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AlanDoak
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 3, 2018 - 11:14am PT
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I was on Hall of Mirrors 10/29-30/2018, dropping in from GP and TR soloing the route. I arrived at the P6 anchor, and found that the left anchor bolt was missing, with the sleeve still in the hole. I did not shine a flashlight into the hole, so I don't know what might be at the bottom. I've never placed a bolt before, I'm no expert.
The route was completely upgraded with modern ASCA bolts (type and size?) in 2011 & 2012. Rebolting trip report here: http://www.supertopo.com/tr/Hall-of-Mirrors-rebolting-October-30-2011/t11249n.html I'm 98% sure that the anchor was intact the last time I was on the route in 2014, but I didn't climb those pitches and might have rapped straight to p5.
An experienced friend (Jason Haas) suggested that bolts can be under-torqued when using a box wrench, and speculated that it started to work itself loose and someone perhaps unscrewed it with their fingers.
Anyone have any info or educated insight (avoid or indicate uneducated speculation, please) into what happened to this bolt? Was there a defect in the installation? If so, what lessons can be learned or corrective actions can be taken? Has this been reported with any other ASCA bolts? Would the failure mode be sudden, or would the bolt be obviously wiggly before it would fail under typical loads? Any guesses on how many people per year, it can't be many, might touch that anchor?
Thanks, Alan
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Someone might have just stolen the hanger (using a wrench), it does happen even on multipitch anchors.
Yet that would be really weird on a hard testpiece. Would this be an anchor that people might skip (link pitches) on the rap (or ascent)?
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AlanDoak
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 3, 2018 - 04:14pm PT
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Greg, uh, I'm pretty sure that's not what happened.
FYI, Linking p6 and p7 would be a 200' rope stretcher on the original route, and over 200' on the Springtime Dry Variation. And the rappel from p7 to the original p5 is 170' (longer to the SDV p5 anchor).
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cragnshag
Social climber
Gilroy
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There is no way it came out by itself. Even if it wasn't tight, the weight of the hanger and rings would keep the bolt shaft in the hole.
Rockfall didn't take the hanger because you would see some deformation of the sleeve.
So it could be...
A. aliens
B. somebody stole it
C. Maybe somebody thinks this is not a good belay spot and it only needs to be a single protection bolt.
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Greg, uh, I'm pretty sure that's not what happened.
Why?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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p6 is the top of the Steel Wall pitch.
This is the pitch where Alex was leading it and discovered the crux bolt had been sheared off by rockfall.
Judging from my 2011 photo, I placed the left bolt at the p6 anchor.
On that 2011 trip with Chris, we were replacing one bolt at each anchor.
In June 2012, Roger and I did 2 trips from the top, ultimately fixing ropes down from about the top of p13.
Over several weeks after that, Roger replaced all the remaining bolts
and upgraded the single ring hangers to double ring.
Since the single ring hanger is thinner than the (4mm) double ring hanger, it might be the case that the bolt was engaging fewer cone threads when the hangers were swapped.
But I don't think that would be enough to help it unscrew.
So it might have been taken out by a rock.
But like Bob said, we would expect to see some impact to the sleeve if that happened.
P.S. Alan, you meant to write 9/29.
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Greg Barnes
climber
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If I had to bet, I'd say it was stolen by a recreational rappeller coming down from Glacier Point.
bolts can be under-torqued when using a box wrench, and speculated that it started to work itself loose and someone perhaps unscrewed it with their fingers Not likely in this case - first because bolts tend to loosen up in high traffic anchors/pro bolts (and haul points on popular walls), and second because it's almost impossible to under-torque a stainless 3/8" 5-piece to begin with (since the max torque is only 12 ft-lbs) - over-torquing is far more likely.
Rockfall is not likely the culprit, since even a badly damaged Fixe double-ring hanger still has multiple good clip points (while a plain hanger can be smashed flat such that you can't even clip in to it), so even if a rock managed to miss the other bolt and just nail that one, why would someone unscrew the damaged hanger? If a rock moving at a really high velocity hit a bolt just right, it could shear the bolt off the wall entirely, but then the bolt core would be sheared off, not missing.
