, 09:05:35 am
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BMC North Wales Area Meet Wednesday 19th 7:30pm Beacon Climbing Centre:
https://community.thebmc.co.uk/Event.aspx?id=4419&fbclid=IwAR2zsFJ0JMVDtcmc-xUm8Mycm90BwUHfYGBenXFSqFyJCTswYJ1q1Kq7ljA
Two important items on the agenda:
1. Proposal investigating consultation and accountability for the use of drilled peg-bolts on North Wales mountain crags and sea-cliffs (Clogwyn Yr Adar, Castell Cidwm, Carneddau, Rhoscolyn, Gogarth) (https://community.thebmc.co.uk/GetFile.ashx?did=3899)
2. Proposal investigating consultation, accountability, and North Wales Bolt Fund funding for retro-bolting of established trad routes on The Ormes (including numerous good, safe low-extreme routes) (https://community.thebmc.co.uk/GetFile.ashx?did=3900)
I would encourage anyone in the area with an interest in British trad climbing and/or with maintaining the previous good, healthy trad/sport mixture on The Ormes to attend and offer your support. If you're only interested in easy sport routes (as most of the retro-bolted trad routes have been turned into), then you don't need to bother as your wishes are already well catered for with the masses of easy sport climbs (non-retro-bolted) in the A55 / Ormes area.
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Ken was right,it is the thin end of the wedge.
It’s a lost cause, quite depressing really.
I bet they get done more often though……
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The Yorkshire disease spreads to N Wales.
Can’t believe someone has glued a peg bolt into Citadel.
Sad.
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It's been going on for years. Some of the earlier retro-bolting around the NW lime area was sensible as the routes being retro'd often relied heavily on fixed gear or were just not of any real quality in many cases, and it was being done at the time when lower-grade sport on the Ormes was genuinely scarce. It provided a more sensible balance of routes and most people seemed to agree.
Over the last few years the retro-bolting has become less sensible and less balanced imo, as we've moved on from a period when low grade sport crags were scare in north Wales to a time when low grade sport crags are now plentiful but perfectly good and well protected limestone lower grade trad (around E1) is scarce. The bolting of the tram-station crag E1s is ridiculous imo. Also a couple of the St Tudno's E1s. Others make more sense to me. As ever it's a judgement call.
Fiend has been vocal on the fb pages bemoaning decent little E1s getting bolted and I agree with him - some of these routes were good little trad routes and I fondly remember climbing them as such. I didn't bother replying on fb. Maybe I should have as I don't agree with the actions and attitude of the recent bolting/bolters.
As for the mountain and sea-cliff bolts cleverly and cynically disguised as pegs so that tradsters can pretend they aren't clipping bolts, my views on that are pretty clear - they're bolts. Be honest about that fact and the debate can start from an honest starting point. It people aren't prepared to be honest then I have little respect for their views or their actions.
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Is it the usual suspects doing their own thing? Or are they (the peg bolts/bolts) becoming accepted and used by the wider community down there?
Not really sure why I’m asking, my views have been aired on here before, and I’ve pretty much given it up as a lost cause.
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My impression is it floats around in the background as one of those things that's just there without too much angst.
To be clear I'm not 100% against the bolts (that look like pegs) on some crags - Clogwyn Adar is a good venue because of them and it would be a lot less good (only my opinion, but I think I'm fairly balanced) without any fixed gear. Craig y Forwyn is a better place to climb because of some of the bolts (that look like pegs). Although imo they've been overdone at CyF.
My issue is honesty. These are bolts, drilled and glued. They aren't pegs. So climbers should be accepting or not accepting of them based on the fact that they're bolts.
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My impression is it floats around in the background as one of those things that's just there without too much angst.
To be clear I'm not 100% against the bolts (that look like pegs) on some crags - Clogwyn Adar is a good venue because of them and it would be a lot less good (only my opinion, but I think I'm fairly balanced) without any fixed gear. Craig y Forwyn is a better place to climb because of some of the bolts (that look like pegs). Although imo they've been overdone at CyF.
My issue is honesty. These are bolts, drilled and glued. They aren't pegs. So climbers should be accepting or not accepting of them based on the fact that they're bolts.
I couldn’t agree more! I’m not against bolts, and I don’t know some of the crags well, so I wouldn't comment. My problem is bolts at Gogarth and similar venues, and the precedent it sets for elsewhere….
Unfortunately I don’t believe going round in circles on here is going to achieve anything other than wasting my time.
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(https://i.ibb.co/GMF7Yzp/ABBC291-A-EC9-D-4-A12-A0-D9-488-AB3149-AAA.jpg)
'Stakes' at the top of Llawder Zawn, Rhoscolyn. Photo taken 31st July 2022, judging by the dust placed very recently.
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Those 'stakes' have now been chopped, I was there last week.
The interesting question is whether they would have appeared had the peg-bolts not been placed first. I suspect not.
Although imo they've been overdone at CyF.
I think this is the central issue. If you're the type of person to go to a crag armed with custom laser-cut peg bolts, a drill and glue, you're almost certainly going to be more enthusiastic about their existence than the next man.
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The top of Llawder will always have fixed gear come and go I think. Has been that way for ever. Before the bolts (that look like pegs) were placed there were pegs there. Before the pegs we used the wall. Using the wall isn't OK - blocks the walker's path and damages the wall. The second most sensible option for belaying at Llawder (the first being stainless fixed gear in a couple of spots) is to leave the right belay gear up there already placed, so you know you have it when you top out. Not as if you have to walk around to the top of the cliff to do that, as you're already there when you arrive.
I think this is the central issue. If you're the type of person to go to a crag armed with custom laser-cut peg bolts, a drill and glue, you're almost certainly going to be more enthusiastic about their existence than the next man.
Or even the next man who's 'only' placing bolts that obviously look like bolts that everyone seeing them will know are bolts.
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There's a debate to be had about routes with lots of fixed gear, like-for-like replacements, bolted belays etc etc.
But reading some of the facebook threads over the summer, it seems like a local guide has been using North Wales Bolt Fund gear to retro-bolt pure trad routes, for the purpose of guiding and making money. It fucking stinks.
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If that's the case then I'm unaware of the details as I don't look at much on fb. Do you have any more info on that? Sales from my and Andy's book (from which we take zero money) is the largest contributor to the NWBF.
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Not sure I want to name and shame publically.
But I think it stands that the NWBF need to publish their guidelines - do they support retro-bolting, and is funding from your book / personal contributions / BMC contributions going to retro bolt established trad routes ?
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No worries.
But I think it stands that the NWBF need to publish their guidelines - do they support retro-bolting, and is funding from your book / personal contributions / BMC contributions going to retro bolt established trad routes ?
I think those are fair questions in light of the recent retro-bolting.
Off topic but slightly ironically; I started my own little scheme this year that I'd wanted to do for ages. I offered to pay people £5 per old rusty redundant bolt removed from the NW limestone sport crags. Paid for by the book money. First crag was LPT, I did a survey with bino's from ground level and counted 47 old bolts for removal up to midway along the cliff.
Some UK sport crags are a mess and have been for as long as I can remember. Comparing to popular euro sport crags it seems to be a trait particular to us British to put up with rusting old bolts and chains littering up the cliffs. New bolts go in during re-equipping but often the old stuff doesn't get removed. I'm guilty, when I did a lot of re-equipping on the NWL crags often I couldn't get rid of the old bolts as the nuts are invariably corroded or spinning as anyone who's done a lot of glue'ing bolts will know you can't do more than one job while glue'ing and you often need the old bolt there to hold you in position while placing the new one. In my defence I did absolutely loads of re-equipping of whole routes/crags and it took months/years. Removing the old stuff would have doubled the job (so I only did half a job :) ).
Anyway, the '£5 per old bolt scheme' paid for the removal of the old rusty bolts across the first half of LPT this summer. At least I'm told they've been removed - haven't been back to check!
Maybe that balances out any of the highly dubious recent retro-bolting that my book's money might have unknowingly contributed towards :lol:
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There's some backgroundy stuff here: https://www.thebmc.co.uk/fixed-gear-on-north-wales-rock-climbs-general-advice-and-guidance
and another 20 pager linked from there. Sounds like there's been some blurring of the lines since then.
There's always nuance though. Lots of handwringing in the North West area to come up with a policy. Discussion on here was useful - https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,32052.25.html - and we eventually got to this - https://www.thebmc.co.uk/fixed-gear-guidance-on-north-west-crags-and-quarries
Something came up at last night's area meeting to blur the brand new policy. It's hard, there's always an edge case.
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No worries.
But I think it stands that the NWBF need to publish their guidelines - do they support retro-bolting, and is funding from your book / personal contributions / BMC contributions going to retro bolt established trad routes ?
I think those are fair questions in light of the recent retro-bolting.
Off topic but slightly ironically; I started my own little scheme this year that I'd wanted to do for ages. I offered to pay people £5 per old rusty redundant bolt removed from the NW limestone sport crags. Paid for by the book money. First crag was LPT, I did a survey with bino's from ground level and counted 47 old bolts for removal up to midway along the cliff.
Some UK sport crags are a mess and have been for as long as I can remember. Comparing to popular euro sport crags it seems to be a trait particular to us British to put up with rusting old bolts and chains littering up the cliffs. New bolts go in during re-equipping but often the old stuff doesn't get removed. I'm guilty, when I did a lot of re-equipping on the NWL crags often I couldn't get rid of the old bolts as the nuts are invariably corroded or spinning as anyone who's done a lot of glue'ing bolts will know you can't do more than one job while glue'ing and you often need the old bolt there to hold you in position while placing the new one. In my defence I did absolutely loads of re-equipping of whole routes/crags and it took months/years. Removing the old stuff would have doubled the job (so I only did half a job :) ).
Anyway, the '£5 per old bolt scheme' paid for the removal of the old rusty bolts across the first half of LPT this summer. At least I'm told they've been removed - haven't been back to check!
Maybe that balances out any of the highly dubious recent retro-bolting that my book's money might have unknowingly contributed towards :lol:
Good scheme! Seems particularly important on coastal cliffs to prevent that grim rusty streak that develops below old bolts.
How did you go about holding yourself in position, say, at the Diamond while putting new routes up on steep rock on glue ins? Just holding the holds?! I had a couple of really awkward ones to do at Yew Cogar this year and I was completely wrecked with the effort of it, and that was just 2 bolts on new rock.
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Pete I'll undercut that scheme charging £2.50 per retro-bolt removed :2thumbsup:
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Pete I'll undercut that scheme charging £2.50 per retro-bolt removed :2thumbsup:
You'd do it for free, surely? Just for the sheer joy of chopping bolts.
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Good scheme! Seems particularly important on coastal cliffs to prevent that grim rusty streak that develops below old bolts.
How did you go about holding yourself in position, say, at the Diamond while putting new routes up on steep rock on glue ins? Just holding the holds?! I had a couple of really awkward ones to do at Yew Cogar this year and I was completely wrecked with the effort of it, and that was just 2 bolts on new rock.
Thanks! It's satisfying to be able to do 'good' stuff with the book money.
Bolting is just physically hard, no getting around it. When there's no old bolt to hold in on then options are, in order of what I do most often to least often:
1. Hold the holds. Bolting really developed my finger strength and my toe-hooking muscles!
2. Find runners and skyhook placements. You don't need a bomber to hold you in enough for bolting, they often pop half way through but doesn't matter as you're on an ab rope.
3 + 4. Place a temporary petzl couer pulse in the 12mm hole above the bolt to be drilled. This works fine for drilling and placing expansions. But when placing glue-in's it only works for drilling the hole, not placing the bolt, as you cant weight the glued bolt as the glue won't have set.
3 + 4. Use a sacrificial little 8mmx50mm mild steel bolt (60-80p from hardware shop). A 10mm bolt hanger can be held on well enough by the nut and washer so that you can use it to hold you in position. Once finished knock it flush with the rock, becomes virtually invisible.
5. Use a tensioned line. Did this once in the top of Gideon quarry on a 50m overhanging DT route - my mate tensioned a 4mm steel wire down the crag to hold us in while bolting. Was very faffy and not worth the effort. Didn't even go back to climb the route as it doesn't really climb well. Big white elephant (is what I'd call it if ever climbed).
6. Get a helper to pull you in. Doesn't usually work very well and who wants to go to the crag to do this.
On really steep crags/caves the above can be negate by bolting upwards. It's easier to bolt upwards on steep ground, by leapfrogging 12mm temporary bolts with 12mm expansion bolts. But you're still left with the same problem if using glue-ins. Multiple visits often required on steep crags if using glue-ins.
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Pete I'll undercut that scheme charging £2.50 per retro-bolt removed :2thumbsup:
You'd do it for free, surely? Just for the sheer joy of chopping bolts.
Yeah this ^. Busman's holiday for you Matt.
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Good scheme! Seems particularly important on coastal cliffs to prevent that grim rusty streak that develops below old bolts.
How did you go about holding yourself in position, say, at the Diamond while putting new routes up on steep rock on glue ins? Just holding the holds?! I had a couple of really awkward ones to do at Yew Cogar this year and I was completely wrecked with the effort of it, and that was just 2 bolts on new rock.
Thanks! It's satisfying to be able to do 'good' stuff with the book money.
Bolting is just physically hard, no getting around it. When there's no old bolt to hold in on then options are, in order of what I do most often to least often:
1. Hold the holds. Bolting really developed my finger strength and my toe-hooking muscles!
2. Find runners and skyhook placements. You don't need a bomber to hold you in enough for bolting, they often pop half way through but doesn't matter as you're on an ab rope.
3 + 4. Place a temporary petzl couer pulse in the 12mm hole above the bolt to be drilled. This works fine for drilling and placing expansions. But when placing glue-in's it only works for drilling the hole, not placing the bolt, as you cant weight the glued bolt as the glue won't have set.
3 + 4. Use a sacrificial little 8mmx50mm mild steel bolt (60-80p from hardware shop). A 10mm bolt hanger can be held on well enough by the nut and washer so that you can use it to hold you in position. Once finished knock it flush with the rock, becomes virtually invisible.
5. Use a tensioned line. Did this once in the top of Gideon quarry on a 50m overhanging DT route - my mate tensioned a 4mm steel wire down the crag to hold us in while bolting. Was very faffy and not worth the effort. Didn't even go back to climb the route as it doesn't really climb well. Big white elephant (is what I'd call it if ever climbed).
6. Get a helper to pull you in. Doesn't usually work very well and who wants to go to the crag to do this.
On really steep crags/caves the above can be negate by bolting upwards. It's easier to bolt upwards on steep ground, by leapfrogging 12mm temporary bolts with 12mm expansion bolts. But you're still left with the same problem if using glue-ins. Multiple visits often required on steep crags if using glue-ins.
You can also drill a small 7mm hole then use a bog standard plastic rawlplug and screw-in eye bolt. Wind it in with a krab.
Easily removable afterwards. Obviously not weight bearing, but it will keep the rope in place no problem.
https://www.screwfix.com/p/easyfix-zinc-plated-screw-eyes-6ga-x-30mm-10-pack/17358
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Pete I'll undercut that scheme charging £2.50 per retro-bolt removed :2thumbsup:
You'd do it for free, surely? Just for the sheer joy of chopping bolts.
Yeah this ^. Busman's holiday for you Matt.
More reasonable to ask him to pay to remove them, imo
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Pete I'll undercut that scheme charging £2.50 per retro-bolt removed :2thumbsup:
You'd do it for free, surely? Just for the sheer joy of chopping bolts.
Dammit, rumbled!! :ninja:
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Thanks for the heads-up Fiend, I've shared the reminder on to the North Wales Easy Sport Group, who have been rumbling about their wishes not being adequately catered for. I think there should be a pretty good turnout :P
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Oh the hilarity. I agree their wishes should be taken into account, and it should be ensured that there are at least as many F6a-bs on North Wales Limestone / Microgranodiorite as there are E1-2s, and any retro-bolt-chopping should cease before that 50/50 split.
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Think the current 'experience worthiness exchange rate' is one E1 onsight lead = two 6b onsights. So 0.5 E1 to 6bs on NWL is the current exchange rate. Don't chop beyond this or the BoE has to step in.
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Sounds to me with that rate that it's twice as important for decent trad E1s to be left the fuck alone from bolting :-\
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I know, funny jokes right, because the lower grade bolt clippers obviously aren't going to represent themselves as well as the defenders of the faith.
There's a straight-faced point to be made about representation though. If you look at what people actually do, not just who's being most vocal, more bolts always get the popular vote. Climbing is not a democracy, but I think more and more as the culture changes this puts the onus on trad conservatives to bring people with them - and not just with recourse to 'it's the way we've always done it' or other variations on status quo. Bring people along, sell what's so good about trad that's worth preserving. I don't see positive arguments pulling against increases in fixed gear often, only negative ones (and I'm guilty of this myself).
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Yup, that's something I try to do - highlight the quality of the trad routes (especially if they've been undersold in a guidebook), that they're reasonable to lead on trad gear, and hopefully present them as appealing and manageable propositions. And to reiterate a general appreciation and respect for the amount of valuable new non-retroed sport climbing that's been developed too.
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Yup, that's something I try to do - highlight the quality of the trad routes (especially if they've been undersold in a guidebook),
You appear to have developed a hobby-horse about a guidebook 'underselling' routes - in reality giving routes which are perfectly OK but completely unremarkable in the context of N.Wales (or even the Ormes) 0 stars. The book contains a very clear description of the parameters for star rating that anyone can read, understand and get on with having a good time.
You now appear to be developing a narrative that because some of your pet routes have been retro'd it's partly the fault of the guidebook for the authors to not have awarded these, umm well zero star routes actually, more stars... This is a sure-fire recipe for diluting the meaning of quality just because Fiend has found yet another local just and righteous cause to campaign for.
Hypocritically you also have a hobby horse about guidebooks (Rockfax) over-starring routes and enjoy voicing your opinion on this crime too.
I'm beginning to think you just secretly enjoy the attention from being vocal. It's a bit tedious tbh. 0 stars from me (but that isn't so bad).
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Wow. That is pointlessly personally directed, and varies between wrong (hobby horse about underselling routes - NO, narrative - NO, pet routes - NO, cause / campaign / crime - over-exaggerated, hobby horse about Rockfax starring - NO) and extremely wrong (secrely enjoy the attention about being vocal - absolutely NOT, especially when i have to read stuff like what you've just written. I am far more interested in turning up to a crag and doing cool routes or problems. I do very unsecretly enjoy highlighting and showing these off, not for my attention but seeing different areas and unsung gems getting attention).
If it's tedious that's only because you've created a fictious tedious mis-representation of me, my motives, and my passion for climbing (especially knowing full well in person how overall positive I am about your guide and the climbing it covers). Please don't do that.
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From here Fiend's hobby horse seems to be talking about climbing on the internet. That did seem to be a bit of oversensitivity Pete, and a needlessly personal character attack
I doubt very much if giving those routes one star would have saved them from bolting, but if there is a narrative I see being developed, it's that trad climbing in North Wales is in terminal decline and we might as well bolt stuff on democratic grounds. Have spoken to a few unexpected sources parroting this recently. My main objection to bolting is the human development aspect - the climb becomes a man-made thing. The central point of protected sites like National Parks and SSSIs is that deliberate man-made development is limited in favour of the landscape as it is (or could be). That should probably take precedence over climbing ethical considerations.
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My main objection to bolting is the human development aspect - the climb becomes a man-made thing. The central point of protected sites like National Parks and SSSIs is that deliberate man-made development is limited in favour of the landscape as it is (or could be). That should probably take precedence over climbing ethical considerations.
I find this argument very unconvincing when applied to somewhere like the Orme. For one thing, there's already a lower-off every few feet along the mile of cliffs above Marine Drive whether it's trad or sport, but compared to the roads, the town, the pier, the cable car, the tram, the plantations, the man-made caves, the copper mine and all the rest of it, a few more bolts in the rock is an irrelevance from a human development perspective.
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Sure. I was thinking more of Rhoscolyn or the mountain crags. But we do tend to think these are entirely ethical decisions for our community, rather than looking at the wider view. Most of them are potentially unauthorised development under SSSI regs.
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OK that was unfair to characterise Fiend that way and I apologise.
Perhaps I'm being oversensitive. I made a determined effort to make the 'quality rating' in that guide as fair a system as I could based on clear criteria. There's no point in trying to define quality if the idea of 'quality' becomes beholden to any one vocal person's righteous viewpoint. I think if you follow that logic and start trying to protect trad routes from bolting by 'artificially' making them appear like good routes in a guidebook by starring, then the whole thing becomes a load of disingenuous political bs.
'The routes aren't worthy of a star'. 'The routes got retro-bolted'. Those are two independent facts and should be looked at separately.
In that context it's pretty flipping tiresome to read how these completely unexceptional routes have been ‘undersold’ and ‘deserve a star’ in the same breath as decrying them being retro-bolted.
I do still agree that some of them shouldn’t have been retro-bolted though.
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Was anyone in attendance? Fiend?
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Yes. The issues and questions were at least raised and discussed. No real answers (apart from that BMC funds do not go to the North Wales Bolt Fund and the latter does not control what gets done with the materials it buys for activitists), no consensus on anything to be done and no actions proposed. At least the issues are more open and public and maybe a few more people are aware and can keep discussing them.
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But reading some of the facebook threads over the summer, it seems like a local guide has been using North Wales Bolt Fund gear to retro-bolt pure trad routes, for the purpose of guiding and making money. It fucking stinks.
Can you provide links?
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Like I said I don't really want to be naming names here. It is searchable if you can stomach scrolling through that facebook group.
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Just made the mistake of scrolling through the North Wales Facebook group…. It really does make for some depressing reading from my side of the debate!
One thing that really struck me is the tide has turned and there’s a real appetite for low/mid grade sport routes, and that lots of people are more than happy for them to be retroed trad routes. I get this and I’m not so elitist to think this doesn’t have some value.
What really troubles me is that the lines are really blurred and in North Wales (not exclusively)there seems to be people just doing there own thing without any consultation with the wider community.
I’m all for bolted routes and areas, I’m also all for trad climbing and trad climbing areas, from my perspective it seems that there are only going to be more sport climbing routes/areas and that it’s the trad areas that need protecting…..
The slow infiltration of glued in bolts on main cliff really highlights to me that there needs to be some clear definition between areas and ethics. The two sides of this should be able to co-exist (like they do in most areas of the country to some degree or other). It just needs some compromise on both sides.
My fear is that in 20-30 yrs time the lines are so blurred that it is seen as perfectly fine for there to be bolted routes at Gogarth, Pembroke or god forbid the Cromlech or on the Grit. I used to think Ken Wilson was full of shit and he was making a mountain out of a mole hill….. times have changed!
Trad climbing doesn’t carry any more or less value than sport climbing. I do however think that trad climbing is genuinely in some kind of danger(all be it very early on) and that if we can’t help it out with some defined lines, and stick to them then Ken might’ve been right…..
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But reading some of the facebook threads over the summer, it seems like a local guide has been using North Wales Bolt Fund gear to retro-bolt pure trad routes, for the purpose of guiding and making money. It fucking stinks.
Which Facebook thread did you get this from? I've been looking for a reference to this motivation for the retro-bolting but I can't find it.
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Is this the right place for this...
http://www.niallgrimes.com/jam-crack-climbing-podcast/jcpc-048-the-right-thing-by-mark-and-gus
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I don't have any fear for trad climbing whatsoever. Especially mountain and sea cliff trad. I think its in rude health. Absolutely nobody is proposing full scale bolting of Pembroke or Gogarth. The replacement of shit old pegs with bolts is I think inevitable where no other gear exists, or where its marginal to poor. I don't have a problem with this.
I do agree that consultation is needed every time and people doing it unilaterally isn't on.
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I think the proverbial 'wedge', which does exist even if reference to it has long since become tedious, may be shaped more like a half-normal distribution curve (half a bell) than a uniform wedge.
You can tap away at the low-end stuff, unloved bits of limestone or routes previously dependent on pegs, but when you hit the main bulwark of core trad routes and venues it won't go in further without a lot of resistance.
I also think it's possible (though I'm not sure of this) that sacrificing some mediocre trad routes to retro-bolting may actually benefit the cause of trad in the long-term, because it will appease those who want more sport options.
Any system of consultation will need to be robust and efficient and gain wide respect, otherwise people will continue to crack on and do their own thing.