And even if you placed a 5-piece bolt and forgot to tighten it down at all, it still wouldn't come unscrewed and just fall off - someone removed it for some reason.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
ne'er–do–well
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I was on Hall of Mirrors 10/29-30/2018, dropping in from GP and TR soloing the route. ... I was on the route in 2014
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona
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Just out of curiosity, how do you TR solo such a long route - rap with a long static line, or what?
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martygarrison
Trad climber
Washington DC
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Good to see the route get some traffic. For a long time it seemed to be dormant.
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AlanDoak
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2018 - 02:10pm PT
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Clint, your 2011 photo absolutely shows the now missing bolt, the lichen matches perfectly.
I noticed that several hangers on the bottom half were obtuse and had some nicks, suggesting rockfall. A catastrophic strike would likely damage the sleeve and left a bolt shaft in the hole... but maybe it damaged it just enough to remove by hand and left the sleeve intact???? I've seen some bolts really mangled by rockfall but still worth clipping, and even if I had a wrench I wouldn't just remove them.
The hanger wasn't moved to a lead bolt on the route, none of them had rings.
Most/(all?) of the bolts are hex-head rather than thread-head, so why would there be a missing hanger on a different anchor that they needed to scavenge from P6? Or if they needed to scavenge a hanger because of a mangled hanger on a different anchor, the lower anchors would have been less disruptive: P6 is a hanging belay, while the others have stances and some of them are easy to climb/penjy from one to the other. And if they scavenged the hanger, why not put the bolt back in with a cord/wired-stopper hanger?
If it was theft, why just one? Why on a hanging belay? Why this route? I know of two ways to get there: hard scary runout climbing, or descending the Hinterlands (2-3 hours) and rapping the route. The rabble don't travel there. And what, a slabmaster took that particular bolt as a souvenir? Greg, these are the reasons I doubt someone just stole it.
cragnshag, removing a hanging belay... the link is well over 50m, multiple original parties to ask, that belay has been there since 1978, it's Hall of Fuc&ing Mirrors... I imagine a style nazi that deranged would vandalize the hole.
Consensus sounds like:
1) Maybe it was stolen as a souvenir or by a style nazi (or aliens, bears, etc).
2) Rock strike isn't consistent with the sleeve condition (but maybe it's a possible contributor).
3) If it wasn't stolen, it's a one-of-a-kind fluke that doesn't fit anything we've seen before.
4) It doesn't indicate a systemic issue potentially affecting any other ASCA hardware. (Right? I'd find that very reassuring.)
Oh, and Biotch, friend me on Facebook for some real spray :)
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Killer thread. The mystery is juicy and the suspense palpable. We need to set up some "game cams" on this route and watch it nightly for suspicious activity. Maybe the route is indeed haunted!
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AlanDoak
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2018 - 02:30pm PT
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Good to see the route get some traffic. For a long time it seemed to be dormant.
Marty, IKR? It's such an amazing route, and a lot of work went into restoring it. It's like an artifact from a past civilization, built using forgotten advanced technology.... I'd love to see more ascents and read their stories.
I added the route to mountainproject.com, and would love to see people log their traffic... but MP doesn't seem super popular in CA.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Just take another up with a hanger and it should just thread right in, problem solved. Given the mystery about whether it failed or not,
a better choice would be to pull the sleeve and cone (if possible),
and then put in a new bolt.
Otherwise you are relying on the cone threads to be good without really inspecting them.
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Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
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The culprit: Half-inch wrench, turned counter-clockwise. : )
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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did you actually feel the sleeve to make sure the bolt was missing? It could all just be smoke and (hall of) mirrors.
on a seriouser note; is it just me, or does the top left quadrant (like from 10:45-10:50) look slightly out of round? Or is that amount consistent with regular bolt placement?
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| Messages 1 - 17 of total 17 in this topic |
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