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But reading some of the facebook threads over the summer, it seems like a local guide has been using North Wales Bolt Fund gear to retro-bolt pure trad routes, for the purpose of guiding and making money. It fucking stinks.
Which Facebook thread did you get this from? I've been looking for a reference to this motivation for the retro-bolting but I can't find it.
St Tutno's Upper.
"I was directly involved in equipping these routes. Yes the BMC were consulted. As were a whole host of local climbers. The move was in favour of increasing the popularity of the crag" etc.
A guide, retro-bolting trad routes, with NWBF bolts, with BMC permission (?), for the purpose of "increasing popularity"
:wavecry:
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I can't see any reference to that in the St Tudno's post - maybe that comment was deleted?
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You can tap away at the low-end stuff, unloved bits of limestone or routes previously dependent on pegs, but when you hit the main bulwark of core trad routes and venues it won't go in further without a lot of resistance.
What like citadel…..? At Gogarth a route at a core trad venue not dependant on pegs. There’s not really been a huge amount of resistance.I’m pretty sure there will be more bolts in main cliff in the next year or so….
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Haven't been following the thread in depth so apols if I'm repeating stuff.
By the sound of what's happening in North Wales the blurred lines need to be straightened out pretty fast. Personally I prefer the concept of 'trad only' crags/areas and then 'bolted' areas - as opposed to sport/trad mixed crags which end up being a clusterfuck and inevitably will trend towards sport over time. Malham seems to have settled on a good balance within the same crag now, but probably only cos the trad wings are separated off enough to make them feel distinct.
Re: replacing old knackered pegs with bolts or replacement pegs - this is a retrograde step IMO. I think pegs are the fundamental problem in all this and should just die a death. They are what have blurred and continue to blur the line between trad climbing (no fixed gear - in theory at least) and sport climbing (fixed gear). Okay the old hob nail boot brigade thought pegs were legit coming from a mountaineering perspective where anything goes. But hammering bits of metal into the rock on trad routes to become a permanent-semi-permanent fixture shouldn't be acceptable. It leaves the door open to drilling and glueing them in (what is that if not a bolt? - I agree with Pete). And then further down the line being replaced with a proper bolt. Trad routes should be left so you can climb them bottom to top with gear that can be removed afterwards IMO. In-situ slings are also a bit of a grey area in this respect, but at least they can be replaced without knackering the rock so I have less of a problem with them.
There's tons of trad routes all over the UK that were first done with some pegs. On easier routes the pegs just rotted away and no one thought about hammering new ones in or adding a bolt in their place because standards moved on, equipment got better and what was once cutting edge wasn't any more so the old pegs became redundant. IMO the same should go for harder trad stuff. We should be removing old pegs and leaving the route cleaned up and available for someone with the talent to do it in better style with removeable gear. Then update the grade accordingly. Get rid of the russian roulette nonsense of whether a peg or rotting sling will snap on you or not.
Then on the crags that get designated as a free-for-all the developers can bolt and retro-bolt to their heart's content to make a good sport destination.
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What like citadel…..? At Gogarth a route at a core trad venue not dependant on pegs. There’s not really been a huge amount of resistance.I’m pretty sure there will be more bolts in main cliff in the next year or so….
I'm not saying there aren't times when someone oversteps. I don't think many people support the bolt on Citadel, I certainly don't. I hope you don't know something I don't about more bolts appearing on Main Cliff soon.
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Re: replacing old knackered pegs with bolts or replacement pegs - this is a retrograde step IMO. I think pegs are the fundamental problem in all this and should just die a death.
Broadly I agree with you, though I'm willing to compromise where one or two bolts (where there were once pegs) make the difference between an otherwise excellent trad route and a total chopfest. It seems a shame to 'lose' such routes just to serve an abstract principle.
I would also say that Malham is far from the only crag where sport and trad coexist without controversy. A lot of the best Scottish sport crags (Dumby, Tunnel Wall, Upper Cave, Goat Crag) are also good examples.
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I'm willing to compromise where one or two bolts (where there were once pegs) make the difference between an otherwise excellent trad route and a total chopfest. It seems a shame to 'lose' such routes just to serve an abstract principle.
I know what you mean, but in my experience these examples are very few and far between so I'd be willing to compromise the other way and say it'd be worth 'losing' the odd route or two to save the principle behind it. The only place I have any real direct experience of this is in Pembroke where for a time I was repeating a lot of stuff, of which some of the E6/7/8s hadn't been done for years, if not a decade or more. I can't think of many (any?) routes where the grade drastically increased by not clipping the old rotten fixed gear, and certainly not to the point where they became an unjustifiable chop route. On the other hand I could, if I'd wanted, gone and bought a load of shiny new pegs and hammered them in all over to turn a lot of these routes into clip-ups (until in another decade the pegs are all rotting again). To me, the latter option just seems selfish, short-sighted, and unfair on people coming behind you.
Malham was just an example that sprung to mind. Of the crags you mention I've only climbed at Tunnel Wall, but that seemed similar in that the sport part of the crag (single pitch) seemed quite distinct from the trad (mostly multi-pitch) so easy to keep separate and outside of that grey area?
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I agree with basically everything Ali has said.
I also find it weird that people argue you "lose" a route if it gets too dangerous so you need to bolt it, especially when we live in a country where some of the most idolised trad routes are chop routes on dubious sounding rock (Indian Face anyone)...
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It’s interesting that this is happening in N Wales when I get the sense there’s a bit of push back against the tide of retro-ing on Yorkshire lime (eg 3 pegs removed from Exponential Exhaustion at Kilnsey and Wise Blood still getting done (I always predicted it would get retroed)).
In the Peak there’s a definite scene of young tradsters doing E6s and E7s and the easy sport is confined to the quarries. A few more bolts going in at Chee Tor and High Tor but those putting them in are ‘reasonable people’. I don’t see Castellan having its pegs replaced with bolts and if it does I will chop them (it doesn’t need fixed gear at all).
But I don’t know what we do about lots of the other routes? Yorkshire and Peak lime is destined to have sport/trad coexisting. Stoney is a weird one. I mean stick clipping the new bolt on Kingdom Come probably wasn’t my proudest ‘trad climbing’ moment!
Pembroke is black and white as far as I’m concerned as there’s no whack and dangle history. Just get rid of the pegs. Most of the E6s and above are getting headpointed anyway (I’ve no issue with that).
Sorry, bit of a ramble ..
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A judicious bolt or even wholesale retro bolt can revitalise a route (such as White Gold which was a former clip up on situ gear) and a case by case basis is I think a good approach but can be used as an excuse/precedent for other retroing that is less justifiable.
There is a structure in place to sound out opinions on specific routes in the BMC Area Meetings. There was an E3 route in Dovedale (The Umpire) that had become overgrown and probably unclimbed for 15+ years that had been retroed and the person who did discussed it a meeting. No one at the meeting could get that worked up about it being retroed including me and Neil F who had done it as a trad route BITD.
Trad routes at the Upper Circle in WCJ have become neglected and overgrown along with the paths to them which weakens the case with DWT if you wanted to revitalise them either as trad or sport routes.
OTOH there are classic trad routes that should remain that way. Personally I didn’t think it was right that Countdown, Northeners Cant Climb and Millers Tale got retroed. It would have been good to have an open discussion on it.
Bit of a ramble from me too..
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Thanks for the apology Pete. We can agree to disagree on whether there is any merit to the reasoning that: 1. Neglect is used as a reason for retro-bolting. 2 Neglect is due to a lack of popularity. 3. Popularity depends on perceived route quality. 4. Perceived route quality is related to how a guidebook describes a route. Suffice to say that this is not the most important aspect of the situation for me - the reasoning may fall down in 3 or 4, but 1 is where the problems start happening.
One thing that was confirmed in the Area Meet was exactly your hobby horse (said in the best spirit), that these drilled and glued bolts are indeed drilled and glued bolts. Even if they have been drilled into old peg placements or in very similar places to old peg placements. Which leads to the question:
Is replacing a peg with a drilled and glued bolt acceptable at the venues in which it is occurring??
Which in part hinges on another question:
Is it important in British trad climbing that pegs should be treated with caution and assessed by a leader, or should pegs or their replacements be guaranteed to be 100% reliable on all venues??
I think these questions should be discussed further, and also the North Wales Fixed Guidelines should probably be referred to.
On the subject of hybrid routes and mixed crags:
I would also say that Malham is far from the only crag where sport and trad coexist without controversy. A lot of the best Scottish sport crags (Dumby, Tunnel Wall, Upper Cave, Goat Crag) are also good examples.
One could also add: Most of Lakes Slate, a lot of Welsh Slate, High Tor Right Wing, Uphill Quarry, Cheddar Gorge, Cheesewring Quarry, Anstey's Cove, and theoretically a lot more Yorkshire limestone before it all started getting retro-bolted too.
And of course, Pen Trwyn and The Ormes. I disagree with Ali's preference for completely separate sport/trad crags, in fact one of the aspect I really like* (liked?) about the area is (was) the blend of trad and sport sitting side by side on the same crag. Warming up on some sport to get the blood flowing, clipping a few wires onto the harness and swapping to double ropes, doing a couple of great 1 star trad routes, swapping back to the single and gri-gri if one had got a bit scared or fancied a bit of harder cranking. A genuinely enjoyable blend of styles for me, and one I thought worked very well and is worth defending.
(* along with the rock quality, general route quality compared to Pennine lime, roadside access, lower-offs, peculiar resort town atmosphere, the view around the far end of Marine Drive, bemused tourists, etc etc)
Finally for now:
the person who did discussed it a meeting.
....
It would have been good to have an open discussion on it.
A novel idea. I wish it would catch on. Along with broader public consultation / discussion.
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I also find it weird that people argue you "lose" a route if it gets too dangerous so you need to bolt it, especially when we live in a country where some of the most idolised trad routes are chop routes on dubious sounding rock (Indian Face anyone)...
I did put 'lose' in scare quotes for a reason. It is a slightly different situation on something like Indian Face, which was always a chop route, from routes which rely on crucial pegs for protection, i.e. what was once an attractive ground-up possibility becomes unjustifiable. I get that it doesn't have to be seen that way - you can say that the route's past status is not important. I do swither a bit on this personally - sometimes I agree with Ali that it would be simpler to draw bright lines to preserve the principle, but then I think - but why?
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For me, trying to preserve a trad route in an artificial state just doesn't make sense... if a wire placement breaks would you bash a bolt in? Presumably not. If a thread breaks would you put a bolt in? Presumably not. Surely a big part of the point of trad is taking the rock as you find it?
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Yeah but historically there have always been compromises. Putting chockstones in cracks, taking them out again, cleaning with picks and crowbars, bashing in pegs and wooden wedges. Yanking on nuts that don't quite sit until they do. Which is not to say that we shouldn't aim for a cleaner ethos, but 'traditional' climbing has never been a pristine cathedral. If we want to make it so perhaps we should call it something else...pure climbing? "I only climb Pure, man."
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Yeah, but why would the goal be to preserve the dodgy parts? It seems perverse, certainly an unhealthy deference to the FA IMO
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I don't think the goal is to preserve dodgy parts, or to defer to the FA (definitely not in my mind anyway), but to allow a few case-specific compromises for totally un-historical reasons such as: that's a fucking cool bit of rock but there's an unprotected section that means you'll hit the ground from the crux at 20m.
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I don't think the goal is to preserve dodgy parts, or to defer to the FA (definitely not in my mind anyway), but to allow a few case-specific compromises for totally un-historical reasons such as: that's a fucking cool bit of rock but there's an unprotected section that means you'll hit the ground from the crux at 20m.
It's 100% deference to the FA and their peg placement. Unless you're also advocating this for other routes that might be considered "better" with a bolt but where it's not replacing a peg?
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It's 100% deference to the FA and their peg placement. Unless you're also advocating this for other routes that might be considered "better" with a bolt but where it's not replacing a peg?
It is not '100% deference' to look with fresh eyes and see the same logic that someone else did, especially if a route has gained value within the culture as a certain kind of challenge.
To your second point, I personally wouldn't be dead-set against that if there was mass consensus for it (which isn't likely).
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routes which rely on crucial pegs for protection, i.e. what was once an attractive ground-up possibility becomes unjustifiable.
To me this is an argument for getting rid of pegs and other in-situ gear altogether on trad routes. For onsighting / ground-upping at your limit it’s fucking dangerous to rely on dubious fixed gear. And when standards improve harder routes should become onsight/GU propositions for the next gen. At least it’s an honest fight if you’re putting all your own kit in.
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routes which rely on crucial pegs for protection, i.e. what was once an attractive ground-up possibility becomes unjustifiable.
To me this is an argument for getting rid of pegs and other in-situ gear altogether on trad routes. For onsighting / ground-upping at your limit it’s fucking dangerous to rely on dubious fixed gear. And when standards improve harder routes should become onsight/GU propositions for the next gen. At least it’s an honest fight if you’re putting all your own kit in.
I'm not remotely up for dubious fixed gear either, if there's fixed gear it should be good (i.e. bolts).
And yeah, I accept the legitimacy of leaving these dangerous things pure and clean for the bold and talented. I'm also just not offended if some of them are kept at or brought to a level that more people will enjoy them.
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Good discussion. I wouldn't have a problem with the approach Ali advocates either, although I think it would mothball a lot of routes. Agree discussion is the key and sounds like a step forward has been made calling a spade a spade in Wales, or indeed a bolt a bolt!
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Interesting debate.
Having been pro peg-bolts previously, I am coming round to Ali K, Northern Yob etc’s point of view.
It does seem that the peg bolts are becoming more and more prevalent and where I would say some are somewhat logical this is being deviated from. (Citadel being the obvious example)
Maybe it’s a shame for odd routes to become a bit spicy for a larger majority of people to have a crack on from the ground but as maybe that’s the price we have to pay to protect the brand of trad climbing we have in this country?
I also agree with Ali that getting rid of all rotting fixed gear would be a good start, at least you know what you’re getting into.
I think the main problem could be is that the people who are putting these things in aren’t that bothered about what the consensus thinks as they haven’t asked for it so far.
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I think the main problem could be is that the people who are putting these things in aren’t that bothered about what the consensus thinks as they haven’t asked for it so far.
This is certainly the case. I suppose they might argue that 'consensus' has justified them in many cases, as people have voted with their feet and the routes have seen a boom in popularity. Clogwyn yr Adar for example was on very few people's radar, now it's very popular.
Obviously this is a crap way of establishing consensus, but I think the crux of the whole debate is how to implement a better one that is widely respected.
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With regard to the Ali K point of 'either trad or sport crags', at which arbitary point in time do you draw the line? Most sport crags started out as trad/aid and eventually became sport crags. eg Lorry Park Quarry in the Peak has some of the purest limestone cracks in the Peak, and was a trad venue. Sport climbers climbed the blanker walls between the cracks, with bolts. Then the whole lot got bolted. So do we say this is now a sport venue? Or do we go back to it being a trad only venue and strip the lot?
It should be perfectly possible that we can come to the sensible compromise- that well protected pure cracks stay as trad and the walls between are decent sport routes.
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Yeah this is a valid point- pretty mental that supercrack is bolted when it would be one of the best E4/5s on peak lime if not.,, this probably plays into northern yob’s argument about the thin end of the wedge
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Supercrack was completely neglected as a trad route and got dirty IIRC. These things need traffic or regular recleaning.
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For onsighting / ground-upping at your limit it’s fucking dangerous to rely on dubious fixed gear.
Isn't that just part of the judgement call and skillset of the trad leader?? Knowing that non-bolt in-situ gear might not be reliable (quite often indicated in the guide) and making a decision and ascent attempt (or not!!) based on that?? Plus even dubious fixed gear gives you the possible option to lower-off it at least. Sure it's all a murky grey area but that's British trad climbing...
Clogwyn yr Adar for example was on very few people's radar, now it's very popular.
It was very much on my radar, I'd just not got round to it yet. Part of the popularity could be due to the nice new guide, good topo, sensible grade reassessment, and appropriate and inspiring star reassessment, as well as bolting. I think there could be a fair and justified increase in popularity without the latter. When I went I didn't know the bolts were drilled and glued, they looked like new pegs in slots and seams (which are plentiful) and I took them as normal new pegs - not 100% reliable but looked adequate especially next to the tricky moves.
Supercrack was completely neglected as a trad route and got dirty IIRC. These things need traffic or regular recleaning.
I've always wanted to do Supercrack as a sport route. At the grade I'm sure I'd stand a good chance of a satisfying onsight in a normal uninjured year and have a great time on it. As a trad route of that ilk (E5 6b, "gear is good if you're strong enough to hang around and place it" :sick:) I'd stand almost no chance and would either never get around to it, or one day give it a try, get pumped and fail miserably and sulk my way home.
I fully support it being de-bolted and returned to being a classic trad route.
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Supercrack was completely neglected as a trad route and got dirty IIRC. These things need traffic or regular recleaning.
I don't believe that lack of traffic is a good justification for bolting trad routes.
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A judicious bolt or even wholesale retro bolt can revitalise a route (such as White Gold which was a former clip up on situ gear) and a case by case basis is I think a good approach but can be used as an excuse/precedent for other retroing that is less justifiable.
There is a structure in place to sound out opinions on specific routes in the BMC Area Meetings. There was an E3 route in Dovedale (The Umpire) that had become overgrown and probably unclimbed for 15+ years that had been retroed and the person who did discussed it a meeting. No one at the meeting could get that worked up about it being retroed including me and Neil F who had done it as a trad route BITD.
Trad routes at the Upper Circle in WCJ have become neglected and overgrown along with the paths to them which weakens the case with DWT if you wanted to revitalise them either as trad or sport routes.
OTOH there are classic trad routes that should remain that way. Personally I didn’t think it was right that Countdown, Northeners Cant Climb and Millers Tale got retroed. It would have been good to have an open discussion on it.
Bit of a ramble from me too..
Millers Tale wasn't retroed. The bolt was placed to back up the Peg and Andy B was asked beforehand.
Kingdom Come had a bolt in the past protecting the crux. The 2 stacked pegs you stick clipped were completely corroded through (I have them at home) with them gone the I doubt anyone would be launching up the start...
I agree there needs to be more consultation before these decisions are taken. That said been plenty of trad routes on Peak lime been cleaned up in the last few years.
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It was very much on my radar, I'd just not got round to it yet. Part of the popularity could be due to the nice new guide, good topo, sensible grade reassessment, and appropriate and inspiring star reassessment, as well as bolting. I think there could be a fair and justified increase in popularity without the latter. When I went I didn't know the bolts were drilled and glued, they looked like new pegs in slots and seams (which are plentiful) and I took them as normal new pegs - not 100% reliable but looked adequate especially next to the tricky moves.
Fair point about Adar's resurgence in popularity being partly down to the new guidebook, but I don't think Blood Bank would be getting a fraction the number of ascents if it had no fixed gear. Whether the pegs are drilled and glued or not (I'm actually not certain in this case, I didn't look closely?) is kind of beside the point with regard to popularity because like you say, they're new and they look convincing (and there's more than one).
Anyway Blood Bank is a good case in point for the debate about pure trad vs. trad with the odd bit of fixed gear. Distinct crux section around 8-10m which doesn't appear to offer any convincing leader-placeable protection (maybe there's something in the little overlap?) making the difference between a serious and unbalanced E5 and a cruxy but safe E3/4.
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I don't believe that lack of traffic is a good justification for bolting trad routes.
Taken on its own I would strongly agree, but I think it's reasonable to consider it as a factor among other considerations.
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For onsighting / ground-upping at your limit it’s fucking dangerous to rely on dubious fixed gear.
Isn't that just part of the judgement call and skillset of the trad leader??
It is, and always will be, because even if there is a total moratorium on fixed gear on trad routes there will still be stuck nuts, old threads, bail gear and relic pegs. But that doesn't strike me as a good argument for more of it, or for keeping it where's a choice to be made.
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I don't believe that lack of traffic is a good justification for bolting trad routes.
Taken on its own I would strongly agree, but I think it's reasonable to consider it as a factor among other considerations.
Yes I think in certain circumstances it could be considered. But other considerations such as, is it a massive fucking crack with natural protection all the way up, should take precedent
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Supercrack is a funny one. It was a pretty unjustifiable bit of retrobolting in retrospect, and yet with the benefit of hindsight was it bad that it happened? I ask that because it will probably be lost forever soon, once the houses are built in the quarry (work has started). Lots of people have enjoyed climbing it in the years it has been bolted. Going by ascent frequency as a trad route it would plausibly have had exceedingly few if any ascents otherwise. The crack was full of mud, and setting up an abseil on top awkward, so trad ascents would have required a high degree of pre ascent effort. Not ideal for would be onsight attempts. I guess that's why no one ever did it. It always looked amazing and super safe, but the dirtiness was sufficiently off-putting to stop anyone ever repeating it. None of which is to say it should have been bolted (I'm agnostic), just that it's not as clear cut as it looks on paper.
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Millers Tale wasn't retroed. The bolt was placed to back up the Peg and Andy B was asked beforehand.
Adding a bolt where there wasn’t one before is retro bolting. The peg still looked serviceable and I recall backing it up with a wire. To my mind the bolt was unnecessary.
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We will have to disagree on that one Simon. What's your thoughts on the bolting of routes up the river at Central that no one seems to have mentioned?
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I went along to the BMC meeting. It was disappointing not to see more than 1 of my contemporaries in age (29) there, especially given such a strong scene of teens-20's-30's age trad climbers in N Wales . Some useful questions asked but sadly the fundamental one of "should we have these at all" gaining little traction. Within the group that attended there was quite a lot of support for these bolts (and yes, from the horses mouth, they are drilled and glued). Some of the reasoning includes 'freedom for future climbers to be able to enjoy the routes as we did' and 'safety'. 75% of the bolts I've come across are in trad routes that are well protected without additional bolts and at no change to the grade ie Quickstep, The Cruise. Others are a different style of approach ie Painted Walls. Id say watch this space for N Stack Wall.
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It's a terrible practice (he said, secretly scribbling down all these routes for a ticklist for next summer).
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I went along to the BMC meeting. It was disappointing not to see more than 1 of my contemporaries in age (29) there, especially given such a strong scene of teens-20's-30's age trad climbers in N Wales . Some useful questions asked but sadly the fundamental one of "should we have these at all" gaining little traction.
Calum at least was intending to be there but was recovering from illness.
I did try to highlight that question as a pre-cursor to whether Si Witcher's proposed list is necessary, i.e. if replacing pegs with bolts is acceptable then the list isn't needed, if replacing pegs with bolts if not acceptable then the list is useful to see the damage done.
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I went along to the BMC meeting. It was disappointingf not to see more than 1 of my contemporaries in age (29) there, especially given such a strong scene of teens-20's-30's age trad climbers in N Wales . Some useful questions asked but sadly the fundamental one of "should we have these at all" gaining little traction. Within the group that attended there was quite a lot of support for these bolts (and yes, from the horses mouth, they are drilled and glued). Some of the reasoning includes 'freedom for future climbers to be able to enjoy the routes as we did' and 'safety'. 75% of the bolts I've come across are in trad routes that are well protected without additional bolts and at no change to the grade ie Quickstep, The Cruise. Others are a different style of approach ie Painted Walls. Id say watch this space for N Stack Wall.
I attended one of the virtual ones deep in lockdown when this all first came out. My take away feelings were pretty similar.
The BMC is absolutely toothless when it comes to any sort of action, whilst it provides an excellent opportunity to discuss things, it’s never going to do anything other than talk.
The only way to deal with someone being a prick and doing their own thing is to be a prick of a similar magnitude and go and take them out!( contrary to popular belief i usually try to not be a prick)
It seems like there are multiple examples of these bolts that aren’t in anyway called for or needed regardless of where you stand on the ethical arguments ( citadel, quickstep, the cruise) these shouldn’t in my view stay in, they really are the wedge. And if they stay in much longer they will become normalised. Even if this stops now these bolts have no place being where they are.
I’m not from nor do I live in North Wales if I did I might be more minded to do something about the more obvious examples….. Maybe North Stack might be the thing that pushes locals to do something, maybe North Stack might be the thing that pushes outsiders to do something. Maybe they will just stop appearing…..
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Fair point about Adar's resurgence in popularity being partly down to the new guidebook, but I don't think Blood Bank would be getting a fraction the number of ascents if it had no fixed gear. Whether the pegs are drilled and glued or not (I'm actually not certain in this case, I didn't look closely?) is kind of beside the point with regard to popularity because like you say, they're new and they look convincing (and there's more than one).
Anyway Blood Bank is a good case in point for the debate about pure trad vs. trad with the odd bit of fixed gear. Distinct crux section around 8-10m which doesn't appear to offer any convincing leader-placeable protection (maybe there's something in the little overlap?) making the difference between a serious and unbalanced E5 and a cruxy but safe E3/4.
They are drilled and glued - see pics below of the bolts from the upper crux of Bloodbank. All these disguised bolts are drilled and glued, it's how they've been designed to be placed. They're a 12mm glue-in bolt with a straight (non-tapered) shaft. Because there isn't a taper on the shaft as there is with a blade or angle peg you can't drive them ever tighter into a seam or crack. And stainless isn't designed to be repeated smashed in with a hammer. The same bolts are on the 3-bolt lower-off of The Strand, Cruise, Barbarossa, Citadel, perhaps a couple of belays on main wall (I haven't yet seen them), all over the trad routes at Craig y Forwyn, Painted Wall, Pen Trwyn, etc. Others I've forgotten. I'm not against every one of them, but as I keep banging on about I think it's important climbers are made fully aware that they're clipping bolts. Then they can form their own opinions based on the facts, not on deceptions. Guidebooks calling them pegs don't help.
I liked the routes on Adar. I was fully aware that what I was climbing were 'spad' or 'trort' routes.
top glue-in bolt on Bloobank. You can see the resin as the light cream-colour around the shaft:
(https://i.imgur.com/zHX63yR.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/iQzn2kt.jpg) (https://imgur.com/iQzn2kt)
second to top glue-in bolt:
(http://i.imgur.com/dDOgiUw.jpg) (https://imgur.com/dDOgiUw)
(http://i.imgur.com/ssjT7yt.jpg) (https://imgur.com/ssjT7yt)
Lower down by the first crux, the 2nd fixed piece is a bolt. The first piece is a peg.
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Thanks Pete. It's a shame there is no input from the youth. Here's my view, fwiw, from another non-youth.
Of the places discussed I only know about the bolts at Gogarth and Rhoscolyn. There has been an abseil point at the top of pitch one of The Strand for decades and, to my mind, a good fixed anchor make sense here. I’d support something similar at the top of Esgair Maen Gwyn. I've always managed to find anchors at the top of routes at Rhoscolyn without the need for bolts or the wall. I'm not that fussed about these though.
I’ve climbed or failed on Citadel, Fifteen Men... and The Cruise. These do not need bolts and they should be removed. I've done The Cad with the original caving self-drilled bolt when it was in very poor shape and before the thread on The Clown was a thing. I accepted it was illusory protection and the only thing that might have held was the cam in the flake. The remaining stub (a replacement of the original) can be removed or left to rot. I have my views on the peg in The Bells... but this is not a route I'm ever going to do.
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(https://i.imgur.com/zHX63yR.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/iQzn2kt.jpg) (https://imgur.com/iQzn2kt)
Gonna be a bugger to get an angle grinder into that wee niche :???:
I said to a few people after doing Bloodbank (a year ago - well before the current discussion appeared) that it was a good F7a (I was quite sweaty and missed a potentially useful wee sidepull, so maybe stiff F6c+). I think it would be possible to put some gear in the slanting flake thing you're laybacking "if you're strong enough to hang around and place it", would be well worth E5 then.
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The flake down low? I stuffed bomber gear behind that.
The top crux would be bold without the bolts but not that bold. Route might be standard E5 without the bolts. With them I though stiff E3. French 6c at most.
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Just been reading the BMC North Wales Fixed Gear Policy, quoted here for reference (with edits for clarity):
Replacing pegs with bolts:
Main points for climbers to consider before placing or replacing fixed gear
• access, land ownership, environmental status and existing agreements
• opportunities for hand-placed, removable protection
• history, traditions and ethics of the area and crag
• legacy for future climbers
• sustainability of any fixed gear used
• aesthetics – general appearance of the crag environment
• rock type, nature and location of the crag
• personal level of equipper’s experience, technical knowledge and competence
• views of the first ascensionist (if relevant/feasible)
Improvements in equipment means most trad routes can be adequately protected using handplaced gear, with little or no need to rely on any fixed gear they may still contain. Such old pieces often have scant worth as protection, or as anchors on stances, but may provide useful waymarks, and a reminder that placing any fixed gear prone to rotting rapidly is not a good plan.
On occasion, a piece of fixed gear is significant to the grade, character and balance of a route. Many such pieces have been routinely replaced, like-for-like, by conventional pegs or threaded slings which, in turn, will rot and become useless.
Since 2010, a small number of key, rotting pegs on trad routes in North Wales coastal areas have
been replaced with stainless steel ‘eco pegs’ (ed: bolts)
Significant evidence indicates that these will remain effective for much longer than conventionally constructed and placed pegs. Placement has involved the removal of all rust debris from the site of the old peg to avoid cross-contamination (using a peg or chisel, or sometimes a drill) and the use of a suitable cement to protect and secure the new eco peg (ed: bolts).
The general consensus is that these eco pegs (ed: bolts) now form part of our varied history and most will remain in place. Any future development of this sort should be considered carefully and widely, recognising not only the adventurous nature of trad routes and the need to avoid sanitising them, but also the original character and balance of individual climbs.
Is that you guys' general consensus??
Retro-bolting trad routes:
If rock quality and availability of suitable protection indicate that a worthwhile trad line can be preserved (or added as a 1st ascent) then this is to be commended: rock quality and vegetation cover are major factors - removing vegetation usually has negative environmental implications and bolting on poor rock makes little sense - both should be avoided.
Some old, now vegetated, trad climbs are often best left to provide a haven for plants and animals. There has been some retrobolting of what may be seen as neglected/poor/loose trad climbs, often by removing loose material and changing the line slightly to seek better rock. This is a grey area, and careful consideration and consultation should take place before any action - there is an evolving view that some crags or routes should now be left to return to nature.
There is an implication here that retro-bolting neglected trad routes firstly needs careful consideration and consultation, and secondly "popularising" neglected trad routes by retro-bolting seems contrary to this statement.
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Since 2010, a small number of key, rotting pegs on trad routes in North Wales coastal areas have
been replaced with stainless steel ‘eco pegs’ (ed: bolts)
Significant evidence indicates that these will remain effective for much longer than conventionally constructed and placed pegs. Placement has involved the removal of all rust debris from the site of the old peg to avoid cross-contamination (using a peg or chisel, or sometimes a drill) and the use of a suitable cement to protect and secure the new eco peg (ed: bolts).
The general consensus is that these eco pegs (ed: bolts) now form part of our varied history and most will remain in place. Any future development of this sort should be considered carefully and widely, recognising not only the adventurous nature of trad routes and the need to avoid sanitising them, but also the original character and balance of individual climbs.
Is that you guys' general consensus??
My answer is how can there be a consensus, when most climbers didn't even know that bolts have been placed to replace pegs.
Climbers have been led to believe these are pegs, funnily enough, by people calling them 'pegs'. Including people who write guidebooks and BMC policies - 'eco pegs'.
So any consensus on replacing pegs with bolts is mythical. A consensus, if it exists, is more along the lines of:
'we like having bomber fixed gear (i.e. bolts) to clip on these E4s,5s and 6s in place of the old pegs where they're felt needed. But we don't want these to look like bolts. And we don't want to have to think about them being bolts. Even though if you ask the right people, or look closely enough, they obviously are bolts'.
I suppose it says much about the levels of self-denial and semantic loopholes some climbers will resort to when considering the thorny issue of fixed gear on trad, that the N.Wales BMC policy itself can't even bring itself to be genuine when describing drilled and glued bolts on trad routes - instead using whitewash terms such as 'eco pegs' :lol:
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I know it's semantics, I wonder what the response would be if they were called "eco-bolts". I bet acceptance level would be a lot lower.
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What about ‘Thin End of the Wedge Bolts’? Would that be fairer?
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If that’s the general consensus, I won’t be angry, I’ll just be very very disappointed……
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For onsighting / ground-upping at your limit it’s fucking dangerous to rely on dubious fixed gear.
Isn't that just part of the judgement call and skillset of the trad leader?? Knowing that non-bolt in-situ gear might not be reliable
I disagree. The skill of a trad leader on an onsight is in reading the rock, both to climb it and find places to protect themselves. Not in judging how good an old rusty bit of pre-placed gear might be when you arrive at it. Cos let’s face it, a peg is just pre-placed gear. The only difference is it was bashed in years ago by someone you probably don’t know rather than a cam or wire placed by you or your mate the day you want to climb the route.
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For onsighting / ground-upping at your limit it’s fucking dangerous to rely on dubious fixed gear.
Isn't that just part of the judgement call and skillset of the trad leader?? Knowing that non-bolt in-situ gear might not be reliable
I disagree. The skill of a trad leader on an onsight is in reading the rock, both to climb it and find places to protect themselves. Not in judging how good an old rusty bit of pre-placed gear might be when you arrive at it. Cos let’s face it, a peg is just pre-placed gear. The only difference is it was bashed in years ago by someone you probably don’t know rather than a cam or wire placed by you or your mate the day you want to climb the route.
I think Fiend is right. The skill of onsighting is to cope with the route as it you find it; you’re arguing for coping with the route, but with one of the nasty bits taken out. Onsight lite.
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As someone who has replaced fixed pitons on "trad" routes, I do not know how anyone could judge a fixed piton without a hammer or by aggressively jump testing them. I suspect that anyone who claim they can are lying to themselves.
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Agreed- fixed gear can’t be completely relief on, it needs backing up. I don’t see that how that justifies sticking a bolt in though.
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I think Fiend is right. The skill of onsighting is to cope with the route as you find it; you’re arguing for coping with the route, but with one of the nasty bits taken out. Onsight lite.
One of the nasty bits that should never have been there in the first place taken out. I’m arguing for trending towards removing pegs from British trad climbing altogether. If a peg can be backed up with natural pro then it’s unnecessary anyway so get rid. If the peg can’t be backed up then it leads to this dilemma of whether to replace it with a bolt to ‘preserve’ the route, which should never be acceptable IMO. So get rid, and take the route back to its original state. And update the grade to suit.
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Would there not be a lot of routes that would fall into disuse if crucial pegs were removed and there was nothing to back them up? I'm talking most of Nesscliffe, a lot of hard routes in the Leap...its not just one or two surely?
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Agreed- fixed gear can’t be completely relief on, it needs backing up. I don’t see that how that justifies sticking a bolt in though.
To be abundantly clear, I am not arguing about that. I just argue that being able to judge in situ pitons (without potentially destructive testing) is a skill that is impossible to possess.
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Would there not be a lot of routes that would fall into disuse if crucial pegs were removed and there was nothing to back them up? I'm talking most of Nesscliffe, a lot of hard routes in the Leap...its not just one or two surely?
Also Heponstall, Guisecliff and Hawkcliffe might have some redundant routes.
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Agree on "sound judgement of pegs" not really meaning much. I'm a cautious cookie but clipped the cemented-in Shivers Arete peg (the only protection for a 5b crux at the top of the route) last year. It looked in perfect nick. It was pull tested recently and snapped at 1.5kn. It's been replaced with a bolt to preserve a classic E1.
Where there's gear other than the pegs then they obviously don't need replacing, I'm not so sure when the pegs are crucial. The state of the protection on these routes is a big part of how they sit in our psyche. Yukan II without the pegs is a very different thing. Do we want to lose what that thing is now? After all, we glue crucial holds back on don't we...?
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Apologies for asking a very basic question...
What cracks can pegs go into that no other gear will work in? Why are that still needed now cams have gotten very small? I've got it into my head that these kind of placements would surely be replaceable by non fixed gear, but I know that that's definitely a lack of knowledge on my part, having not climbed many routes with pegs (but on some I have climbed, there is gear available in the same crack :unsure:) I'm sure this changes as the climbs get harder and rock gets more compact, but i'm having trouble imagining it
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In plenty of thin cracks:
* A brand new piton smashed in with a heavy hammer = belay. Super easy to clip as well.
* An unrealistically well placed micro friend ≈ bodyweight plus. Might take a minute to fiddle in on the onsight
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Would there not be a lot of routes that would fall into disuse if crucial pegs were removed and there was nothing to back them up? I'm talking most of Nesscliffe, a lot of hard routes in the Leap...its not just one or two surely?
Also Heponstall, Guisecliff and Hawkcliffe might have some redundant routes.
These routes aren’t going to disappear. They will still be there when someone stronger and better comes along and accepts the challenge the rock presents. Anyone who’s run out of routes at a specific grade isn’t looking hard enough, we all need to let go of our ego’s and stop bringing climbs down to our level by smashing bits of metal into them.
“Step up or fuck off”
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Agree on "sound judgement of pegs" not really meaning much. I'm a cautious cookie but clipped the cemented-in Shivers Arete peg (the only protection for a 5b crux at the top of the route) last year. It looked in perfect nick. It was pull tested recently and snapped at 1.5kn. It's been replaced with a bolt to preserve a classic E1.
It was a fairly classic E3 without the peg. I can still remember the day I did it which was at least 35 years ago.
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Agree on "sound judgement of pegs" not really meaning much. I'm a cautious cookie but clipped the cemented-in Shivers Arete peg (the only protection for a 5b crux at the top of the route) last year. It looked in perfect nick. It was pull tested recently and snapped at 1.5kn. It's been replaced with a bolt to preserve a classic E1.
It was a fairly classic E3 without the peg. I can still remember the day I did it which was at least 35 years ago.
Interesting. I had no idea it had been done prior to the peg.
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It was one of those routes where the peg used to get knicked so it would be there for a while, then missing for long periods.
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Would there not be a lot of routes that would fall into disuse if crucial pegs were removed and there was nothing to back them up? I'm talking most of Nesscliffe, a lot of hard routes in the Leap...its not just one or two surely?
It would change the nature and grade of a lot of routes to some extent for sure, but I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing. Can't think of anything in the Leap that wouldn't be protectable if you removed all the pegs. E.g. Nothing to Fear - all the pegs on the crux had perished when I did it but it was still E8. It would make the runout on 'Do you know where your kiddies are' a bit chunkier and may make it solid E8/bottom end E9? Not really game changers though. Nessy is a weird one. I mean I don't know what Yukan II gets these days but it's about E5 with all those pegs, so might be E7 without? Would still get climbed a lot. If we just leave those pegs to rot, what do we do when they've snapped off? Either smash another peg in and the cycle continues? Or replace with a few bolts? Might as well bolt the lot then...
I just don't see why it's become acceptable to have these bits of pre-placed gear in various states of decomposition littering trad venues, which can then be used as an argument for placing bolts on trad routes.
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Apologies for asking a very basic question...
What cracks can pegs go into that no other gear will work in? Why are that still needed now cams have gotten very small? I've got it into my head that these kind of placements would surely be replaceable by non fixed gear, but I know that that's definitely a lack of knowledge on my part, having not climbed many routes with pegs (but on some I have climbed, there is gear available in the same crack :unsure:) I'm sure this changes as the climbs get harder and rock gets more compact, but i'm having trouble imagining it
Not cracks, but where pegs have been placed repeatedly in pockets and blown the edges out I've found it hard to get any natural kit in.
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It's been replaced with a bolt to preserve a classic E1.
It was a fairly classic E3 without the peg.
This is the problem in a nutshell. Not saying E1 is your limit Will or wanting to sound elitist, but I can see how someone pushing their grade at E1 might think bolting this is justifiable. But to 'preserve' this at E1 when it's only E3 without seems madness to me. And the same principle should apply at whatever grade.
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These routes aren’t going to disappear. They will still be there when someone stronger and better comes along and accepts the challenge the rock presents. Anyone who’s run out of routes at a specific grade isn’t looking hard enough, we all need to let go of our ego’s and stop bringing climbs down to our level by smashing bits of metal into them.
“Step up or fuck off”
What's this, Ken Wilson crossed with The Wire?
I know they won't disappear. But there a lot of routes which would get done more often with a good peg/bolt to aim for than without. We all sit somewhere on a spectrum of how acceptable that is.
I think I am kind of between Ali's view (paraphrased as rip out all the pegs and don't place any bolts) and selective replacement of pegs with bolts as they fail. Think it will always be a route by route case by case basis. I also continue to think trad is not in an existential crisis in the UK so maybe that's affecting my view as well.
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There's a pretty big difference between E3 and E1 tbf.
There's also the question of quality. I'd imagine a lot of routes are better for the presence of a peg, making, say, a balanced E7, compared to when the peg comes off making a very scary and probably unjustifiable to most E8? I know there is mystique around some bold routes in the country but not that many really. I think it pretty likely that a lot of routes simply wouldn't get done.
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These routes aren’t going to disappear. They will still be there when someone stronger and better comes along and accepts the challenge the rock presents. Anyone who’s run out of routes at a specific grade isn’t looking hard enough, we all need to let go of our ego’s and stop bringing climbs down to our level by smashing bits of metal into them.
“Step up or fuck off”
What's this, Ken Wilson crossed with The Wire?
I know they won't disappear. But there a lot of routes which would get done more often with a good peg/bolt to aim for than without. We all sit somewhere on a spectrum of how acceptable that is.
I think I am kind of between Ali's view (paraphrased as rip out all the pegs and don't place any bolts) and selective replacement of pegs with bolts as they fail. Think it will always be a route by route case by case basis. I also continue to think trad is not in an existential crisis in the UK so maybe that's affecting my view as well.
Ha ha I’m more Ken Wilson crossed with bo selecta!
That wasn’t directed at you, sorry if it came across that way. It’s something an old timer said to me a long time ago and it’s always kinda resonated! It seemed to fit the point I’m trying to make.
I completely get what you are saying, and in an ideal world it should be on a route by route basis with the nuances of each particular route taken into account.
That isn’t what’s happening, I wish it could be. I take the line I do which is pretty hard because I think it has to be black or white or it just gets abused( like it is being) my natural position would be similar to yours I suspect, but grey areas don’t work!
I’m 100% with Ali, we shouldn’t be replacing fixed gear on trad routes. We should be stepping up to the challenge.
The grey area is just being abused! There are bolts on main cliff that are apparently now part of our varied history…. I think that is a huge step backwards and a real threat to one of the very special disciplines of climbing in Britain.
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We could all spend the coronation bank hol stripping fixed gear out of our local routes. It'll be like having a reset down the wall...
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No worries! Are there any pegbolts on Main Cliff that are justified does anyone think? Could someone local not just remove the ones on Citadel and Dead Man's Chest and hope whoever is doing it gets the point? Appreciate we shouldn't have to etc.
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This is the problem in a nutshell. Not saying E1 is your limit Will or wanting to sound elitist, but I can see how someone pushing their grade at E1 might think bolting this is justifiable. But 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...". The degree of grade change in this case is from being normally protected to guaranteed injury. The "cruciality" of fixed gear should take the degree of that change into account, whether it's to only a dangerous E3 or only a dangerous E9.
Also worth noting this is in a Lancs quarry thus slightly different and maybe more lenient trad ethics (not too lenient though).
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It's been replaced with a bolt to preserve a classic E1.
It was a fairly classic E3 without the peg.
This is the problem in a nutshell. Not saying E1 is your limit Will or wanting to sound elitist, but I can see how someone pushing their grade at E1 might think bolting this is justifiable. But to 'preserve' this at E1 when it's only E3 without seems madness to me. And the same principle should apply at whatever grade.
What he said ^
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As usual in the UK we are conflating the issue of fixed gear with trad climbing when the real erosion to trad ethics (which I presume is the primary concern here) is taking place on routes with no fixed gear. It seems odd to me that people are so concerned about a handful of routes being resto-modded whilst on-sight trad climbing seems to be dying on it’s arse. I’ve seen enough films of high end headpoints to know its not guaranteed outcome climbing but I’d still say the skills and experience of sprinting up a pre-practised route with known and often tested gear, is closer to sport climbing than setting off on a pure on-sight. Yet, we unquestionably accept the former as pure trad and the latter as a unacceptable if it involves fixed gear that’s been replaced. Of course people still on-sight Right Wall, the Main Cliff E5s, stuff in Pembroke etc, (and to that list we can now add Horrorshow and the routes at Criag yr Adar) but there are loads of E5 in Wales that don’t get done. If we strip the “bolts” from Horrorshow and Craig yr Adar they will go back on this list; if that happens trad climbing really been preserved/improved?
I know Steve McClure and Caff have been pushing the on-sight bar but very few climbers I know or follow seem to, even those that do trad. For an example of how things are take a look at UKC logbook for Merionydd. 25 odd ascents in 2 years for this E7 but not a single one for the longer standing 3 star E4 it bisects (with a peg!). This isn’t a slight on anyone who’s done it (I fully intend to have a look myself once I’m fit enough to walk in!) , just that when we get all concerned about the demise of trad climbing it is from the weirdly myopic perspective of fixed gear.
So yeah, go out and strip routes of all fixed gear but I'm not sure if that leaves UK trad in a better place if people then walk past it in favour of a quick headpoint around the corner. Applaud someone for removing the bolt from Barbarossa but don’t be surprised when it reverts to sea grass and no one has at for another 10 years.
To be clear, I'm not saying anyone has to go and on-sight anything just that I bristle slightly when trad climbing is defined by headpointing only.
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Ali keeps talking about Pembroke. I can’t think of any route in Pembroke with a crucial peg. Pembroke is one area and the rock lends itself to natural pro.
I’d estimate 70% of E6s and 80% of E7 and above routes in the Lakes have pegs in them. It’s not like they’re getting loads of ascents. There are a lot of E7s in the Lakes which could be attempted GU. Take all the pegs out and you’d have lots of really dangerous E8 6bs. The reality is you’d have more headpointing. Progress?
I’m sympathetic to the hardcore stance, but I don’t think it works beyond sea cliffs maybe. Do you really want Scimitar Ridge stripped of all the fixed gear? It would make many of the routes completely unprotected. No one would climb them. What’s the point?
“No drilling” on trad routes seems pretty black and white to me. Solves the peg-boltshit issue.
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“No drilling” on trad routes seems pretty black and white to me. Solves the peg-boltshit issue.
Except that eventually you just get back to the same situation you described above, when the pegs have rotted and no one tries ground-up any more.
What's so much worse about a little 12mm hole than smashing a peg into a seam?
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Unless the pegs are replaced. This does actually happen.
I’ve placed pegs and I’ve drilled bolts. The two things are very different. A bolt can go anywhere and it’s 100% reliable.
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Unless the pegs are replaced. This does actually happen.
I’ve placed pegs and I’ve drilled bolts. The two things are very different. A bolt can go anywhere and it’s 100% reliable.
I've also placed pegs and drilled bolts, so I too fully appreciate the difference!
The fact that a bolt can go anywhere while a peg can't holds no water in this debate for me. It matters if it's a new route and you're the FA with that decision to make, but as a repeater you simply encounter what is there - you are not working with what the rock gives you, you're working with what another person has given you.
The fact that a bolt is 100% reliable is an argument for it for me - as jwi and Will Hunt have pointed out above, the idea that you can make a meaningful judgement about the quality of a peg is to quite a large extent illusory.
If there's going to be fixed gear hammered or drilled into routes, it might as well be durable and sound.
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Reply to Fiend: But then you get back to Barrows’ point earlier that this approach is 100% deference to the boldness of the first ascentionist, rather than to the rock itself.
TB: But what I don’t get is why pegs are treated so differently to all other gear. On a lot of these lakes routes I’m sure you could absolutely muller some wires into placements to become in-situ gear and take the E7s down to E5/6 clip-ups.
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TB: But what I don’t get is why pegs are treated so differently to all other gear. On a lot of these lakes routes I’m sure you could absolutely muller some wires into placements to become in-situ gear and take the E7s down to E5/6 clip-ups.
As an aside, this had been done on a route in the Pass that I climbed last year, with the idea that the wire could be more easily replaced. Unfortunately no one climbed it for 15 years so when I tried to remove the badly rusted wire, it snapped at the head leaving the nut irretrievable and blocking the placement.
:slap:
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Unless the pegs are replaced. This does actually happen.
I’ve placed pegs and I’ve drilled bolts. The two things are very different. A bolt can go anywhere and it’s 100% reliable.
I've also placed pegs and drilled bolts, so I too fully appreciate the difference!
The fact that a bolt can go anywhere while a peg can't holds no water in this debate for me. It matters if it's a new route and you're the FA with that decision to make, but as a repeater you simply encounter what is there - you are not working with what the rock gives you, you're working with what another person has given you.
The fact that a bolt is 100% reliable is an argument for it for me - as jwi and Will Hunt have pointed out above, the idea that you can make a meaningful judgement about the quality of a peg is to quite a large extent illusory.
If there's going to be fixed gear hammered or drilled into routes, it might as well be durable and sound.
If you can rely on the peg bolters to only drill into the original placement then I understand what you’re saying. But I can’t rely on that - see N Yorkshire for trad routes getting fully retroed.
Fixed gear on trad routes whether pegs or threads should always be treated suspiciously. In the same way that every wire placement isn’t a bomber rock 7. I don’t agree that fixed gear has to be “durable and sound”. It might be psychological or something to aim for! Dodgy fixed gear is just part of trad climbing to me. Barbarossa is now a F7b as far as I’m concerned.
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Are there pegbolts on Yorks lime then? I thought sport and trad were coexisting quite happily tbh.
Also Barbarossa does not sound like a 7b from comments on ukc, are you just willy waving or are you being serious?
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Sorry - edited my post.
Sport and trad coexisting quite happily?
Obvs a lot of people think it’s OK that Cave Route Righthand, one of the top 10 single pitch E6s in the UK was retroed rather than becoming one of the top 10 E7 single pitches in the UK. I don’t. That’s just one example.
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Barbarossa is now a F7b as far as I’m concerned.
Fine by me, I've got limited use for British trad grades when it's at or above my limit anyway. So long as the guidebook makes it clear that the bolting is a bit spaced ;D
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Also Barbarossa does not sound like a 7b from comments on ukc, are you just willy waving or are you being serious?
The nature of that route was a bold, bouldery crux wall followed by an enjoyable but straightforward E3. The wall bit is now bolt protected. You’re not gonna deck out. Take the E6 if you like!
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Sorry - edited my post.
Sport and trad coexisting quite happily?
Obvs a lot of people think it’s OK that Cave Route Righthand, one of the top 10 single pitch E6s in the UK was retroed rather than becoming one of the top 10 E7 single pitches in the UK. I don’t. That’s just one example.
Yeah, fair enough. I have absolutely no problem with Cave Right becoming fully bolted. But it largely happened before I moved up here so if there was drama I missed it. I was always under the impression it relied on loads of fixed rusty shit anyway (a lot of which you can still see) and so was largely a clip up anyway, much like Yosemite Wall at Malham went on about 25 pegs. I'm sure you're about to educate me! :)
I haven't done Barbarossa so am fully going on those comments, some of which sound like pretty full on trad experiences. It's a bit facetious but clipping one bolt does not make a sport route I don't think. But kind of irrelevant.
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As usual in the UK we are conflating the issue of fixed gear with trad climbing when the real erosion to trad ethics (which I presume is the primary concern here) is taking place on routes with no fixed gear. It seems odd to me that people are so concerned about a handful of routes being resto-modded whilst on-sight trad climbing seems to be dying on it’s arse. I’ve seen enough films of high end headpoints to know its not guaranteed outcome climbing but I’d still say the skills and experience of sprinting up a pre-practised route with known and often tested gear, is closer to sport climbing than setting off on a pure on-sight. Yet, we unquestionably accept the former as pure trad and the latter as a unacceptable if it involves fixed gear that’s been replaced. Of course people still on-sight Right Wall, the Main Cliff E5s, stuff in Pembroke etc, (and to that list we can now add Horrorshow and the routes at Criag yr Adar) but there are loads of E5 in Wales that don’t get done. If we strip the “bolts” from Horrorshow and Craig yr Adar they will go back on this list; if that happens trad climbing really been preserved/improved?
I know Steve McClure and Caff have been pushing the on-sight bar but very few climbers I know or follow seem to, even those that do trad. For an example of how things are take a look at UKC logbook for Merionydd. 25 odd ascents in 2 years for this E7 but not a single one for the longer standing 3 star E4 it bisects (with a peg!). This isn’t a slight on anyone who’s done it (I fully intend to have a look myself once I’m fit enough to walk in!) , just that when we get all concerned about the demise of trad climbing it is from the weirdly myopic perspective of fixed gear.
So yeah, go out and strip routes of all fixed gear but I'm not sure if that leaves UK trad in a better place if people then walk past it in favour of a quick headpoint around the corner. Applaud someone for removing the bolt from Barbarossa but don’t be surprised when it reverts to sea grass and no one has at for another 10 years.
To be clear, I'm not saying anyone has to go and on-sight anything just that I bristle slightly when trad climbing is defined by headpointing only.
Thank you Teaboy!
The widespread adoption of pre-practised leads of trad routes which would have been routinely climbed on sight 20+ years ago, is the biggest change (some would say threat) to UK traditional climbing in recent years.
I wonder how many of those getting so exercised about a genuine attempt to properly resolve the problem of rotten fixed gear (particularly on sea cliffs) - albeit an attempt which has arguably gone too far, without the checks and balances of proper, informed debate - regularly indulge in this counterintuitive practice themselves (yet still regard themselves as traditional climbers)?
I speak as someone who has led Citadel in its original form; Barbarossa in its original form; 15 men... in its current form (all on sight) and followed Citadel in its current form (amongst countless other examples).
Neil
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I’m arguing for trending towards removing pegs from British trad climbing altogether. If a peg can be backed up with natural pro then it’s unnecessary anyway so get rid. If the peg can’t be backed up then it leads to this dilemma of whether to replace it with a bolt to ‘preserve’ the route, which should never be acceptable IMO. So get rid, and take the route back to its original state. And update the grade to suit.
I've always been around 7-out-of-10 in favour of Ali's view on pegs. Placing pegs is the root of the problem, the problem is trying to work out what to do with what's been left behind by the short-sighted actions of first ascenionists. Imo pegs should never have been placed as leader protection, especially from the 80s on. Perhaps they really didn't know better about the long term corrosion in the 50s/60s/70. But by the 80s they must have known, especially on coastal climbs. Who really thought it would be a good idea to hammer non corrosion-resistant steel spikes into rock climbs and leave them there forever to rot?
Getting rid of all pegs without replacing any of them is a step too far imo. That level of ideological purity could result in erasing hundreds of great trad routes by making them so bold as to be de-facto unclimbable for 99.5% of climbers. For what? An ideologically pure vision that doesn't allow for pieces of long-lasting bomber fixed gear to exist on rock climbs where previously there was corroded fixed gear? I thought teaboy's point was spot on - trad isn't defined solely by a lack of fixed gear (although it is an important consideration).
The logical solution seems to be a mixture of removing the large majority of pegs and not replacing where it makes sense not to, while some edge cases retain minimal bomber fixed gear where the quality at a particular grade seems to justify it. In those cases it makes sense to bend ethical guidelines so pegs can get replaced with long-lasting stainless or titanium bolts. There'll always be grey areas and not everyone will be in total agreement. But then I'm probably naïve and believe people can be sensible and balanced and make good judgement calls.
This is what’s been attempted in N.Wales. The bolting is getting deserved flack because it started from a dodgy premise that isn’t transparent to other climbers outside a relatively tiny circle of knowledge. Pretending the peg replacements aren’t bolts takes people for fools and denies people a chance to have an informed opinion on the matter. There's also been some over-doing it on routes that a lot of people think don't benefit from the bolts.
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Just to clarify at no point have I argued to remove anything other than unwanted bolts.
I’m saying we shouldn’t replace fixed gear. The time it takes for it all to disappear should act as a reasonable cushion, ripping it all out now would be a cluster fuck.
I understand the headpointing argument, but I don’t believe swapping some pegs for some bolts on some routes is gonna change the fact that headpointing is quite popular.
The ultimate prize and the best style possible will always be onsight with no fixed gear! It will always trump an onsight with some bolts/fixed gear, so if it’s style that’s important to people I’d say that’s what people should be aspiring to.
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Are there pegbolts on Yorks lime then? I thought sport and trad were coexisting quite happily tbh.
I actually burst out laughing at that!! Yorkshire lime is probably the flagship example of mass retro-bolting.
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As usual in the UK we are conflating the issue of fixed gear with trad climbing when the real erosion to trad ethics (which I presume is the primary concern here) is taking place on routes with no fixed gear. It seems odd to me that people are so concerned about a handful of routes being resto-modded whilst on-sight trad climbing seems to be dying on it’s arse. I’ve seen enough films of high end headpoints to know its not guaranteed outcome climbing but I’d still say the skills and experience of sprinting up a pre-practised route with known and often tested gear, is closer to sport climbing than setting off on a pure on-sight. Yet, we unquestionably accept the former as pure trad and the latter as a unacceptable if it involves fixed gear that’s been replaced. Of course people still on-sight Right Wall, the Main Cliff E5s, stuff in Pembroke etc, (and to that list we can now add Horrorshow and the routes at Criag yr Adar) but there are loads of E5 in Wales that don’t get done. If we strip the “bolts” from Horrorshow and Craig yr Adar they will go back on this list; if that happens trad climbing really been preserved/improved?
I know Steve McClure and Caff have been pushing the on-sight bar but very few climbers I know or follow seem to, even those that do trad. For an example of how things are take a look at UKC logbook for Merionydd. 25 odd ascents in 2 years for this E7 but not a single one for the longer standing 3 star E4 it bisects (with a peg!). This isn’t a slight on anyone who’s done it (I fully intend to have a look myself once I’m fit enough to walk in!) , just that when we get all concerned about the demise of trad climbing it is from the weirdly myopic perspective of fixed gear.
So yeah, go out and strip routes of all fixed gear but I'm not sure if that leaves UK trad in a better place if people then walk past it in favour of a quick headpoint around the corner. Applaud someone for removing the bolt from Barbarossa but don’t be surprised when it reverts to sea grass and no one has at for another 10 years.
To be clear, I'm not saying anyone has to go and on-sight anything just that I bristle slightly when trad climbing is defined by headpointing only.
Good post but where the hell were you when I was arguing this all the time on UKC and getting slagged off all the time for having that sort of stance??!!
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We will have to disagree on that one Simon. What's your thoughts on the bolting of routes up the river at Central that no one seems to have mentioned?
Fair dos
Mixed feelings. The crag is so inherently loose it feels like it should be all bolted apart from one or two classics and I don’t think Knuckle Knocker fits into that category. Not familiar enough with the crag to know how other routes have been affected - Wight Fright?
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I've always been around 7-out-of-10 in favour of Ali's view on pegs. Placing pegs is the root of the problem, the problem is trying to work out what to do with what's been left behind by the short-sighted actions of first ascenionists. Imo pegs should never have been placed as leader protection, especially from the 80s on. Perhaps they really didn't know better about the long term corrosion in the 50s/60s/70. But by the 80s they must have known, especially on coastal climbs. Who really thought it would be a good idea to hammer non corrosion-resistant steel spikes into rock climbs and leave them there forever to rot?
Getting rid of all pegs without replacing any of them is a step too far imo. That level of ideological purity could result in erasing hundreds of great trad routes by making them so bold as to be de-facto unclimbable for 99.5% of climbers. For what? An ideologically pure vision that doesn't allow for pieces of long-lasting bomber fixed gear to exist on rock climbs where previously there was corroded fixed gear? I thought teaboy's point was spot on - trad isn't defined solely by a lack of fixed gear (although it is an important consideration).
The logical solution seems to be a mixture of removing the large majority of pegs and not replacing where it makes sense not to, while some edge cases retain minimal bomber fixed gear where the quality at a particular grade seems to justify it. In those cases it makes sense to bend ethical guidelines so pegs can get replaced with long-lasting stainless or titanium bolts. There'll always be grey areas and not everyone will be in total agreement. But then I'm probably naïve and believe people can be sensible and balanced and make good judgement calls.
This is what’s been attempted in N.Wales. The bolting is getting deserved flack because it started from a dodgy premise that isn’t transparent to other climbers outside a relatively tiny circle of knowledge. Pretending the peg replacements aren’t bolts takes people for fools and denies people a chance to have an informed opinion on the matter. There's also been some over-doing it on routes that a lot of people think don't benefit from the bolts.
This is a pretty accurate summary of my view as well. With the one caveat, as argued previously, that I think there's something to be said for the low visual impact of the 'eco pegs' (though obviously no one should be under any illusion that they are actually bolts).
As far as North Wales goes, the placing of new standard pegs, which has also been happening, is a more retrograde step than the bolts IMO.
I would also agree with Teaboy's observation that British trad has been changed far more by style of approach than it has by the fixed gear situation, which has always been a bit of a mess.
Personally I don't care - people can climb however they want, and if that's not in the most committing style that's fine. As long as everyone's honest about what they're doing, the idea that people 'should' be doing it in a particular way is absurd. But it's relevant to the fixed gear debate because if you care about 'Traditional' climbing, it's worth asking what your ideal version of it preserves and for whom.
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Are there pegbolts on Yorks lime then? I thought sport and trad were coexisting quite happily tbh.
I actually burst out laughing at that!! Yorkshire lime is probably the flagship example of mass retro-bolting.
Where though ? What bolting crimes have been committed that are so heinous? I know about the Attermire escarpment stuff that happened around lockdown, cave route right as covered above and the Gresh deja vu clusterfuck.
Yew Cogar has some very good E5s right next to popular sport routes. 95% of Kilnseys trad routes remain unbolted, even Face Value. Malham trad is sacrosanct. Gordale trad untouched away from cave route right. Gigg south upper tier has no bolts at all. Where has been bolted that shouldn't have been? This is a genuine question not a piss take!
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Also I agree with Pete and Andy. Think there's a lot to be said for the current use of pegbolts in the way they use existing placements and are very discrete.
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Yes White Fright and Sox.
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[Where has been bolted that shouldn't have been? This is a genuine question not a piss take!
In Yorkshire, stuff I can think of that was bolted while I was more active up there :-
- Dib Scar Right Wing : I did a fair few of these before they were bolted and they were genuinely good routes, similar in style to some of the Malham Right Wing stuff.
- Trow Gill Right Wing : Clink, Alick and others were trad/semi-trad before the bolts. Clink would have been a great E4/5 without the bolts.
- Giggleswick North : Buttress where Acid Drop/Acid Test is (Ivy Buttress?) has been (at least partially) retroed. Main crag used to have a few trad routes, some retroed and some that have been so surrounded by sport routes that they might as well have been retroed, e.g., The Ramp.
- High Stony Bank : Are there any trad routes left?
A lot of the above where bolted based on the "neglected crag, no-one goes there" argument. However, the Dib Scar routes were only developed maybe 10 years before being bolted (by the same people that developed them). For some of the crags, belays and descents were maybe a problem (top of Trow Gill being an example), but that could have been solved by bolt lower offs as at Blue Scar Left Wing and maintaining the original routes. This isn't necessarily to say that some of these shouldn't have been bolted - some of them make more sense as sport crags, e.g., Robin Proctor's, but it's the bolting without any agreement of what's fair game that pisses me off.
Disappointingly, this saga will never produce a cartoon as good as the Hodge Close Bolt Wars one from 20 years ago with the Ministry of Ethics and Cavell Gregg flying the helicopter (because he'd had lots of airtime practice).
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Are there pegbolts on Yorks lime then? I thought sport and trad were coexisting quite happily tbh.
I actually burst out laughing at that!! Yorkshire lime is probably the flagship example of mass retro-bolting.
Where though ? What bolting crimes have been committed that are so heinous? I know about the Attermire escarpment stuff that happened around lockdown, cave route right as covered above and the Gresh deja vu clusterfuck.
Yew Cogar has some very good E5s right next to popular sport routes. 95% of Kilnseys trad routes remain unbolted, even Face Value. Malham trad is sacrosanct. Gordale trad untouched away from cave route right. Gigg south upper tier has no bolts at all. Where has been bolted that shouldn't have been? This is a genuine question not a piss take!
Some people aren't happy about Langcliffe Skyline. As one person said to me "there weren't many places where you could go and do reasonable E4s/E5s on Yorkshire limestone and there's one fewer now". You could arguably have left that whole buttress untouched.
I can't imagine anyone complaining about Troller's in the same way. The rock is superficially nice to climb on but internally quite shit; "like drilling into honeycomb".
Stabbsy's examples are fair. In Yorkshire we don't seem to deal very well with leaving the one or two viable trad routes on a buttress alone when the stuff around it gets retroed. High Stony is a good example of that but I can't honestly say that I miss Oedipus as a trad route. E3 seems like a horrible grade to give it and even if it'd been fairly graded I can't see many people going there to do it. The same goes for the Ivy Buttress routes. They looked good, but nobody was going to Gigg North to do them among a load of F6s. Climber's tastes don't seem to extend to tricky inland limestone and it's definitely not fashionable to go to somewhere other than Malham/Kilnsey/Gordale to do a mixed day of sport and trad.
There definitely should be more consultation when it comes to retroing old climbs. I haven't been to Raven's Scar (over the valley from Twistleton) but I can imagine that there won't be any trad left there soon. Though did anybody ever go there?
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Where though? What bolting crimes have been committed that are so heinous? I know about the Attermire escarpment stuff that happened around lockdown, cave route right as covered above and the Gresh deja vu clusterfuck. Yew Cogar has some very good E5s right next to popular sport routes. Where has been bolted that shouldn't have been?
[Not especially in reply to you Jim] The difficulty is it's always a slow drip with retro-bolting, and the bigger picture is only recognised in hindsight. You could add cave route left to the above list. And yosemite wall further back in time. [just seen Stabbsy has added a more exhaustive list]. And Staying Power at Yew Cogar was retroed recently (fine by me). The E5s on the right there I'm sure will be at some point in the future too (also fine by me if they do - great little warm-ups they'd be). I'd be ok with Yew becoming a purely sport venue, along with a lot of other Yorks Lime crags.
The main reason I lean towards wanting to avoid mixed sport/trad crags as much as possible is to get rid of this grey area that Northern Yob has described well. And because all the evidence indicates that over time if you leave a blurred line between the two it'll tip over to the side of sticking bolts in the trad lines. I get why many people (reasonably) think we can reach a happy balance where trad and sport routes sit happily side by side, but in the long term I don't see it myself.
Another thing to bear in mind is that a lot of these routes were put up in the 70s/80s and there are still people alive who either did the FA or early repeats as trad routes. When these people are no longer around and there are fewer people with direct skin in the game / nostalgia, is there likely to be as much push back? If any?
I recognise the potential hypocrisy in my binary stance, and call me pessimistic, but over the long term I don't see it ending well for trad if we go down the road of wishfully thinking trad routes can coexist alongside sport routes on the same crag, especially if pegs start getting replaced with bolts.
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In summary of the views expressed on this thread:
Some people would like British trad to be as clear of fixed gear as possible (with the possible exception of threads).
Some people would like to maintain the rusty unreliable fixed gear status quo, possibly replacing like-for-like where possible.
Some people would like to minimise fixed gear, but have occasional bolts where they preserve a route at a certain grade that would otherwise be very bold.
Unanimous: there should be consultation before these actions are carried out.
Are the BMC area meetings the only channel that anyone is proposing for consensus to be established?
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Examples noted. I guess I am part of the 'problem' in that I really don't see the issue with bolting these apart from the lack of consultation. The problem is how to do this. BMC meetings are poorly attended (11 at the one last week) and in any case, the BMC is not a governing body, its representative.
Ali, don't Cave Left and Yosemite fall into the category of always being poorly protected sport routes as they relied on a large amount of pegs? But I do take your general point about it being a slow process where the impact is only realised later. Tbh though I think Yorks lime is a bad hill to die on (not that you are!); the routes are short, sometimes on iffy rock (eg Attermire Escarpment), often relied on pegs anyway, and never got done before they were bolted. It doesn't make for a compelling case for leaving them as trad lines.
I didn't really mean to revert to Yorks lime, I just didn't understand the context properly. Elsewhere in the UK, I feel like the balance largely works pretty well? The recent NWales issues are not being replicated wholesale everywhere; eg no bolts have been sunk in Pembroke, the Lakes, Scotland, Cornwall?
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As an aside, there's been a few mentions of Yorkshire being the home of retro-bolting and the 'wrongful' loss of trad routes. Maybe not exactly that, but you know what I mean.
My hypothesis, which may be entirely wrong, is that this is a hangover prejudice from some pre-millenium time when people started to bolt easy routes (not just the F7s at M/K/G). Lots of disagreement, lots of discussion, thick end of the wedge etc etc etc, with much of the disagreement focused on crags that people might actually want to climb at (while those same discussions in the Peak would have been about shitpits that people probably wouldn't even sport climb in). Because these crags filled up with easy routes then the cognoscenti could happily ignore them and look down their noses at those who climbed there.
I'm sure that's entirely wrong. Happy to be corrected. Why is Yorkshire viewed this way but not the Peak?
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The recent NWales issues are not being replicated wholesale everywhere; eg no bolts have been sunk in Pembroke, the Lakes, Scotland, Cornwall?
There have been a few bolting controversies in recent years in Scotland (though Scotland is a big place, so they've been less concentrated). There was some strong local opposition to the retro-bolting of Farrletter Crag - the bolts were chopped once, but are now well established with the single exception of Too Farr for the Bear (E4), which has become more popular since the rest of the crag became sport. As far as I can tell, most locals approve of the situation. There's been pushback against the bolting without consultation of Glenmarksie and some Torridonian sandstone crags, and maybe to a lesser extent the retro-ing of a trad line amid sport routes at Brin. Opposition too to bolting of abseil stations at Diabaig. Perhaps others I'm forgetting or not aware of, but again I think the strongest outcry is against a lack of consultation.
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Ali, don't Cave Left and Yosemite fall into the category of always being poorly protected sport routes as they relied on a large amount of pegs?
Yeh absolutely. To my mind these are far better suited to being sport routes (as are a lot of other venues) so I would just accept that and bolt them. If the lower left side of Malham finished with a nice pull over onto a flat and stable ledge to belay on, and all those routes (yosemite wall, tremelo, space race, zoolook etc) were protectable to some degree (without pegs), then there'd be an argument to have kept it trad. Similarly, if the amazing bit of rock in the Leap finished at a crumbly overhang just below the top, and if most of the routes relied on pegs, then it would be more suited to being a sport venue IMO.
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Actually been some retrobolting going on here, but they were poor trad routes, and there is such a paucity of low / mid grade sport that no-one minded. One of the new routes starts up one of my favourite boulder problems, but it only affects the aesthetics.
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/yellow_crag_clochindare-9703/#photos
Glen Lednock seems to have settled back after the in / out bolts, likewise Farletter
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/lower_glen_lednock-19696/#maps
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/farletter_crag-389/#overview
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There's been pushback against the bolting without consultation of Glenmarksie and some Torridonian sandstone crags
Forgot about Glutton. Did you think it offensive? I've not been.
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/glutton_crag-20419/
Didn't know about Glenmarksie, are the bolts still in place?
I heard there was a bit of a huff about the Kingussie bolted routes due to lack of consultation
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/comic_crag_-_kingussie-28406/#overview
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I would call myself a pretty normal mainly onsight trad climber who also does sport and the odd headpoint. Seems from my logbook that I've done about 90% o/s, GU or fallen off... Climbed plenty in the pass, some on Gogarth. Rhoscolyn etc.
I have not yet, to my knowledge, clipped a "pegbolt" (or eco-peg or whatever you want to call them) but I actually think they have a place and my thinking is more along the lines of petejh and Andy Moles .
For me, I would feel very "un-British" clipping an expansion bolt on a trad route. I do it all the time abroad (just back from a month of onsighting big granite stuff in Canada) and think there is some logic in the "creation" of more balanced routes.
Here are my observations and feelings, contradictory as they may be...
Scotland is littered with poorly protected low starred chop routes that nobody every climbs. There are routes around that are currently peg protected and in the usual "middle" of the grade curve, i.e. not *too* bold, not *too* over-protected. When the pegs go these routes will variously:
- become quite serious
- not change a lot
- just be more pure with no change in grade
My opinion is that we have enough chop routes, so those that become stupidly dangerous may benefit from a glued peg (but not a sport climbing "bolt"). The number of people out there that really want to climb seriously dangerous mid-grade routes in vanishing low, and there are so many quality, bold naturally protected routes that I don't think it's a net gain to add more chop routes in the mix.
The reason I have a preference for these controversial middle-ground is purely that they keep the feeling more "trad" and preserve the original feeling of the route.
now....
When it comes to the "decision tree" of "what should be done when a route has crumbling pegs", to me, is based on:
- What percentage of the pro is pegs
- does the route naturally "top out"
- how serious does the route become without
Some of these main wall routes that used to have 15+ pegs and now have 11 "peg bolts" are sport routes in all but name and I think they should either have been retroed properly with a L/O, or, if the crag is a historical classic trad crag it maybe jut needs to be consigned to the history bucket...
In my experience: majority trad crags with a few sport routes have more trad traffic and the drive for retro-bolting is minimal (e.g cambusbarron) crags with an even balance where the sport routes are good are very neglected from a trad perspective: (tunnel wall, upper cave*, dumbarton) but the biggest risk of creeping retro where you have a majority sport crag with one or two "historical" trad routes. They seem to get totally neglected and are perhaps more at risk?
*while on any given day the sport routes are more likely to be climbed, it *IS* still a popular trad crag with quite a few underprotected test-pieces such as Lady Charlotte than would maybe have seen the sharp end of a drill in more modern times.
So, in summary, I guess I support "glued pegs" in a limited and specific way ;) but agree that tring to pretend they are not "bolts" is nonsense and having 12 in a row is a bloody sport route!
Additions:
- I do not support placing new pegs on FAs, or bolts.
Final thought for now.... It's kind of funny that we have an idea of "British Trad Ethics", when viewpoints on everything else in life vary wildly region to region. It's not like by buying a rope and rack you instantly sign up to some agreement charter on how to behave...what you can and can't do...
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There have been a few bolting controversies in recent years in Scotland (though Scotland is a big place, so they've been less concentrated).
Craiglea is the naughtiest I've seen. Fiend would be weeping and gnashing his teeth. Beautiful gneiss littered with cracks, grid bolted for convenience. The one E1 left standing has an extra bolt added at the start to tame the 2m runout to the first cam crack. A very enjoyable afternoon out, but a bad precedent, I felt.
The bendy wall at Glencoe has some interesting comments on UKC too.
And the diabaig commodification is the nw equivalent of rhoscolyn. Theres just fewer folks around with chisels to clean it up.
I'd be sad to see bolts in Scottish mountain or seacliff routes. And a glued peg, in my view, is a bolt. I can't think of many routes that would be lost, but maybe I don't climb at a high enough level/right areas
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In reply to Fultonius. I realise you probably know this but. The reality of 'glued pegs' is:
1. They aren't just glued - they nearly always need to be drilled, then glued.
This is because a typical peg crack is too tight to accept thick glue, you need to make enough of a hole so that the shaft of the peg is surrounded by the glue. So while a 'glued peg' might sound and look like a sort of more acceptable trad version of a bolt, the reality of its placement is the same as a bolt on a sport route. In other words a glued peg is a non stainless protection bolt. Why would you place a non-stainless protection bolt?
2. Because they need to be drilled, glued pegs don't only get placed in natural peg placements - as some people incorrectly claim. The options for placement are far more flexible when you have to use the drill to place them. As long as you drill into a vaguely seam-like or pocket-like feature it can be claimed 'it was a peg placement' and the climbing scene will generally let it pass without too much self-reflection, because we all just appreciate having the bomber gear to clip. If you take a close look at the many glued disguised bolts in Wales you'll notice many of them aren't in natural peg cracks rather they've been drilled and glued into bits of rock with a crack, seam or recessed feature that wouldn't necessarily accept a bomber hammered-in peg.
Glued-pegs are a cuddly sympathetic-looking sub-standard short-lifespan version of a stainless bolt. Introduced as a way to place bolt protection on run-out trad routes in a way that doesn't outrage British trad sensibilities. As a lover of simplicity I find this self-deception deeply annoying. :)
The N.Wales 'bolts that look like pegs' are one step better, because they're stainless. But still founded in a deception that makes climbers believe they're a peg.
The logical solution imo is a bolt that looks and works like a bolt.
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Craiglea is the naughtiest I've seen.
Where is this?
Did Gallanash have many trad routes before bolting?
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Forgot about Glutton. Did you think it offensive? I've not been.
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/glutton_crag-20419/
Didn't know about Glenmarksie, are the bolts still in place?
I heard there was a bit of a huff about the Kingussie bolted routes due to lack of consultation
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/comic_crag_-_kingussie-28406/#overview
Re. Glenmarksie, I believe so.
Glutton is not the only sandstone crag, but I've not been myself.
I'm surprised there was any fuss about Kingussie. It wasn't trad developed (despite being right by the town), the rock is compact, it seems like an uncontroversial candidate for low grade sport. My only complaint would be that some of the bolting is pretty random!
I knew nothing about Craiglea, but from the few photos on UKC I'd have to agree that that really doesn't look like a sport crag.
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In reply to Fultonius. I realise you probably know this but. The reality of 'glued pegs' is:
1. They aren't just glued - they nearly always need to be drilled, then glued.
This is because a typical peg crack is too tight to accept thick glue, you need to make enough of a hole so that the shaft of the peg is surrounded by the glue. So while a 'glued peg' might sound and look like a sort of more acceptable trad version of a bolt, the reality of its placement is the same as a bolt on a sport route. In other words a glued peg is a non stainless protection bolt. Why would you place a non-stainless protection bolt?
2. Because they need to be drilled, glued pegs don't only get placed in natural peg placements - as some people incorrectly claim. The options for placement are far more flexible when you have to use the drill to place them. As long as you drill into a vaguely seam-like or pocket-like feature it can be claimed 'it was a peg placement' and the climbing scene will generally let it pass without too much self-reflection, because we all just appreciate having the bomber gear to clip. If you take a close look at the many glued disguised bolts in Wales you'll notice many of them aren't in natural peg cracks rather they've been drilled and glued into bits of rock with a crack, seam or recessed feature that wouldn't necessarily accept a bomber hammered-in peg.
Glued-pegs are a cuddly sympathetic-looking sub-standard short-lifespan version of a stainless bolt. Introduced as a way to place bolt protection on run-out trad routes in a way that doesn't outrage British trad sensibilities. As a lover of simplicity I find this self-deception deeply annoying. :)
The N.Wales 'bolts that look like pegs' are one step better, because they're stainless. But still founded in a deception that makes climbers believe they're a peg.
The logical solution imo is a bolt that looks and works like a bolt.
Thanks for the lengthy description Pete, reads about the same as the last one you wrote on another thread :-*
To clarify - I'd only advocate for stainless for longevity (or titanium for that matter).
Whether they're shaped to look like a peg, or a standard glue-in is less of an issue for me - I just mentioned I didn't mind the self delusion, as for me it just seems more in keeping stylistically and draws a stronger divide between sport and trad. Standards bolts = sport
glued, drilled, stainless oeg:bolts are permanent fixed gear on trad.
It's only a theory/suggestion.
I 100% agree anyone pretending they're not essentially identical to "bolts" is seriously deluding themselves, but I do still think them being "visually" different may have some merit?
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a deception that makes climbers believe they're a peg.
You not think that before long everyone will recognise the difference? Word is very much out, and they look pretty different to standard pegs.
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In reply to Fultonius. I realise you probably know this but. The reality of 'glued pegs' is:
1. They aren't just glued - they nearly always need to be drilled, then glued.
This is because a typical peg crack is too tight to accept thick glue, you need to make enough of a hole so that the shaft of the peg is surrounded by the glue.
Pete, do you know what product is being used for these glue-in pegs? I can't find anything similar to the picture you posted on a (very quick) google.
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AFAIK they’ve been custom made. Laser cut from a sheet, I think cavers did it first.
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Pete, do you know what product is being used for these glue-in pegs? I can't find anything similar to the picture you posted on a (very quick) google.
As JB says he's had them custom made by a tame fabricator out of 316 stainless. I was there when he had them pull-tested, they tested to over 30kN axial if I recall correctly. Might be wrong on that as we were also testing the 12mm twisty bolt at the time.
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You not think that before long everyone will recognise the difference? Word is very much out, and they look pretty different to standard pegs.
Maybe. However the BMC N.Wales local area, the Moelwyns guidebook, and the ubiquitous UKC descriptions all describing insitu 'pegs' (or 'eco pegs') makes me think the self-deception will persist.
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On drilled and glued bolts:
For me, I would feel very "un-British" clipping an expansion bolt on a trad route.
I found it very useful to gain perspective on the issue by visualising these drilled and glued pegs as if they were expansion bolts placed in exactly the same situation. Because that is what they are functionally and ethically equivalent to, and how any ethical judgements should apply (although normal drilled and glued ringbolts are a better equivalence in terms of practicality).
On retro-bolting trad and, say, Yorkshire and Peak lime in particular: I do agree with points made by AliK I think, that routes that are predominantly reliant on (old) fixed gear, especially in areas that are more lenient towards sport climbing, can be considerably more acceptable candidates for retro-bolting than routes that are predominantly reliant on normal leader-placed gear (like, say, old Lorry Park Quarry trad, a lot of retroed Ormes easy extremes etc).
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The logical solution seems to be a mixture of removing the large majority of pegs and not replacing where it makes sense not to, while some edge cases retain minimal bomber fixed gear where the quality at a particular grade seems to justify it. In those cases it makes sense to bend ethical guidelines so pegs can get replaced with long-lasting stainless or titanium bolts. There'll always be grey areas and not everyone will be in total agreement. But then I'm probably naïve and believe people can be sensible and balanced and make good judgement calls.
This is what’s been attempted in N.Wales. The bolting is getting deserved flack because it started from a dodgy premise that isn’t transparent to other climbers outside a relatively tiny circle of knowledge. Pretending the peg replacements aren’t bolts takes people for fools and denies people a chance to have an informed opinion on the matter. There's also been some over-doing it on routes that a lot of people think don't benefit from the bolts.
There's a lot of sense to that. I and others might not entirely agree with bolt-for-peg replacement, but then the last paragraph highlights the need for clarity so at least people can have informed debate about it.
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Craiglea is the naughtiest I've seen.
Where is this?
Did Gallanash have many trad routes before bolting?
Above the nudist resort on the way to Arisaig.
I think Gallanach was always a good candidate for bolting. There was one noted trad route prior (an amazing chimney system which I still haven't done, much to my shame). The initial sport and trad routes were all done around the same time. The sport routes are popular, the trad routes gather dust. Which is a bit of shame. Cotyledon would be up there with the best overgrown, loose, mega corners in the country. And the Braid is excellent (but I would say that ;D).
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You not think that before long everyone will recognise the difference? Word is very much out, and they look pretty different to standard pegs.
Maybe. However the BMC N.Wales local area, the Moelwyns guidebook, and the ubiquitous UKC descriptions all describing insitu 'pegs' (or 'eco pegs') makes me think the self-deception will persist.
Yeah, which is not good. I moderate a few things like Craig y Forwyn on UKC, I'll look to update those at least.
Definitely important that guidebooks make clear what they are. Do you know how Andy Boorman plans to describe them in the new NWL?
I can imagine simply calling them a bolt might cause confusion for someone who hasn't seen them before, which I guess supports your point. 'Pegbolt' seems to have naturally gained usage (and it's not too inaccurate, as they are bolts designed to look more like pegs). I'll describe them as that for now.
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Above the nudist resort on the way to Arisaig.
I did find it. Shocking.... I didn't know there was a nudist resort in the highlands!
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Fultonious "For me, I would feel very "un-British" clipping an expansion bolt on a trad route." Don't worry about that, these are glue in bolts, albeit of a different shape and less consistent in placement that we're used to (I know of at least 1 that's pulled out). I do think it's important we refer to them as such.
'Crucial' pegs in naturally occuring seams do get replaced on popular routes (ie Esgair Maen Gwyn, Shelterstone Central Slabs). Seems to work pretty well and at least the feature for the piece is already there. However pegs are placed much less often if not at all in new routes now with people just stepping up to the challenge of leader placed pro if they want it or enjoying/practicing the route on a TR instead. Lots of examples of this all over Britain. Seems a pretty consistently adopted ethic and this issue in Wales appears to me to be an outlying case. What 'chop' routes with crucial pegs are people pining to do so much anyway? As far as I can see these pegs aren't even these kinds of routes but maybe we should bolt North Stack Wall or Dalriada though, take them down a peg or two (sorry couldn't resist)?
There have been a few comments about the difficulty of assessing pegs which I think play down the skills techniques of the competent trad leader. We can definitely assess rock quality, get an idea of the shape of the feature, the depth of placement, the sound of the peg, the kind of peg, the condition of the metal, all contributing to a typical onsight asssessment. Ultimately we can also choose to climb within our limits and not fall on to it or if the climbing is too hard for the level of exposure, pre practice the climb. We can back them up with other pro or potentially remove them all together.
I'd also draw attention to a point Petes brought up in this thread already and I think I alluded to in a previous thread - consider the grade spectrum of routes these bolts have been placed in. Average grade in my guess it E4 with little or none below E3 or above E6. Who are the bolts for?
I very much agree with Petes point - I'm for not drilling holes.
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However pegs are placed much less often if not at all in new routes now with people just stepping up to the challenge of leader placed pro
I was thinking this, if you flick through the SMC new routes lists produced yearly, I've never noticed mention of pegs being placed (apart from winter routes).
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I'd also draw attention to a point Petes brought up in this thread already and I think I alluded to in a previous thread - consider the grade spectrum of routes these bolts have been placed in. Average grade in my guess it E4 with little or none below E3 or above E6. Who are the bolts for?
This is a very pertinent question…. Whilst I’m getting quite old, I’d say a lot of people defending these bolts are older gentlemen, coincidence or not…..? Ethical arguments are being used to justify the bolts, but those arguments don’t stand up for a vast majority of the routes they are in.
Barbarossa came up a lot in previous threads and despite my views I can see the other side of the argument, at least there’s an argument to have… a lot of the other bolts I just don’t see it.
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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.
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Forgot about Glutton. Did you think it offensive? I've not been.
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/glutton_crag-20419/
Didn't know about Glenmarksie, are the bolts still in place?
I heard there was a bit of a huff about the Kingussie bolted routes due to lack of consultation
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/comic_crag_-_kingussie-28406/#overview
Re. Glenmarksie, I believe so.
Glutton is not the only sandstone crag, but I've not been myself.
Yes the bolts are still there at Glenmarksie and I've been told by people who sport climb that it's now a good little sport crag.
Glutton is weird, I did a few routes that would be excellent, airy, but safe HVSs that were tame, relatively unmemorable sport routes. The argument is that "nobody would trad climb there because Ardmair is close by", which is odd, because a similar argument is "nobody would climb at Torridon village boulders because the Celtic Jumble is right there". Well, both crags could have fantastic routes that are worth people doing, their proximity to a bigger, "better" crag is irrelevant. I've not been to Fideil Crag yet, but it sounds like a similar deal here.
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From what I know, justification for the bolting was there was a lack of sport climbs for their kids to do in the area.
Not heard of Fideal before, pretty sure this would not be tolerated in most parts of the UK. Guess in an area with such a glut of amazing trad it gets tolerated?
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/fideal_crag-29834/#photos&gid=1&pid=5
edit - link is supposed to be to topo for "grit buttress"
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I very much agree with Petes point - I'm for not drilling holes.
I thought my argument was clear but I'll clarify. My argument is not against placing bolts (which obvs involves drilling holes). I can see the merit for some of the bolt placements on a case by case view.
My argument is for openness and transparency that glue-in bolts are being placed. The current situation is not open or transparent.
Glue-in bolts are being placed and this is being whitewashed by local climbers in positions of influence. The BMC's local area fixed-gear policy calls them 'eco-pegs', the most recent guidebook to an area with extensive bolting calls them 'pegs'. A clear example of bullshit, legitimised. spade==spade.
My personal choice would be for a more recognisable glue-in bolt, sold on the open market, that you don't need to get custom made by a local fabricator to look a bit like a peg in order to deceive climbers giving it a casual glance.
I've yet to ask Andy what he intends to call the bolts on Craig y Forwyn and Pen Trwyn in the next edition of NW Limestone. I won't be surprised if the answer is 'eco pegs' or some variant as Andy (not meant as a slight) is part of the BMC scene who are labelling these bolts 'eco pegs'.
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I'm 100% with you on this. I do not buy the argument that eventually everyone will work out what they are. 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.
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.
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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.
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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).
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(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 :offtopic: 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!
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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.
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peg/bolt(s)
The word we have all been looking for.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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Starting to stray :offtopic: 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!
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Four I think. Plus 'Supercrag'.
Can it be a coincidence that Loch Maree is both wedge-shaped and pegbolt-shaped?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/QR3p__x5hS4teiCH51J0_GwN_7p7rMPGQn11v39L2G23mvFrYEOGY01X_YlmXuUnq-7UMZoCI5R5wH5gyJO4y5qBHvXqcrMiW4L6l1FszBJNW3u-aUkebAn4t5B0J-iUfQK1G_7eprDfY780A-38Rza6JDhp5eJuMDyGj0anI7jVoa9a6RKh6WxYFkTdsvBOP5gjYLZa_sMv5usurDIqi73LdeHwWRaR4Qm0bhWxvX3UEd-UvZXcHp35MmZAt08I3cmabQhPrwTjcayUna1JlgUsiwTf5dIEgG_IyX_yahHGZJ-dXJ1G0-gsswHpgn2WpAdlB83ipltOafGestfqLnAtR6i602XnF0xvC2JCzMAOVPxjr3I0UU6jvwSB4h3TxYZbqJFfRyXIwjp0-KaFRto9YXWrsS3cmYxr_ng6NMZMBJMzqXq7nph2ZkIUELyu0s2i5qfGMHWOgcYT0ehVUocDisx1AvKdT5CG9kl5Qx-SknBTLXyXHQV2SP9d12I7FEItQqh6ErMUqJE5Thxzos0nainag-KH6kYerXZQ6GTfOWo7iVMF8jyZIgIxvCrkVxK2bzcfa9mjrXFgtuLhsW4p6KR9r3zSyrlXtjAjbuXNmmlABzPDDKCIVHDMyqo2aQ9Vyq0We1MJyQQL4SDKCKO2IIlqCmnTZ3Um8RKDxFFsUnQdQiRz52DI7EKSKg0Ev9zcxNn36HaowPzI6o2Hv81iAWatwOaCj0RI2lr3g12f6DXCfTbuA_7nBMGTLWQBDY64VouoX_oAUcEMbnfymW7Y580wlXsz5ECltv2WCzrJBt4sTl8VDV5IY_Jd-jO9m58q5Vz-SD7OvvneOx-6m7ikGyinG3k3d2I_3d9nU9VJhpxFcZkJpG9ibA4pn87Ef9QNW7GQGMX9O81MJsOaJc5dHq0Qr3zE0fTJbK5uvv2reA=w1250-h942-no?authuser=0)
Open to suggestions/corrections/edits...
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Based on that flowchart, The Bells is due a bolt-that-looks-like-a-peg.
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Based on that flowchart, The Bells is due a bolt-that-looks-like-a-peg.
Well, that's that settled then :whistle:
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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?
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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'.
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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.
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I’m surprised no one has mentioned liability yet given these are homemade.
Also, why can’t Chris Parkin be named?
Talk about smoke and mirrors.
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I didn't see what value it added.
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Might be worth having a thread listing any people spot, and which category they fall into?
And now we've come full circle to exactly what Si Witcher was asking for a week ago :yes:
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To answer Andy's question:
We're assuming they are 316 but we don't know, because there is no traceability or QA we know of.
As a bolt design it isn't ideal because the resin can only mechanically key in one plane, rather in all directions which spreads the load nicely. I'd be keen to see some pull-out test results.
I also suspect they are tricky to rotate during installation to ensure good keying of the resin, but I could be wrong, a lot depends on the installer and how much they know about this stuff.
I also doubt they are polished and passivated like a good commercial stainless anchor which can really improve the corrosion properties especially on a sea cliff.
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I was hanging off the Stand belay a few weeks ago and only noticed two bolts (and didn’t notice the glue until after I’d backed them up with a couple of wires). They were both placed in the same seam and looked quite different to the ones pictured up thread. They were connected by a shonky piece of blue 8 or 9mm tat, with three rap rings threaded.
Where is the third bolt?
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The ones placed in The Strand were the 'mark 1' versions which had a square head, and were either painted black or were left silver (bare stainless). The newer versions are essentially the same, but have a tapered head, have deeper more aggressive notches cut into the shaft for keying into the rein, and are often painted light orange as per the photos up thread.
I recall three were placed, maybe I'm wrong and it was two and one of the pegs remained. Or maybe one pulled out!
The cord on the Strand ones was deliberately made to look a little bit 'tatty' - including the way the tat was tied - so as to make trad climbers think they were abbing off a typical peg abseil point with typically slightly 'untidy' tat. Could have easily made the tat nice and tidy and vectored like you might see on a sport climbing lower-off, but the idea was to make it look 'traddy'. Not my idea!
This is the thinking behind these things - it's similar in other places such as the Pass etc. Make it look 'traddy' (i.e. a bit untidy) and people are OK with it. Make it look too much like what you find on sport routes and people might baulk. I think it's bonkers personally.
Interestingly in Ireland they seem to be happy to place 2 bolt abseil anchors in trad areas - Pigeon Rock, Gap of Dunloe, Glendalough. I found it a bit jarring when I first encountered it so goes to show there's something there in the 'make it look tatty and traddy' mindset. But I still think 2 bolts makes most sense.
Dan, he had them pull-tested by Jim from bolt products, at PyB in the early 2010's. I was there. They perform very well when glued properly in good rock - I recall 30kN but could be wrong as we were testing the 12mm twisted legs at the same time. It certainly wasn't a low figure and was typical of a 12mm resin bolt.
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Interestingly in Ireland they seem to be happy to place 2 bolt abseil anchors in trad areas - Pigeon Rock, Gap of Dunloe, Glendalough. I found it a bit jarring when I first encountered it
I remember finding bolted abseil anchors at Arapiles a bit jarring in a predominantly trad area too, when I was doing a lot of trad. Its an interesting response.
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I've found them as a standard in a lot of "trad" areas worldwide; Arapiles, Blue Mountains, around Wanaka NZ, Squamish, a few places in US, a few places in SA.
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Yeah for sure they're all over the rest of the world's trad areas, I thought they were way overdone in Canada but my Canadian friends thought I was dumb to want to waste gear and time building belays on trad routes. I was just a little surprised to find them used on ab points around Ireland because, you know... Ireland.
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The N.Wales 'bolts that look like pegs' are one step better, because they're stainless. But still founded in a deception that makes climbers believe they're a peg.
The logical solution imo is a bolt that looks and works like a bolt.
I quite like the idea of the peg-bolts, where a crucial peg is generally considered crucial and worth replacing with a stainless bolt.
I'm not sure they're placed to be deliberately deceptive, but placed to be more in keeping with aesthetics of trad. Shiny 16mm glue ins, or worse, petzl expansions stand out like a sore thumb. Less likely to be able to see them from the ground etc.
Peg-bolts might need to be drilled, but if this gives the ability to place them in a seam, very close to the original peg placement, then I think this is a nice nod to the history of the route, and hopefully also stops any confusion as to why it was placed, ie it's to replace a historical peg, not a random bolt in a blank section of rock, which would be more likely to lead to more bolts as time goes on.
Where can I get some ? :worms:
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I can definitely see the merit in that view. These bolts do have a lower visual impact than a resin bolt made by one of the common bolt manufacturers, and their aesthetic does fit in on trad better than other bolts.
What I've tried to do is explain my view that these things should be acknowledged to be bolts, because that's what they are. :shrug:
They aren't 'pegs'. I think trying to label them 'eco pegs' is bullshitting people. Even calling them 'peg bolts is only going halfway to accepting what they actually are. They're installed just like any other 12mm glue-in bolt.
If people accept that these things are bolts they then know what to base their opinions on instead of starting from a notion about them being replacement pegs.
You could contact the NWBF for some?
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The N.Wales 'bolts that look like pegs' are one step better, because they're stainless. But still founded in a deception that makes climbers believe they're a peg.
The logical solution imo is a bolt that looks and works like a bolt.
Peg-bolts might need to be drilled, but if this gives the ability to place them in a seam, very close to the original peg placement, then I think this is a nice nod to the history of the route, and hopefully also stops any confusion as to why it was placed, ie it's to replace a historical peg, not a random bolt in a blank section of rock, which would be more likely to lead to more bolts as time goes on.
Where can I get some ? :worms:
But it’s a lie Mark. You’d climb above that peg knowing it’s a bolt differently than you would if it were an actual peg. That’s why this is so dishonest and why I’m surprised by Neil’s on-sight comments up thread. I’ve never trusted a peg since I started climbing. In the US/Canada you just don’t get the same feel to routes as they’re either cracks, or there’s a bolt. Even on the super runout routes in eg Tuolumne you clip a bolt and breathe a massive sigh of relief. In the UK when you clip a peg you’re generally shitting yourself!
The fact that the bolt has been placed in a seam is aesthetics. The magic which, IMO, makes British trad so special will be lost, because you know it’s 100% bomber.
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The fact that the bolt has been placed in a seam is aesthetics. The magic which, IMO, makes British trad so special will be lost, because you know it’s 100% bomber.
I don't personally think there's any magic in a bit of untrustworthy fixed gear. I'd sooner see the route stripped back to nothing, but I realise this is a personal opinion and I guess that's part of the issue here - we all have different perspectives and I doubt we'll ever be able to agree on what the "true essence of British trad" really is. For me, iffy pegs are not something I'd miss if they went - but I do see the merit in preserving the history on some routes.
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"Pegs are shit, so we should keep them."
No status quo bias in that argument! Why not pre-rust your wires in a bucket of salty water too, to amplify the experience of doubt? :P
It's not like the practice of placing pegs was deliberately calibrated to foster a wholesome uncertainty. It developed through people working with what they had to try to make things safer. But it was a rubbish solution in the long term.
I think if shitting yourself is your thing TB you shouldn't worry, there are plenty of bold routes without pegs, to which none of this applies!
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Hi Fultonius, I didn’t read what Tom was saying as ´pegs impart magic’; rather, ‘bolts remove it’. There’s no argument for retention of pegs, bar homage to FA’s ethics.
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Hi Fultonius, I didn’t read what Tom was saying as ´pegs impart magic’; rather, ‘bolts remove it’. There’s no argument for retention of pegs, bar homage to FA’s ethics.
I think if you look at Tom's comments back on page 5 and 6 you'll find he is arguing for retention of pegs.
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My feeling is sea cliffs should be treated separately. Remove fixed gear.
Elsewhere, where you can replace like for like do so, or leave it unless you can protect with modern gear (eg Hell’s Wall, Castellan).
Leader placed gear keeps improving as someone said earlier. With small, narrow cams it’s not just that they go in where previously you couldn’t get anything in, you’re whacking them in more quickly than you can place a wire.
It’s not like I don’t understand the argument for these bolts and have sympathy for the concept, I just think the evidence already is it’s the TEOTW.
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That's an interesting point (in a thread that keeps having interesting points!) from M20 about the merit of having similar aesthetics.
On the one hand it's important to make it clear that these are bolts in terms of the ethics of them being drilled and glued and nearer 100% reliable.
On the other hand it could be important to not make it too clear that these are bolts and - so far - have been used strictly as peg replacements in similar, if drilled, seams, to discourage their use from being extrapolated too far.
Maybe there is merit in fooling people a bit so that they look at these bolts and think "they're quite peggy and have only been used next to the pegs they're replacing" , rather than something more blatant like the ethically equivalent expansion bolts where people might think "they're quite bolty and although they've only been used to replace pegs so far on this route, maybe some more could be shoved in because that's just what you do with bolty bolts" . :-\ :shrug:
Not so much "peg-bolts" as "peg-replacement-bolts"...
(This is a slightly separate question to whether they are justified at all, and if so on which routes. And of course entirely separate from them being added to routes instead of strictly as peg replacements only).
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When I had a couple of hours to kill the other day I started a NW pegbolt catalogue spreadsheet, aiming to list all the instances of these, along with whether they replace an old peg and whether they make a big difference to the boldness of the route.
I quickly realised it was quite a lot of work, especially given the gaps in my knowledge (I can't remember how many PBs are in some routes I've climbed this year, never mind whether they are a direct replacement for a peg).
So putting it to the floor, would it be a valuable and worthwhile thing having this information laid out in an easily digestible format to inform this debate in future?
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Good effort starting. That is exactly what Si Witcher was asking for at the NW Area Meet, so, yes it would be welcome!!
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I think it would be useful to have. But I think they should be called 'bolts, replacing pegs'. Not pegbolts.
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I think it would be useful to have. But I think they should be called 'bolts, replacing pegs'. Not pegbolts.
Except that some of them aren't replacing pegs... Let's call them 'P bolts', since that is precisely their shape!
I checked my claim about the Manhattan ones btw, it's got 3 'P bolts' and one conventional expansion bolt. The first one is a direct replacement of a peg, but I couldn't tell with the other two. There is gear of sorts close to all three of them, though none of it looks great. The third one is totally pointless, as the second is at your feet when you clip it and the expansion bolt (which protects the run-out crux of Katie's) is only a metre above.
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Fair.. P bolts at least sounds more like a bolt than a peg!
I remember thinking similar about the bolts on Katie's - one was pointless as it was close to another, two had average gear nearby but the gear was fiddly, and the 4th (expansion) before the crux was welcome. Although the crux can also be protected by a fiddly cam just before you start it, but would be scary having that as the only piece. I think it'd be a stern and somewhat bold E8 (and definitely dirtier) without any of the bolts. Personally I'd have got rid of 2 bolts and kept the 2nd and 4th.
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This is the start I made, just using Craig y Forwyn as an example:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bjkz6TIMXeLIAJoCCzLRJMKhYx3Gn1hykb8AmT9L028/edit?usp=sharing
Feedback or suggestions (or more data) welcome before I put more time into fleshing it out.
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'Best estimate of age' and 'Material' columns?
Large lawyer's disclaimer and anonymity :)
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This is the start I made, just using Craig y Forwyn as an example:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bjkz6TIMXeLIAJoCCzLRJMKhYx3Gn1hykb8AmT9L028/edit?usp=sharing
Feedback or suggestions (or more data) welcome before I put more time into fleshing it out.
Good effort Andy, putting in the work. I've requested edit access, Ican make some tweaks that'll make filtering/searching/analysing the data a little easier (if that's something you're bothered about).
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I think I've given you editing permission Remus. Please do - I'm a punter with this sort of thing.
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'Best estimate of age' and 'Material' columns?
Large lawyer's disclaimer and anonymity :)
I think they're all within the last ten years and made of the same stuff, so that probably doesn't add much.
I don't follow you about disclaimer and anonymity...?
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I think I've given you editing permission Remus. Please do - I'm a punter with this sort of thing.
Sorted. Just give me a nudge if you want any tech support, least I can do when you're getting out there and putting in the hard work.
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Good stuff Andy and remus.
The separate lines for each p-bolt was confusing me but it's better now with the route name repeated so you know they're all for that route.
Could you do the red / yellow / green colours slightly more muted as they're a bit eye-sodomising at the mo??
Could we also have a spacer between the separate areas??
You can add Castell Cidwm - Central Wall - 1 p-bolt - replaces old peg - maintains same standard of route
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Done. If anyone can fill in any of the gaps in my knowledge (or correct any mistakes), please do. Maybe message me privately to save cluttering this thread. Or request to be added as an editor if you can fill in a bunch of it.
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I think there should be a separate sheet for fully retro’d routes, e.g. Beaverbrooks, as this is a different issue.
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Yeah, fair enough. I only put that one in because initially it had a PB and was fully retro'd later.
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I think they're all within the last ten years and made of the same stuff, so that probably doesn't add much.
I don't follow you about disclaimer and anonymity...?
But if the document grows legs it would be good to record as much history as you can so people can make their own judgment about reliability? I might have run with the idea of it being 'fixed gear' record, rather than a more limited 'recent pegbolt' record. As you were if that's the intention.
By disclaimer, I meant some form of wording that shows you're recording on a 'best efforts' only basis. It isn't definitive and isn't something people should rely on 100% to make decisions in serious situations. Good idea and applaud the effort but it's likely you'll need multiple inputs and no one person carrying the reliability can.
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I think they're all within the last ten years and made of the same stuff, so that probably doesn't add much.
I don't follow you about disclaimer and anonymity...?
But if the document grows legs it would be good to record as much history as you can so people can make their own judgment about reliability? I might have run with the idea of it being 'fixed gear' record, rather than a more limited 'recent pegbolt' record. As you were if that's the intention.
While that would be useful in many ways, it's way beyond the scope of what I'm willing to do! There must be thousands of routes with fixed gear in North Wales, and I can't imagine even with collaborative input you'd get even close to tracing the provenance of it all.
This is only meant to record specific instances where (predominantly) trad routes have been equipped/re-equipped with these bolts-made-to-look-like-pegs, to make the varying status of their use transparent as a point of reference for debate.
Maybe the list should include all instances of bolts on trad routes (with the exception of slate, which has always been a weird illogical hybrid). Though that might dilute its value in highlighting the question of these 'P' bolts specifically.
I hadn't really considered the need to disclaim anything, seems a bit far-fetched for anyone to rely on such information, but I guess there's no harm!
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Also, why can’t Chris Parkin be named?
I didn't see what value it added.
I know Chris had the bolts made, but is there really no one else involved? We've got ten in the office here (not mine obvs) so he's obviously fairly free handing them out.
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I know Chris had the bolts made, but is there really no one else involved?
He's definitely not the only person who's placed them.
Edit: I don't mean that as a tease, I don't know exactly who's done what, but I think it should be clear that it's not a one-man campaign.
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I think there may be some p-bolts on the routes on the Chicama wall, but not sure how many. Treacherous Underfoot, Chicama/Gravity Wave, Crow Road. I'll let you know in the spring!
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In a bizarre and counter-intuitive twist of fate, there is a line of P-Bolts up the previously minor but nice trad suntrap venue of Tramstation Crag, BUT it's actually up a completely sensible new sport route taking an obvious gap in between the previous trad routes and in theory complimenting them nicely :doubt:
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Get it chopped.
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In a bizarre and counter-intuitive twist of fate, there is a line of P-Bolts up the previously minor but nice trad suntrap venue of Tramstation Crag, BUT it's actually up a completely sensible new sport route taking an obvious gap in between the previous trad routes and in theory complimenting them nicely :doubt:
I decided not to put that or Painted Groove Direct on the list because those are new, non-retro sport routes, so apart from being equipped with P bolts not part of the same question. (Though PGD gets E7 instead of 8a on UKC for some reason).
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Yes definitely separate issues. Well independent new sport routes on The Ormes shouldn't be an issue for anyone, whilst "Should Rhoscolyn sea-cliffs have sport routes on them??" is a different and exciting :worms:
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(https://scontent.fman4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/244414265_10160200843568623_2464579906346922702_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=9lIlEzijuOEAX_NPfaw&tn=r8UEWGeeXqnqN8R2&_nc_ht=scontent.fman4-1.fna&oh=00_AfBquFgQ_uCZy7g75Atho8HB58LfYdV3y8ynSrKp5WActQ&oe=6382C1AE)
Forgot about this that I posted a year or so ago....
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VS is never 7b+
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...except in Northumberland.
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I think there may be some p-bolts on the routes on the Chicama wall, but not sure how many. Treacherous Underfoot, Chicama/Gravity Wave, Crow Road. I'll let you know in the spring!
When I was compiling the list I took to the BMC NW Area meeting on 19 Oct as linked here: https://community.thebmc.co.uk/GetFile.ashx?did=3899 , Callum advised that Chicama has 1 drilled/glued runner currently, but no others on that wall as far as he knew.
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I can confirm Crow Rd and Treacherous both have a number of stainless steel pitons (as well a other pegs and bits of metal) but no peg bolts.
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Further to a discussion on FB I’ve been told that any drilling has been limited to drilling out old pegs.
Is that the case Pete? Andy?
Sorry if this has been covered already.
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I abbed down Manhattan Highrise / Katie’s Delight whilst descending from an adjacent route. Didn’t see anything that pointed to old pegs- these routes are quite new, aren’t they? 2019 and 2015? Just looked like common-or-garden bolts to me.
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Sorry. My bad. I was referring to the peg bolts on Gogarth and elsewhere
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Hi Simon, may be talking at cross purposes here. The Forwyn gear I saw on Quickstep and that wall is the so-called “peg bolts”, but not always, as far as I could tell, in old placements, some being drilled in what looked like solid rock. Caveat, it’s hard to be definitive when clipping pumped or abbing past.
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Further to a discussion on FB I’ve been told that any drilling has been limited to drilling out old pegs.
Is that the case Pete? Andy?
I think that's impossible to answer, isn't it? Define 'drilling out old pegs' - does it include drilling next to an old peg placement? If so, how 'next' to the placement is 'next to the placement'? What about an already broken peg, does that count? Can you show me a record showing every peg where there is now a bolt in its place? Guidebooks aren't definitive. I don't claim to know the number and location of all pegs where there are now bolts - my main point throughout this debate hasn't been 'they must not be placed', it has been 'we must be transparent that they are bolts'.
But my best answer would be this Anchorman gif:
https://media.tenor.com/sKbXk3XNHksAAAAd/i-dont-believe-you.gif
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I abbed down Manhattan Highrise / Katie’s Delight whilst descending from an adjacent route. Didn’t see anything that pointed to old pegs- these routes are quite new, aren’t they? 2019 and 2015? Just looked like common-or-garden bolts to me.
Those routes start up the original route of the wall, Manhattan (which basically traverses off at the point where the bolts run out). The highest (fourth) bolt is an expansion bolt, the others are all P bolts in horizontal breaks/pockets.
I'm not certain what the original state of Manhattan was, but the 2013 description mentions two pegs. I think two of the bolts are in the places of the original pegs and one is a new placement, but with all the glue in the placements you can't see any rust stains of old pegs.
Looking at the depth of the breaks/pockets I can imagine not much drilling would have been needed here, but again it's hard to tell.
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I think that's impossible to answer, isn't it? Define 'drilling out old pegs' - does it include drilling next to an old peg placement? If so, how 'next' to the placement is 'next to the placement'? What about an already broken peg, does that count? Can you show me a record showing every peg where there is now a bolt in its place? Guidebooks aren't definitive. I don't claim to know the number and location of all pegs where there are now bolts - my main point throughout this debate hasn't been 'they must not be placed', it has been 'we must be transparent that they are bolts'.
Fair points but I think I see where they are coming from in that if it is a drilled out rusty peg or peg stub (which they believe is the case fir all the peg bolts at Gogarth) then it is more peg-like than bolt-like because that it is in a place that the peg was which must have been a point of natural weakness in the first place.
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Fair points but I think I see where they are coming from in that if it is a drilled out rusty peg or peg stub (which they believe is the case fir all the peg bolts at Gogarth) then it is more peg-like than bolt-like because that it is in a place that the peg was which must have been a point of natural weakness in the first place.
I'd agree that this seems to be the dividing line.
Does the historical president set by the existence of a peg make this peg-like or does the use of drilling a hole (and placing a chemically glued) piton/bolt more bolt like.
I'm of the opinion that if you start chipping gear and drilling holes this is the fundamental point rather than the fact there had once been a peg.
I find the "once there was fixed gear" argument really slippery.
Can I place a shoddy RURP on abseil, leave it for twenty minutes before whipping it out and drilling a sinker placement?
What about pegs that people "remember being there"?
What about pegs that were always marginal?
What about routes like (possibly) the trumpet blowers at Scimitar Ridge, I recall one route described as being protected by five pegs, three cut down and the FA can't remember which ones.
The fact that the peg-bolt project appears to have been a misdirection from it's conception there is little trust regarding this.
(Having watched bolting in the bolt free Arches National park using their historic fixed gear replacement loophole based on the description of abseil pegs in historical FA descriptions this will happen)
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I bet I could rebolt most of the Kilnsey roof routes based on natural weaknesses. Actually you wouldn't even need to rebolt most of them if "a few inches from a peg placement" is legit. Can I take E10 if all those expansion bolts are now "peg-like" :lol:? I think many of them are only 10mm actually so maybe E11?
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Fair points but I think I see where they are coming from in that if it is a drilled out rusty peg or peg stub (which they believe is the case fir all the peg bolts at Gogarth) then it is more peg-like than bolt-like because that it is in a place that the peg was which must have been a point of natural weakness in the first place.
It isn't 'more peg like than bolt-like' to place a resin bolt in an old peg placement - it's a resin bolt in a peg placement. Call it what it is.
What you're saying is ridiculous when you stop to think it through:
Example:
1. Old rusty peg at Gogarth. I drill it out using a 12mm drill bit (or drill next to it). Clean out the 12mm drilled hole, inject resin, insert a custom-made 12mm diameter stainless steel piece of fixed gear that looks, works and is placed exactly like a bolt (because it is a bolt..), but which I've decided to name eco peg and the local BMC write it up in a bolting policy as eco peg. Resin sets, job done.
2. Old rusty peg at Gogarth. I drill it out using a 12mm drill bit (or drill next to it). Clean out the drilled 12mm hole, inject rein, insert a popular brand of 12mm stainless bolt made by for e.g. Petzl, Bolt Products, Fixe, Titan. Resin sets, job done.
End result = exactly the same, 2 bolts replacing 2 old pegs.
Spot the difference? Nope, because there is no difference! We're discussing placing bolts at Gogarth and elsewhere. How many times does it need saying until it's clear. The level of self-deceit around acknowledging that these are bolts amazes me.
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I don't agree.
The point of difference is the placement, not the fixture.
Bolts are normally placed where no opportunity for natural protection exists. Pegs have to go where the rock allows.
(PS I've just measured and they'll go in a 10mm hole).
For me the distinction is best illustrated by (for me obvs) the ideal trad peg history - placed on lead (onsight, first ascent ideally) by a pioneer in the 50's or 60's completely strung out with shit boots, a hemp waistline, waist belay and no other protection options, perhaps served first as a rest or aid point, subsequently relegated to pro for free climbing in the 70's. It remains as a piece of history to be clipped but not trusted, a touchstone to the boldness of the early pioneers. I can think of loads where you imagine trying to place it without all the modern crutches and the mind boggles. It has nothing in common with a bolt drilled on abseil.
But in reality many pegs were placed on abseil for a subsequent lead. In my mind these sit in a middle ground - natural placement, non-trad attitude. This distinction is for me really important and the dividing line between good and bad style but rarely recognized - people seem to prefer the perhaps simpler divisions of hammered or fixed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX0apNzic0E
Chris's video is worth watching. Takeaway points for those TL:DW;
He knows his onions. There are only a handful of people in the world qualified as both Mountain Guides and IRATA Assessors, Chris is one. There are few more active climbers in Wales over the last 40? years.
Pegs have evolved. Some of those 'old' pegs actually get replaced semi-regularly by people like Chris (e.g. Byzantium - I had no idea).
Avoiding corrosion is difficult and needs avoidance of ferrous contamination.
Old pegs are often really hard to get out.
Beating around the bush does no one any favours however well-intentioned. Spoiler: just watch 6:00-6:30 if you want a big laugh. This is perhaps the nub.
In the vast majority of cases I'm opposed to replacement except where 'crucial' (to be discussed case-by-case). I have experimented with removal and it can be difficult to the point of impossible without significant damage to the rock.
I also think while the debate is healthy is is largely academic. Actions are taken by the motivated and they tend not to be the type to debate on forums or accept guidance by committee.
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I'm not sure I understand what you disagree with JB. I understand Pete's point to be that a bolt is a bolt even if you put it in or next to a peg placement, and even if you make it look less like a bolt... which seems spot on to me. Are you disagreeing with that?
Are you saying it's somehow not a bolt if it's next to/in a natural peg placement? I can think of a few sport routes in Franken where the bolts are next to old pegs... but they're still bolts and if you drilled them directly over the peg that wouldn't change them being bolts. Ditto Kilnsey.
I also think while the debate is healthy is is largely academic. Actions are taken by the motivated and they tend not to be the type to debate on forums or accept guidance by committee.
Agreed, I'm pretty surprised someone hasn't gone and unilaterally debolted Gogarth. It would be interesting to know how much that's because
1) people don't mind Gogarth being bolted in a limited way (i.e. to replace old pegs)
2) people are kidding themselves that these things aren't bolts
3) people just can't be bothered (fair enough - it's would be a right ballache!!)
After 11 pages I feel like most people are surprisingly ok being in camp 1, and those not in camp 1 fall into camps 2 or 3... I guess I would have predicted more strength of feeling (with a few exceptions who think it's bullshit!) and it's worth making sure that's not because of lots of people in camp 2
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I *think* (correct me if wrong), JB is disagreeing with Pete's binary premise that its either a bolt or not a bolt, with no grey area in between. Thats my reading of it anyway. I do think that the placement of pegbolts in old peg placements is less 'bolty' than if they were just put anywhere.
Instinctively I am happier with a pegbolt (or whatever the approved nomenclature is now) being placed in a drilled out old peg placement, or in a crack, than in clean rock. This may be not logical, because it still functions in the way that it would if placed in clean sound rock as all other glue in bolts are on sport routes, but thats still my feeling. Both Pete and Alex have a very logical/sciencey bent that maybe doesn't have space for this illogical distinction? Thats not a criticism, people have different ways of thinking.
Agree that the debate is largely academic. It is healthy on here but not sure the threads on ukc are! More than once I feel like I'm reading attempts to channel the ghost of Ken Wilsons past!
In the vast majority of cases I'm opposed to replacement except where 'crucial' (to be discussed case-by-case)
This is a fair representation of my view I think. If the ongoing debate/spray helps that come about its no bad thing, even if a few of the pegbolts placed are removed.
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I *think* (correct me if wrong), JB is disagreeing with Pete's binary premise that its either a bolt or not a bolt, with no grey area in between. Thats my reading of it anyway. I do think that the placement of pegbolts in old peg placements is less 'bolty' than if they were just put anywhere.
Instinctively I am happier with a pegbolt (or whatever the approved nomenclature is now) being placed in a drilled out old peg placement, or in a crack, than in clean rock. This may be not logical, because it still functions in the way that it would if placed in clean sound rock as all other glue in bolts are on sport routes, but thats still my feeling. Both Pete and Alex have a very logical/sciencey bent that maybe doesn't have space for this illogical distinction?
Ah, ok, I understand (assuming you're right). I guess I just look at it differently - perhaps it's just semantics, but to me it's still a bolt, it's just that it's placed in a more traddy way, or with a nod to the route's original form, or similar. Same with if you took an old Franken route and drilled a few pegs into bolts - it can still be a "trad route" even, but the bolt is a bolt on that "trad route". A hand-drilled bolt on lead might be a different kettle of fish to a glue-in placed on ab, but they are still bolts. Or the top of Groove Train - the bolts are apparently placed like that as they're next to pods that they thought might take gear (but turned out not to). I think having some routes equipped in some kind of hybrid way is fine, in the right circumstance, but they're still bolts, and I'm still surprised that the trad climbers are ok with bolting Gogarth, even if it's in a traddy way!
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I think I'm coming at this from another direction. The whole premise of bolts is that they are placed in blank rock for two reasons - first because no other protection opportunities exist, and second because if you are creating artificial gear it should be in the most solid rock to maximise strength and leaving as little room as possible for failure. While the use of a drill is an obvious dividing line the placing of bolts in peg placements does not follow normal bolt-placement logic.
There are three components - the placement, the object, the fixture. In my view, as above, the placement is most critical, the object largely irrelevant and the fixture grey (pun intended). If you drill a hole and whack in a peg or carrot-bolt it is still a bolt. If you persuade the object into a natural placement it is a peg. Friction will often hold it, but mechanical or chemical aids will aid longevity in either case. To me the big changes in style occurs when a) gear is pre-placed by abseil and b) placements are created using power tools.
Note that in Chris' video he claims that not all these were drilled and not all were glued. And he suggests the use of a chisel, whether 'motorised' or 'rotary' :lol: might not always be as simple as drilling a hole. If he's being truthful, and my experience suggest he is, we definitely shouldn't consign them all to bolt-hood. Or consider the possibility that a peg is removed from a crack by hammer, replaced in the same placement by (non-ferrous!) hammer but subsequently a bit of glue added in the interest of longevity. Is this a bolt?
And as much as drilling blank rock is the last resort, it's worth noting that we are lucky to have relatively few areas of unprotectable rock in the UK, but in such areas hand-drilling on lead is typically held in high esteem as best acceptable style.
My problem with insisting on simply defining these peg-replacement bolts as 'just bolts' is that I believe it continues the problematic conflation of pegs and bolts, outlined in my earlier post, as equally ethically dubious 'necessary evils', in which case why not go with the stronger, longer life option? Hence why climbers are fine with pegs being replaced by bolts at Gogarth (all just 'fixed gear') and in future will only lead to the proliferation of bolts anywhere where pegs exist, and the ongoing loss of understanding of the basic premise of trad climbing - which is self-reliance, build-your-own-adventure and meet the place on your own terms - and NOT having anchors council-installed for your safety as in France.
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To me the big changes in style occurs when a) gear is pre-placed by abseil and b) placements are created using power tools.
The fact that people are seemingly thinking it ok to manufacture gear placements on trad climbs is the key issue.
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Ah ok, I gettcha, seems like we agree that drilled = bolt anyway
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perhaps it's just semantics, but to me it's still a bolt, it's just that it's placed in a more traddy way, or with a nod to the route's original form, or similar. ….
… but they're still bolts, and I'm still surprised that the trad climbers are ok with bolting Gogarth, even if it's in a traddy way!
Exactly. What sort of peg requires a drill to place it?
Answer: a bolt.
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Can we just start hammering Petzl bolts or ringbolts, without glue, into natural fissures and pockets in the rock, and see how that goes down??
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Interesting continuation of the debate. I tend align with SM90s view:
I do think that the placement of pegbolts in old peg placements is less 'bolty' than if they were just put anywhere.
Instinctively I am happier with a pegbolt (or whatever the approved nomenclature is now) being placed in a drilled out old peg placement, or in a crack, than in clean rock.
I've always seen pegs as different to bolts (bear with me) due to the former having to accept a natural weakness in the rock, and thus the rock dictating where they go - not often in the most convenient place. I like that aspect that they can feel a bit like "fixed trad gear" rather than "sport gear" to me. Conversely I've always seen drilled pegs away from natural weaknesses as pretty much bolts, and drilled and glued stainless pegs as definitely bolts.
In these cases I still find there is a bit of a grey area. If these bolts are placed in almost exactly the same placements, and the same natural weakness, and NEVER placed in drilled placements away from those weaknesses, then that is one aspect in their favour that softens the ethical issue. The other aspects of "being drilled in areas that haven't had drilling previously", and "being drilled and glued and as good as any other bolt, when the original peg had that essential element of doubt even when new" still remain as contentious though.
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A few points in response to JB.
1. JB remember I have actually hung on the rope, at Gogarth, with Chris, drilling holes and placing these things. I know how they're installed - i.e. they're most definitely not placed in the same way as pegs, and definitely are drilled glue-in bolts. Some may well be hand placed, but most aren't.
2. A glued peg that goes in without needing drilling is a glued peg (stainless or otherwise).
3. This isn't about any one person. Everyone who knows Chris knows he's a great guy. Appeals to authority should fall on deaf ears. Nobody is questioning anyone's credentials, and credentials aren't relevant to the topic here - the topic is bolts have been placed but they aren't being openly called bolts. I feel I need to keep saying that I'm not blanket for or against any particular placement. The point is about transparency, which is severely lacking here.
4. The twisted semantics around these bolts tells its own story. You don't have this kind of obfuscation and deliberately-veiled language such as 'battery operated hammer-action chisel with a rotary option' or 'eco peg' if there's nothing to hide. A drill is a drill, not a 'battery operated hammer-action chisel with a rotary option'. Drilling is drilling, not 'enhancing depth'. This is the language of bullshit.
5. What's the incentive not to openly call these bolts even though they are? Who benefits?
I'd suggest one incentive is to keep as many people as possible in the dark about the reality of how these bolts are installed and therefore keep as many people as possible in Alex's 'group 2' from his earlier post:
Agreed, I'm pretty surprised someone hasn't gone and unilaterally debolted Gogarth. It would be interesting to know how much that's because
1) people don't mind Gogarth being bolted in a limited way (i.e. to replace old pegs)
2) people are kidding themselves that these things aren't bolts
3) people just can't be bothered (fair enough - it's would be a right ballache!!)
I guess I would have predicted more strength of feeling (with a few exceptions who think it's bullshit!) and it's worth making sure that's not because of lots of people in camp 2
The benefit is to people who enjoy going out doing what they perceive as a version of climbing they know as 'trad' and don't want to have to think too hard about their romanticised game known as 'trad' being sullied by drilled gear - something that doesn't normally belong in their version of the trad game on Gogarth.
Keeping these bolts veiled in the nebulous language of being 'eco pegs' means people can go out climbing without cognitive dissonance of clipping bolts on Gogarth. Safe in the knowledge that what they're doing is clipping a peg and thus they can kid themselves that they're playing the romanticised game in keeping with the stories they've told themselves which don't involve drilling fixed gear on trad routes.
The important part to me is not kidding yourself or others. I couldn't give a monkey's about making up fairytales to make the experience fit in with some set of rules.
That's it really, you're kidding yourselves if you think these aren't bolts. They're just bolts drilled into cracks.
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Have always fundamentally disagreed with JB about pegs.
Clearly if we're talking mountaineering territory, that's different. But on all UK cliffs, if someone is placing fixed gear, it should be placed well and if that requires placing it from abseil, that's no issue. Getting terribly excited because someone has sat on a skyhook and whacked in a peg, vs placing it on abseil is about as daft as getting excited about people trying to drill bolts on lead, which was always a complete nonsense even in Yosemite when they got excited about it there (ie: it's an aid climbing ethic that makes no sense in the free climbing world). It just results in shit fixed gear usually in the wrong places that needs replacing shortly afterwards.
"Instinctively I am happier with a pegbolt (or whatever the approved nomenclature is now) being placed in a drilled out old peg placement, or in a crack, than in clean rock." - SpiderMonkey
I'm not.
I feel precisely the opposite.
JB and various others get terribly excited about fixed gear going "where the rock allows". Which is largely bollocks as you take a thin seam and bash a small peg in, and then a while later a bigger peg, and then a bigger peg, and then you end up with the utter mess on things like the Shield in Yosemite.
But the big problem to me is that it's irreversible. ie: pegs go where the free climbing holds are and fundamentally change them. Whereas bolts go into blank rock, and if at a later date the bolt comes out, the hole can easily be filled in and if done well noone need ever know it was there. Once a peg has gone in, it's impossible to repair the damage to any potential free climbing holds. Clearly on lots of routes this doesn't matter, but there's lots where it does too. As I've said previously, it's no surprise that the hardest free climbing on El Cap is on a traverse, where aid climbers haven't happpened to go. Pegs destroy or completely change potential free climbing holds.
"I have experimented with removal and it can be difficult to the point of impossible without significant damage to the rock." - JB
Yep. One of the many reasons pegs are shite.
"hand-drilling on lead is typically held in high esteem as best acceptable style" - JB.
By who? You presumably? Not by lots of other people. And yes I know Beat Kammerlander's routes are cool and various Yosemite routes bolted in this way are considered cool.
No problem with people doing this on big mountain routes where they've taken a hand drill along with them on an semi aid / free climbing adventure.
But that doesn't make the bolting done in this way any better. It's far, far worse, as again, it just results in shit bolts in shit places that need replacing 2 mins later.
Watch that video of Ondra trying to ground up bolt stuff. Mildly amusing maybe, but is that really sensible or good practice?
For anything in the UK, it's completely ridiculous.
I'm entirely with Pete that these are bolts, not pegs and the debate should treat them as such and not pretend they're something else.
And I agree with Ali that pegs just need banning. Pretty much everywhere. Or at least anywhere with even half decent rock. (The only exception on UK rock I can think of would be stuff that's so soft that bolts just don't actually work - ie: belays at back of Wen Zawn where there's no option other than metal stakes of some kind bashed into mud / very soft rock.)
And yes that means that lots of old peg protected routes will get harder when the pegs come out. And that's fine. If people think it's not fine on a particular route, then if there's consensus, place a bolt.
So just decide which areas and routes need fixed gear, and which don't, and where using fixed gear, use long lasting good quality bolts and stop pratting about with pegs.
The only area where I'm sure JB would agree (at least on the Gogarth bit) is on which areas make sense for fixed gear.
And Gogarth isn't one of them. Not on Barbarossa, not on Main Cliff, not anywhere. I'm pretty amazed that anyone thinks this is a good idea.
Just let the old pegs die or remove them. Don't replace them with anything. Those routes at Gogarth are amazing. Wales is fantastic for both sport and trad currently, when you can have a day at LPT doing Statement one day and a day on Main Cliff the next. And yes that means that a few routes like Barbarossa and The Bells and various others are going to get harder. I fail to see the problem with that.
The only bit where I wouldn't have a problem with bolts at Gogarth (and various other places) are at abseils at the top of routes, where pretty much everyone abseils off (e.g the Strand). That to me makes more sense than a load of tatt that needs replacing regularly, and I've never seen that as leading to bolts actually on routes. People are sensible enough to be able to distinguish the two. Whether they're needed or not to me at least just needs deciding by consensus on a case by case basis.
So much for the pro trad climbing rant.
For balance, (cue JB and others screaming at me) whilst I've always thought that we've largely got things right in terms of trad vs sport at a hard level in the UK (upwards of E5 ish). I tend to think that the balance isn't anywhere near right at a lower standard. I tend to view sport climbing and trad climbing both as equally acceptable passtimes, but with a shared resource. On easier stuff I just see it as a historical quirk that trad climbing came along first and snapped up all the good quality rock. Whereas it didn't get there first on the blanker harder stuff, so that got bolted.
Longer term I don't think that's sustainable. It's pretty hard to justify pushing all the low grade sport climbers in the country into shitty loose quarries, when there's vast amounts of trad climbing on good quality rock that in certain places is getting overgrown as noone is climbing it. Clearly this is different in different areas e.g on the South coast, none of this is true, as there's plenty of good quality low grade sport. But in places like Yorkshire, I'm entirely in favour of some of the recent bolting in places like Twistleton, and would support it going further on some inland limestone.
At the harder level, I think in some places it's gone too far, and as Tom suggested earlier, I'd personally strip the Cave Routes at Goredale, as they are or should be to me at least absolutely classic trad routes that people can aspire to. As sport routes, meh.
In short, my two penneth is:
f**k pegs.
If you want fixed gear, stop pratting about placing pegs every 2 mins or pretending you're placing pegs when you're actually placing bolts. And place long lasting good quality bolts in blank rock so as not to damage free climbing holds.
If you don't want bolts, then don't place fixed gear.
Don't place any fixed gear at Gogarth, other than perhaps at certain abseil points.
And whilst I think things are largely right in terms of the balance of trad / sport at a hard level in the UK, I think the line is a long way from fair at a lower level and I don't think that's sustainable. The sooner that's realised and a more sensible line is drawn, the better, but admittedly that will obviously be a pretty big bunfight.
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That was a good post, though I'd point out that in light of the distinctions you make between Yosemite and UK rock, the argument against bigger and bigger pegs changing the rock is more relevant to the former. Obviously you've got historically aided cracks in quarries here, but the more common situation is that pegs are not replaced and rot.
For me the reason the 'where the rock allows' argument for fixed gear is flawed is that I don't see a self-evident bright line between a hammer and a drill (imagine for argument's sake we used hand drills rather than battery powered). Obviously yes, a drill removes more rock in a more uniform way, but in both cases you're using a tool to force a placement that otherwise wouldn't be possible.
On top of that, from a 'spirit of trad' perspective, the only person whose skill and judgement has been exercised in placing fixed gear is the person who placed it. For everyone else, you're just clipping it, and whether it's made use of a seam in the rock or it's in a blank bit makes little difference. The route has been altered.
Basically I'm in agreement that the source of this problem is pegs more than it is bolts.
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Good post even if I don't agree with all of it. I do agree that a distinction between ground up and abseil pegging/bolting is nonsense and means nothing to me, it just ensures the job is done badly.
Interesting thoughts re lower grade sport, although thats a whole other thread really. Did you mean somewhere else when you said Twistleton? I wasn't aware of any bolting there.
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You're right, I meant Attermire rather than Twistleton. And yeah, it's a completely different thread, just thought it was worth a bit of balance.
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I tend to think that the balance isn't anywhere near right at a lower standard. I tend to view sport climbing and trad climbing both as equally acceptable passtimes, but with a shared resource. On easier stuff I just see it as a historical quirk that trad climbing came along first and snapped up all the good quality rock. Whereas it didn't get there first on the blanker harder stuff, so that got bolted.
Longer term I don't think that's sustainable. It's pretty hard to justify pushing all the low grade sport climbers in the country into shitty loose quarries, when there's vast amounts of trad climbing on good quality rock that in certain places is getting overgrown as noone is climbing it.
I fundamentally disagree with that. Historical quirks are fine, it's part of being in the UK with our diverse and wonderful melting pot of rock types, situations, and heritage.
I don't see why trad should be sacrificed at a lower standard compared to higher standards.
As always I'd encourage cleaning, lower-offs if needed, re-writing and publicising as the first thing to try for these neglected trad routes - and encouraging people to do more trad and be part of a sport / trad balance.
And.....it IS this thread, even though the focus has tended towards the pegbolts, it still falls under the general focus of The Calling Of The Bolt Chopping :-\
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I am intrigued to know why this Topic and other similar roped idiocy is being openly and brilliantly discussed on this forum and not on other perhaps more appropriately named platforms? {Not complaining}.
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Because you can sometimes/often have a sensible discussion on here whereas that's more rarely the case on something like UKC
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I am intrigued to know why this Topic and other similar roped idiocy is being openly and brilliantly discussed on this forum and not on other perhaps more appropriately named platforms? {Not complaining}.
You clearly don't frequent the 'other... more appropriately named platforms' where this subject has been discussed to death..
But to your broader point, despite this forum's somewhat misleading name, there are many roped climbers amongst its members. For me, I find the quality of debate much higher here than on 'the other channel' so despite not having bouldered since 1983, I find this forum generally more stimulating and refreshingly irreverent than you know where. That is as long as I remember to avoid the unroped idiocy...
Neil
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Because you can sometimes/often have a sensible discussion on here whereas that's more rarely the case on something like UKC
Fair enough, shame though as i would have thought the wider audience of UKC would/could gain from the collective thoughts and info shared here.
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I am intrigued to know why this Topic and other similar roped idiocy is being openly and brilliantly discussed on this forum and not on other perhaps more appropriately named platforms? {Not complaining}.
You clearly don't frequent the 'other... more appropriately named platforms' where this subject has been discussed to death..
But to your broader point, despite this forum's somewhat misleading name, there are many roped climbers amongst its members. For me, I find the quality of debate much higher here than on 'the other channel' so despite not having bouldered since 1983, I find this forum generally more stimulating and refreshingly irreverent than you know where. That is as long as I remember to avoid the unroped idiocy...
Neil
Nah, i use UKC for the Database and thats about it, too many ads and an overpowering filthy Tsunami of C*nts, even though UKB is a full pledge, paid up member of the Sheffield mafia i quite like the C*nts that frequent it and the nonsense that it favours :icon_beerchug:
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I tried to wade through the the some of the P-bolt debate on UKC and it was as dire as could be expected. Very little reasoned debate and the usual noise and shouty angry people.
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That is as long as I remember to avoid the unroped idiocy...
Very sensible, soloing is dangerous.
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I tried to wade through the the some of the P-bolt debate on UKC and it was as dire as could be expected. Very little reasoned debate and the usual noise and shouty angry people.
.. sayeth the lords looking down on the house of commons ;)
Both discussions are needed. Can't decide everything from the shadows of the smoking parlour anymore, even if a lot of the actors are in that room. I agree it's painful, but there's a few topics where it's worth adding a voice on there. I thought this was one of them.
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5. What's the incentive not to openly call these bolts even though they are? Who benefits?
My point is I don't have a problem, in principle, with pegs existing or pegs being replaced. As I've said, many pegs were trad gear when they were placed. My Dad's rack included pegs, and I've carried them myself in winter, and have placed them on lead on a couple of occasions including a hand-placed peg on possibly my hardest flash. I don't see them as any way equivalent to a bolt drilled into blank rock.
In general, I agree we should avoid leaving them in place and remove or ignore their decay where possible but I don't have a big issue with replacement if their decline will change the route and they can be removed and replaced without drilling. I'm generally against the use of glue but I don't see gluing a peg in a natural placement as equivalent to drilling a hole in blank rock.
Conflating pegs with the bolting of blank rock will only result in more blank rock being bolted in places where only pegs previously existed. I agree that some of the Gogarth bolts have crossed the line here but I think insisting on referring to e.g. the Strand belay as bolted will only result in actual 100% not grey bolted belays e.g. at Castell Helen.
(...where people are desperate to place one. Ethical issues aside, I'm not aware of any accidents with the current belay but I'll be surprised if it doesn't become an blackspot if it is bolted.)
2. A glued peg that goes in without needing drilling is a glued peg (stainless or otherwise).
4. The twisted semantics around these bolts tells its own story. You don't have this kind of obfuscation and deliberately-veiled language such as 'battery operated hammer-action chisel with a rotary option' or 'eco peg' if there's nothing to hide. A drill is a drill, not a 'battery operated hammer-action chisel with a rotary option'. Drilling is drilling, not 'enhancing depth'. This is the language of bullshit.
The point I'm trying to make is there is some continuum here - between a peg, a glued peg, a removed with peg or chisel and replaced with glued peg, and a drilled out and replaced glued peg. I agree the use of a power drill is an inflection point but unless Chris is lying and they are all simply drilled I can get his point that there isn't always a huge leap between spending two hours pissing around with manual tools vs two minutes with a drill. I can easily imagine too, having tried similar, that the drill would mostly be removing rusted metal and not creating a placement from nothing as is normal with a bolt. I would - as I think you suggest - prefer power drills were unacceptable at places like Gogarth and the act of replacing a peg should therefore require pissing around with manual tools (but here we come up against the reality of me not being the one doing it).
Again, taking Chris' word as truth, he has replaced the 'crucial' peg on Byzantium several times. As much as an ab-placed peg is a compromise here it does make a good route. I'd prefer not to know the history - which I didn't on the 3 occasions I did it - and assumed it was a) lead placed and b) not 100% reliable. Were it to go it might be fun to try to replace it on lead. But I'd be quick to chop a bolt if it appeared nearby.
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But I'd be quick to chop a bolt if it appeared nearby.
So why the lack of bolt-chopping plans for the bolts that do seem to have been placed next to/over old pegs?
It seems like maybe there's a desire to not see them as bolts so that no-one has to have a shit faffy day going and taking them out!
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Clearly if we're talking mountaineering territory, that's different.
Why and how is it different in 'mountaineering territory'? How do you define such? UK cliffs I've been on include many I would consider 'mountaineering territory', e.g. Ben Nevis, Black Ladders, St' John's Head, Strone etc etc.
But on all UK cliffs, if someone is placing fixed gear, it should be placed well and if that requires placing it from abseil, that's no issue.
Why should it be placed well? Lots of it, on these cliffs and others, it is the legacy of people trying to get up it in an adventurous manner. It wasn't placed to be bomber gear for future generations.
Lots of such cliffs are not easily accessible from abseil. In fact if you wanted to draw a line around 'mountaineering territory' that would be an obvious way to do it. On Gogarth main cliff too it would generally be far easier to access a specific peg by climbing up than abbing down.
For me the key difference between sport and trad is the mindset. In trad climbing I want and expect my safety to be entirely down to my own judgement. In sport you sub-contract that bit out.
JB and various others get terribly excited about fixed gear going "where the rock allows". Which is largely bollocks
I suspect you've not placed many pegs. It really isn't bollocks. You can't hammer a peg into blank rock.
The enlargement of cracks by repeated placing and removal is a seperate ethical issue which was wholly addressed in my childhood. It doesn't happen any more. This is not the issue here.
On easier stuff I just see it as a historical quirk that trad climbing came along first and snapped up all the good quality rock. Whereas it didn't get there first on the blanker harder stuff, so that got bolted.
This is not a 'quirk' it is how the sport evolved. Originally, there was just what we now call trad climbing. That begat the sub-genres we have now. I find the history and evolution part of what makes the sport interesting, and often adds character to routes where features allow us to read that history as we climb.
So just decide which areas and routes need fixed gear, and which don't, and where using fixed gear, use long lasting good quality bolts and stop pratting about with pegs.
I'd personally strip the Cave Routes at Goredale, as they are or should be to me at least absolutely classic trad routes that people can aspire to. As sport routes, meh.
Just when you were threatening to pull together a cogent position, you deliver this spectacular contradiction! Has anyone ever actually climbed the Cave routes without any fixed gear? Almost certainly not, they were aid routes bristling with pegs where the aid was whittled away while providing innumerable fixed points for the 'trad' climber to aim for. What you are actually saying here is everything in the UK should henceforth be black and white except for the memorable routes of my teenage years, which should stay exactly the grey they were! LOL.
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I tried to wade through the the some of the P-bolt debate on UKC and it was as dire as could be expected. Very little reasoned debate and the usual noise and shouty angry people.
.. sayeth the lords looking down on the house of commons ;)
Both discussions are needed. Can't decide everything from the shadows of the smoking parlour anymore, even if a lot of the actors are in that room. I agree it's painful, but there's a few topics where it's worth adding a voice on there. I thought this was one of them.
Oowdeeeerrr ooowwwdddeeeerrrr.
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I'm pretty surprised someone hasn't gone and unilaterally debolted Gogarth. It would be interesting to know how much that's because
…. people just can't be bothered (fair enough - it's would be a right ballache!!)
It would be an absolute ballache!
People are very quick to start talking about chopping bolts but part of the reason that hardly anyone ever does it is surely because hardly anyone has the wherewithal to actually do it, or do it tidily at least. Most of us (including me, don’t think I’m trying to take some sort of moral high ground here ;D ) have opinions on bolts and pegs but have never placed either and therefore wouldn’t know how to go about removing them either.
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JB
Am I correct in understanding that you fear that conflating drilled out pegbolts will bolts will further legitimise the bolting of few "wild" places.
Others may see the categorization of peg-bolts as bolts being a useful step in getting them removed.
In general I feel that they arrise out of a project of dishonest deception and need to be removed. I think that getting them well understood to be bolts has been a useful first step. Further steps now need to happen to really make clear how unwanted these are and to prevent their proliferation.
I now know about other routes which have now been regularly climbed without pegs in N Wales which have also been repegged based on the "tradition" of there being pegs. To me this is undesirable as it effectively retro pegs the routes as they are/were a year ago and leaves it open to further pegbolts in the future.
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I now know about other routes which have now been regularly climbed without pegs in N Wales which have also been repegged based on the "tradition" of there being pegs.
… and might we be allowed to know which routes you are referring to…. :-\
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It's second hand information but esoteric'ish classic big E5s.
It is indeed a continuum and I'd suggest that the "inappropriate" replacement of fixed gear has happened across the whole range because of a reluctance to accept that things get harder but that's ok because, people are better, gear is better and bold is ok.
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It's second hand information but esoteric'ish classic big E5s.
Which ones?
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But I'd be quick to chop a bolt if it appeared nearby.
So why the lack of bolt-chopping plans for the bolts that do seem to have been placed next to/over old pegs?
It seems like maybe there's a desire to not see them as bolts so that no-one has to have a shit faffy day going and taking them out!
The only ones I've seen are the Strand belay and the Rhoscolyn ones. I'm not going to chop anything I'm not very sure of the history of.
The Strand ones were quite a surprise as it was the first I've heard of the whole thing. All three appeared to be in the old peg placements (I don't know it well enough to be sure) and one of them is not glued at all and could be wobbled. I thought them an outrage on the one hand - clearly drilled and glued - but also carefully crafted to give at a glance the appearance of an old, in-situ belay even down to the wobbly peg.
I would prefer it hadn't happened but the deed has been done and the old belay is gone. Pragmatically one has to consider the likely result of chopping them, which I think would soon be a bolt belay, which would probably get chopped, replaced, perhaps repeatedly before enduring. If holes were drilled here I'm sure others would follow. Fundamentally I don't want to precipitate more holes being drilled at Gogarth, so I haven't rushed back with the grinder.
At Rhoscolyn the issue is similar - I don't know it well enough to know if the new peg-bolts are in peg placements or not. I've never felt a need to belay off them or the old secret bolt that all the guides knew about - sufficient gear placements exist. I would be more supportive of the removal of these, but the existence of the old bolt and the new ones - now chopped - suggests it would again only precipitate more drilled holes. Reality can be a bind.
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Great Arete on Llech Ddu.
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Just when you were threatening to pull together a cogent position, you deliver this spectacular contradiction! - JB
Haha, but no, you just misunderstood me. I thought I'd been pretty clear, but obviously not clear enough.
Has anyone ever actually climbed the Cave routes without any fixed gear? Almost certainly not, they were aid routes bristling with pegs where the aid was whittled away while providing innumerable fixed points for the 'trad' climber to aim for. - JB
No.
My point was that I'd be happy to see them stripped entirely of all fixed gear. Not put back to some bonkers mess as it was back when I was learning to climb. I'd put Dominatrix in the same category.
ie: I think there's various routes with a daft history, that have ended up getting bolted as they previously had lots of pegs / tatt. Which actually could / would make fantastic trad routes if completely stripped (and I'd have thought you would probably have been on board with that had I said it a little clearer).
"What you are actually saying here is everything in the UK should henceforth be black and white except for the memorable routes of my teenage years, which should stay exactly the grey they were! LOL." - JB
As above, not arguing for that in any way whatsoever. When I learned to climb, loads of routes were a complete hybrid mess, going back to that not even remotely a good idea.
"I find the history and evolution part of what makes the sport interesting, and often adds character to routes where features allow us to read that history as we climb." - JB
So do I. Doesn't mean I think that the way things have evolved have resulted in a completely sensible outcome everywhere.
"Why should it be placed well?" - JB
Because if it isn't, it will need replacing in the not too distant future. I don't want to see pegs (or bolts for that matter) having to be re hammered in or re drilled every few years. We've seen the outcome of that over the past half dozen decades. There's sport routes with loads of holes, where if one good quality long lasting bolt had been placed there'd only be one hole. The rock is a finite resource. We can't keep doing that forever, it's not sustainable. If you're placing fixed gear, to me, it should last for a very long time before needing replacing.
"Why and how is it different in 'mountaineering territory'? How do you define such?" - JB
Here's one area I'll concede is not at all clear cut. I'd happily see hammered pegs banned everywhere in the UK and in places like Yosemite. Whilst I've no problems with them in Patagonia or the Himalayas for example.
Admittedly if I did more winter climbing in Scotland / elsewhere I'd probably feel slightly differently (although not very).
Short version though, on pretty much all cliffs primarily used for rock climbing in the UK, rather than winter climbing, I'd ban pegs (with the occasional exception as said previously for belays in really soft rock).
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Great Arete on Llech Ddu.
Ah right, I misunderstood, I thought you meant with p-bolts . If new pegs are unacceptable then face of adversity is going to look very different.
As an aside, this isn’t really an esoteric route more an indication of the issue. Here we have a super classic that was neglected partly due to question marks over it’s fixed gear. If people were regularly climbing it without fixed gear then we’re back to the issue of advertising what’s good and what’s being done as none of the comments on UKC logbook mention it being climbed pegless.
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Great Arete on Llech Ddu.
I’m sorry, Potash, but that’s typical of so many people who have been only too ready to pontificate on this matter without having direct experience of what is involved. That is why I called you out on what I thought was probably heresay just then…
For the record, I know who replaced some of the important, but badly rotted pegs on Great Arête. And, because I hate this uninformed speculation, I asked him directly whether he’d used drilled pegs on this route. And he replied, categorically, that he hadn’t.
And, just so I’m consistent in my own pronouncements on this subject - no, I haven’t done Great Arête. And yes, I do aspire to lead it one day.
Neil
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I'm suggesting that the there has been a wave of fixed gear replacement that is not needed as these routes are climbable without the fixed gear and in my opinion, avoiding fixed gear on trad routes is optimal.
On routes like the great arete this is conventional pegs.
On routes like Horrorshow it's ended up with pegbolts.
I think both are undesirable as adding fixed gear to trad routes seems like stepping back in time.
People have been climbing these routes without trustworthy fixed gear and replacing the gear leaves open the possibility that it is seen crucial and thus needs sanitising with even better fixed gear. Thus in a few years it gets a bolt.
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Great Arete on Llech Ddu.
And, whilst we’re at it, can we be allowed to know the names of those people who have made the (presumably on sight?) regular, peg-free ascents of Great Arête on Llech Ddu…?
Thanks
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Neil,
I was not suggesting pegbolts on GA and apologies if it read like that.
I'm just highlighting that people had climbed this as it was and I think the replacement of historical pegs is a mistake.
I will confess to assuming that the people I know who climbed it in 2006-2015 and described it as having shit pegs but ok anyway we're providing a reasonably objective description.
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Neil,
I was not suggesting pegbolts on GA and apologies if it read like that.
Okay, I thought you were implying that GA had had pegbolts added.
But I'm still interested in the assertion you made earlier. To quote you directly
I now know about other routes which have now been regularly climbed without pegs in N Wales which have also been repegged based on the "tradition" of there being pegs. To me this is undesirable as it effectively retro pegs the routes as they are/were a year ago and leaves it open to further pegbolts in the future.
Please can you tell me which "other routes which have now been regularly climbed without pegs in N Wales which have also been repegged" you are referring to, and who had been making the "regular" peg-free ascents, prior to the pegs being replaced, that you refer to?
Thanks
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Neil,
Other routes can in my mind be singular and I was referring to GA.
I have previously spoken with three people who climbed it in this period and in addition to this when I look on UKC (not gospel I know) I can see a steady trickle of accents. This to me is regularly climbed.
I spent a long time plotting to climb this and spoke to anyone I knew who had been on it. I never had the opportunity before hurting myself and moving away.
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Other routes can in my mind be singular and I was referring to GA.
I spent a long time plotting to climb this and spoke to anyone I knew who had been on it. I never had the opportunity before hurting myself and moving away.
Well, I hope you do get to lead it one day, just as I hope to. And if you do, I'd be incredibly surprised if the recently replaced (like for like) pegs, spoil the experience for you. Good luck!
Neil
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"hand-drilling on lead is typically held in high esteem as best acceptable style" - JB.
But that doesn't make the bolting done in this way any better. It's far, far worse, as again, it just results in shit bolts in shit places that need replacing 2 mins later.
I'm sorry, Nemo, but that statement is patently bollocks. Given how few major new routes in the UK are put up in this style, I have to assume you are referring to routes established this way in places where this approach is still "held in high esteem".
eg. Many places in the States.
I'll give you one example which perfectly illustrates why you are wrong. One of the most enjoyable routes I did in Yosemite was Stoner's Highway on Middle Cathedral. On this route, the bolts are excellent quality, because they've all been replaced. But at the same time, it is quite obvious that the placements are where you could stop (or more accurately where the on sight first ascentionists could stop), not where you would place them if equipping a sport route from above.
And far from spoiling the experience, it definitely enhanced it for me, and left me not only with great respect for the pioneers, but gratitude that their approach had been preserved when the time came to upgrade the kit.
There's a reason why this on sight ethic is revered in places like this, and if you want to better understand this, I suggest you go and do Stoner's Highway.
Neil
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Thanks Neil. TBH I was more thinking of the ethic in the sandstone areas of Germany and Czech rep etc. In the face of the ongoing homogenisation of climbing worldwide, I think it’s worth noting where adventurous climbing survives and seeing what we can learn from them. The idea that such areas are simply retarded, as Nemo suggests, seems to me the height of arrogance.
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It's interesting that you see that sandstone ethic as something to aspire to, I guess there would be a lot fewer route climbers in our country and therefore quieter crags if that's how all our routes were equiped!
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The point is, surely, that it's organic? A natural ethical evolution given what rock they have and its limitations, as people have increasingly pushed the boundaries?
Which is why slamming a bolt into trad routes originally done without bolts in an era of inferior kit, inferior training facilities and training knowledge, seems like such a massively retrograde step. Frankly, if it wasn't, there wouldn't be the same keen desire to disguise the nature of the bolts.
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I guess there would be a lot fewer route climbers in our country and therefore quieter crags if that's how all our routes were equiped!
Why, because it's so complicated to get right a lot would have died? :)
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At the risk of poking a hornets nest, are any of those complaining actually going to go and do anything about it?
At the end of the day it's a fairly binary issue, the bolts/pegs/whatever the fuck are going to stay in or they're going to come out. I suspect they will stay in because not enough people feel strongly enough about it to care, which probably condemns this thread and the ukc equivalents to going round in circles for the foreseeable.
It's interesting discussion don't get me wrong, but its all totally academic surely? The sheer range of different opinions (i agree with different bits of about 6 or 7 different posters on here, but none of them entirely) makes reaching any sort of consensus almost impossible.
I guess discussion is worthwhile, if only to shape the context in which future pegbolts may or may not get placed. But I think we may be fooling ourselves if we're trying to get any sort of agreement.
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"Why and how is it different in 'mountaineering territory'? How do you define such?" - JB
Didn't get around to the why? or how to define? earlier.
In terms of how to define, when you're using ice axes would seem like a pretty clear start (ignoring the fact that someone could go and dry tool a VS at Stanage).
And largely for the reasons that you're talking about - when winter climbing you're carrying a hammer anyway, so carrying a few pegs for emergencies is perfectly sensible. And in that context they're typically being placed on lead, under pressure as a result of there being no better options. Hard to pontificate about ethics in that scenario. Very different situation to someone going out with the intention of placing or replacing fixed gear on rock routes - where, as I said before, I'd happily see no more hammered pegs.
"I suggest you go and do Stoner's Highway." - Neil F
As it happens, I did this back in 1999. First pitch felt like a classic slate slab pitch (with better friction obviously!), bit run out, lots of fun.
I guess we took different things from the experience.
But, as I said before there's lots of this kind of thing, mainly outside the UK as you say. And yes some of the routes are fantastic (some of the Beat Kammerlander things in the Ratikon look amazing).
But I stand by what I said, which is that it does not result in better bolting. As you point out yourself on that route the bolts are now great, but only because they've all had to be replaced. As to their location, you can choose (as on slate) to create run out routes with bolts only at obvious stopping points if placing bolts on ab just as well if that's what's wanted. And you can take your time to actually place good quality bolts that don't need replacing 2 mins later.
"There's a reason why this on sight ethic is revered in places like this"
Yeah, and it's that the ground up bolting ethic evolved out of aid climbing ethics in a place where aid climbing is still revered. Look, I'm all for adventurous ground up attempts on stuff, some of the things Leo Houlding tried to do ground up in Yosemite were amazing - but he was actually trying to ground up free climb. On the flip side, remember all the grief that Tommy Calwell got when he first started equipping stuff on ab? And a lot of that criticism was coming from people who were aid climbing stuff, placing bolts whilst sat on aid gear, then working the pitch to death, before redpointing it. The idea that somehow just because they'd started at the bottom made the ethics of how the bolts were placed any better was just silly. It only made sense from an aid climbing perspective.
"The idea that such areas are simply retarded" - JB
I'm not suggested that. I'm suggesting that they shouldn't be held up as a beacon of ethics that we should all aspire to.
And let's not forget that the most infamous bolting episode in history - Maestri on Cerro Torre - endless line of drilled bolts up one of the most iconic mountains in the world, something you no doubt despise - was, you guessed it, bolted ground up...
Anyway, a lot of this is a bit beside the point. Obviously we're not going to change ethics anywhere outside the UK. We're just discussing what to do within the UK. My point is just that JB was holding up ground up bolting as something to aspire to. I don't agree. I think it's largely a relic of aid climbing ethics that needs consigning to the dustbin of history. Along with pegs on the vast majority of rock in the UK. That's no criticism of the pioneers who did this kind of thing, just means I don't think it's something we should be looking to emulate going forward when placing fixed gear in the UK.
If everyone disagrees, that's fair enough.
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Ha, Nemos latest post a great example; I agree wholeheartedly with their view that ground up bolting is anachronistic bullshit, disagree that pegs (and by extension their eventual, possibly sustainable and long lasting replacement) have no place in British climbing. :lol:
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the ground up bolting ethic evolved out of aid climbing ethics in a place where aid climbing is still revered.
Not really no, in California it evolved out of ground-up on often massive cliffs by any sporting means. Aid was part of that scene and always will be. And on European sandstone which you conveniently ignore it had very little to do with aid climbing. Again, a ground-up ethic evolved as a logical response to the rock formations.
The point is not that ground-up bolting is anything to aspire to (agree it is anachronistic in the UK), it's that trad/ adventure climbing is defined by the style of the approach, not by the means, and even bolts can be part of a sufficiently adventurous approach. More typically bolts are emblematic of quite the opposite, but I don't see it very helpful to ignore the exceptions. They are important. Trad climbing is all about style which means shades of grey not black and white.
I don't have any problem with people thinking pegs have no place in British climbing, but I don't think it's much use - it's a position made irrelevant by reality. Pegs were and are a part of British climbing. They are still being placed by first ascensionists without uproar, and can't be easily removed in many cases. Conflating them with bolts is a gross over-simplification. Some years ago we did this debate to death about peak limestone, which might explain mine (and possibly Neil's) more equivocal positions. Here it was more obvious that what was being sought was trad-lite retrobolting anywhere pegs remained.
Much as I think Chris has gone too far in many cases, there also seems to be proof that he has just replaced pegs in others. Until there is a cross-checked list I don't see any sense on assuming they are all drilled and glued. Ultimately the difference in opinion here may boil down to our levels of insight into Chris' honesty and modus operandi, but I'll continue to give him the benefit of the doubt for now.
It's simple to be a pro-bolt activist - you just get a drill and crack on - but much harder to be actively anti-bolt. Chopping bolts is not the result you want, bolts not being placed is, which requires building consensus and trying to encourage adherence. Again, reality intrudes with the venn diagram of maverick bolters vs sensible majority having little overlap.
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I have been considering the “how can we be actively anti-pegbolt” conundrum.
I have been pondering how to get ones that have been resined in, out???
do you angle grind them off?
Not ideal as it leaves a stump and potential for catching the rock and leaving even more of a mess.
Do you try and crack the resin and get them out that way?
I’ve done this with threaded bar at work but these are square so don’t think this would work?
Could you use a pull-tester and pull them out?
Don’t know if 10kN would be enough to pull these out?
Funnily enough Nick Bullock posted a blog about this thing and Andy Moles posted on this saying nothing in particular, and Steve Long commented saying if anyone has any problems with the pegbolts Mr Parkin has some kit that can be used to take them out. Having pondered this I asked what this equipment was. I got a really weird response that was of no use at all.
So apparently there is some magic way to get rid of them…
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I have been considering the “how can we be actively anti-pegbolt” conundrum.
I have been pondering how to get ones that have been resined in, out???
do you angle grind them off?
Not ideal as it leaves a stump and potential for catching the rock and leaving even more of a mess.
Do you try and crack the resin and get them out that way?
I’ve done this with threaded bar at work but these are square so don’t think this would work?
Could you use a pull-tester and pull them out?
Don’t know if 10kN would be enough to pull these out?
Funnily enough Nick Bullock posted a blog about this thing and Andy Moles posted on this saying nothing in particular, and Steve Long commented saying if anyone has any problems with the pegbolts Mr Parkin has some kit that can be used to take them out. Having pondered this I asked what this equipment was. I got a really weird response that was of no use at all.
So apparently there is some magic way to get rid of them…
If they are in a seam you might be able to hammer back and forth, to crack the resin bond, then use a pull tester. For ones glued into a perfectly drilled hole, I'd expect you'd need alot more than 10kN. I'm pretty sure you'd need a grinder. It can usually be done with minimal mess, and put a bit of resin over what's left and it will look fairly neat.
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Good knowledge good sir!
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I have been considering the “how can we be actively anti-pegbolt” conundrum.
I have been pondering how to get ones that have been resined in, out???
do you angle grind them off?
Not ideal as it leaves a stump and potential for catching the rock and leaving even more of a mess.
Do you try and crack the resin and get them out that way?
I’ve done this with threaded bar at work but these are square so don’t think this would work?
Could you use a pull-tester and pull them out?
Don’t know if 10kN would be enough to pull these out?
Funnily enough Nick Bullock posted a blog about this thing and Andy Moles posted on this saying nothing in particular, and Steve Long commented saying if anyone has any problems with the pegbolts Mr Parkin has some kit that can be used to take them out. Having pondered this I asked what this equipment was. I got a really weird response that was of no use at all.
So apparently there is some magic way to get rid of them…
I'd heard from some more regular sport developers that for normal glue ins, you just need a long lever through the eye and rotate. I can't see why this wouldn't apply to the P-Bolts? Access might be an issue as they may be squeezed into nooks and crannies.
My personal view (and I know this isn't everyone's) is that removal needs as much careful consideration as the placing in the first place (or more).
I'd support removal where they seem unnecessary, but would be against it if the route went from being moderately protected to objectively dangerous. I think we have enough rarely-climbed chop routes in this country as it is.
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Yeah that’s what I was kind of talking about with the cracking the resin thing. I guess the square nature of the pegs might mean it doesn’t work so well? As with threaded bar or normal bolts the bond is purely between resin and steel. Whereas with these pegbolts the right angles also act as mechanical strength against the hardened resin?
Could well be wrong though!
I also agree that removal needs to be well planned. I was musing more than anything else. Though I have to say the pegbolts on the cruise would be the obvious ones to remove should any be removed… :worms:
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It's good that the conversation has moved on to how the bolts should be removed.
Agreed, I'm pretty surprised someone hasn't gone and unilaterally debolted Gogarth. It would be interesting to know how much that's because
1) people don't mind Gogarth being bolted in a limited way (i.e. to replace old pegs)
2) people are kidding themselves that these things aren't bolts
3) people just can't be bothered (fair enough - it's would be a right ballache!!)
After 11 pages I feel like most people are surprisingly ok being in camp 1, and those not in camp 1 fall into camps 2 or 3... I guess I would have predicted more strength of feeling (with a few exceptions who think it's bullshit!) and it's worth making sure that's not because of lots of people in camp 2
3a) Would like to see the bolts taken out of Gogarth but are not sure they have the tools or skills to do it without making a bigger mess in the process. ie what cheque says. Further complicated by the access: for a similar reason you don’t see many films of climbing on Gogarth main cliff.
Back in the 80s, Gary Gibson started putting bolts into Pembroke. He did this unilaterally because that's what he does. They were removed unilaterally. Gibson got the message and took his drill elsewhere. I think we've got to this stage with Gogarth.
I've climbed, failed on, or belayed someone on Citadel, 15 Men... and The Cruise. None of these need bolts and they should be removed. It would be great if Chris would do this as he seems to have the skills, equipment, and he's local. I'd buy him a pint in the spirit of a sinner repenting. I once studied Metallurgy and worked for British Steel. I was crap at both but it is surprising how the climbing relevant stuff has stayed with me. I've also placed, hung on, fallen on, and removed hundreds of pegs so I'm not a complete amateur. However I'm not exactly local. Happy to do what I can next summer if they are still there.
Usually I'd be in favour of attempting to gain a consensus to avoid the cycle of bolting, chopping and re-bolting but, from where I'm looking, it appears the bolters have calculatedly avoided gaining consensus with their nudge, nudge, wink, wink, rotary chipping eco-pegs bullshit (paid for by the North Wales bolt fund, correct me if any of this is wrong, the truth has been deliberately obscured at every stage). I was prepared to accept Chris does not wish to debate on social media but then watched the BMC YouTube video after which I had considerably less sympathy. This is both a masterpiece of dissembling and contains several factual errors (softer steel, low carbon, pegs do not offer superior strength in irregular cracks, this myth was disabused in the 1970s; correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt if glue will add corrosion resistance). I'm assuming the anonymous narrator is Chris? He may be a guide and rope-access person but doesn't sound like he's a metallurgist or engineer.
Pulling and patching would leave a much better result than an angle-grinder. The rectangular cross-section of the p-bolts means they are going to be hard to twist out. I've seen Francis Hayden pull circular cross-section glue-ins straight out of limestone with a hydraulic bolt tester (required c.30kN if I recall correctly) leaving just a neat hole. He's rarely in the UK and I doubt he'd lend out his kit. Anyone have access to something similar? According to Steve Long on UKC, the peg in The Cruise is not drilled or glued. If this is true then lots of tapping and a funkness device would do the job. I can lend someone the latter.
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Yes, the narrator is definitely Chris.
I've got several pull-testers. They are expensive, but you can hire them from most hire places for £70 for a weekend. We did have one which was out of test and ideal for this, bit someone borrowed it and didn't return it. But would be happy to lend one to a responsible user.
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Sorry if i missed it, what vid are you guys talking about?
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3a) Would like to see the bolts taken out of Gogarth but are not sure they have the tools or skills to do it without making a bigger mess in the process. ie what cheque says.
Yeah, I can imagine doing a good job would be hard. Much harder (or at least more scary I would bet!) to remove than place bolts probably - hence why old bolts often stick around when things are rebolted (unless nice overdrilled expansions). I find the idea of swinging around with an angle grinder terifying, but then I've always been shit at DIY. I can imagine the pool of people who know what they're doing with a pull-tester on an ab rope half way down Gogarth is quite limited!
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Sorry if i missed it, what vid are you guys talking about?
https://youtu.be/yX0apNzic0E
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thanks
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My that’s a niche video. A great partner for the current series of BMC videos where young climbers in shiny down jackets give you a tour of a city’s climbing walls :lol:
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Not caught up with this for a few days and am unable to contribute much to this as I’m now a hobo between house moves, temporarily living in the pass CC hut without phone signal or internet which is quite nice.. good view from the front door of the Cascade/Central Icefall ice slowly growing.
JB I could add more detail about why you’re likely wrong in your belief that the Gogarth ones are hand placed rather than drilled. But I don’t have time/patience with current limitations to make it a coherent post. One of the Gogarth ones likely isn’t drilled, three Strand ones 100% are drilled (I was there helping him do it), the others.. the evidence suggests v.likely a drill involved.
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Sure Pete, you are closer to this than me. All I’m saying is if one of them ‘likely isn’t drilled’ then prob doesn’t make sense to call it a bolt. Agree the Strand ones all look drilled, albeit in old placements?
What has been achieved so far is it is very much in the public eye and hopefully will slow the placement of more fixed gear of any type.
Keep us in the loop with winter conditions please!
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Usually I'd be in favour of attempting to gain a consensus to avoid the cycle of bolting, chopping and re-bolting but, from where I'm looking, it appears the bolters have calculatedly avoided gaining consensus with their nudge, nudge, wink, wink, rotary chipping eco-pegs bullshit (paid for by the North Wales bolt fund, correct me if any of this is wrong, the truth has been deliberately obscured at every stage).
At the area meet Dave Turnbull clarified that BMC funds do not go towards the NWBF in general, and only go towards obligatory checking and renewal of lower-offs for access requirements e.g. Marine Drive. Chris Parkin clarified that the NWBF is used as a privately held "no questions asked" fund in which funds from guidebook sales and donations go in, and fixed gear supplies come out, which are then given or sold on at a low price to people who are offering to apply fixed gear to the rock, without any discussion as to what the latter entails (i.e. could be replacing an old and useful lower-off, could be retro-bolting a good safe trad route). Unfortunately I can remember if it was also clarified if the NWBF was used in the same way to supply p-bolts. Maybe Si W can?
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Four I think. Plus 'Supercrag'.
Can it be a coincidence that Loch Maree is both wedge-shaped and pegbolt-shaped?
What/where is Supercrag? Not the big seacliff near Lochinver surely?
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Loch Maree one I think? https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/loch_maree_crag-776/
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Yep. Loch Maree. I think they were just jokey nicknames for crags Ian Taylor was developing but it turns out both Creag Rodha Mor and Loch Maree sport wall were so good they lived up to the nickname and they kinda stuck.
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It's just as well 'supercrag' has only been applied to these unusually late discoveries, otherwise it would be very, very confusing.
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There's always 'super' routes too. Super Pittance. Super Warm Up. Classics.