I hear via the grapevine that some fat oke broke a bolt on "Too Pumped to Come" [26] at the Mine the other day. Anybody got any details and does anyone have the broken bolt? Its the route to the left of "Swan Lake".

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AndyDavies

think it was Duncan that did the deed, but not sure if he plays on this forum.

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If you aren't willing to solve your own problems, how can you expect others to?

Hi there folks....... so we had another bolt failure at The Mine. It was the bolt in the roof of "2 Pumped 2 Come" (26) next to Swan Lake. The bolt fell off when the climber tried to clip it so I guess it was pretty well corroded!

FYI below is a list of the known bolt failures in the Western Cape. Personally I am concerned with all these failures and believe ARF still has a lot of work to do. Any help would be gratefully accepted as the usual suspects involved with rebolting have many other commitments.

Where Route Comment
Montagu The Alley chains
Silvermine Main Sterling Silver toprope
Kleinmond Zuchini leader fall
Kalkbay Project chopping process
Kalkbay Project chopping process
Mine Red guitar chopping process
Mine Gift of wings toprope rebolt
Mine 2Pumped2Come clipping
Mine Swan lake chopping process
Oudtshoorn Seven tightening hanger
Hole Mystique Voyeur leader fall

Andy Davies
Anchor Replacement Fund

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AndyDavies

Where do we sign up?

I'm Happy to do some bolting as i'm sure are many others.

If this happened to me I would have s#@t my pant!

If the bolt I tried to clip fell off, then logic has it that should I load any other bolt it will break as well.
I'd be interested to know what he do from there??

Options:
- Down climb?
- Jump onto the bolt below?
- Carry on to the top and hope the bolts holding the chains don't come off in his hand?
- Move onto the neighbouring route that has new ARF bolts installed?

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Climb ZA - Administrator

I am with Kevin on this one, where do we sign up? there are a few routes i wouldn't mind rebolting

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If you aren't willing to solve your own problems, how can you expect others to?

What is the cause of these bolt failures? Corossion?

Your logic is correct. Personally, after shoving my heart back into my chest, I'd try to downclimb the whole route.

This is all very scary. We're going to start seeing more and more bolts failing as the years go by. I'm wondering if there's a way these bolts can be tested routinely. Manually dropping a dead weight on them could suffice, but if there are any electrical engineers out there: is it possible to build a device that could test the resistance of a bolt? A bolt that has half rusted away should surely have a different reading?

And so the great South African Trad revival began.....

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One life, one body. Use them well.

This poor guy, every couple of months he has to repeat himself. I was under the impression climbers were smart, reasoning people. Andy has posted again and again his details, how to go about bolting, reasons for bolt failure. So much so that when I see his name I don't want to read the same old Shi.. I mean stuff again.

So please if you want to help, it will take some effort on your part. This kind of thing doesn't come rapped with a bow and a thank you card.
Get on with it.

Garvin

Well Garvin that certainly brought a smile to my face, and although you hit it on the nail, there are many folks out there who may not have been privy to our previous info or maybe they are just new on the scene.

David the cause is Stress Corrosion Cracking (read more on the ARF web page - its somewhere here on climbZA or ask Dr Google)

9ja please don't involve any electrical engineers in this problem as their Mini Coopers won't make it up to The Mine.

All you keen volunteers - get hold of me on my email.......... the ZA administrator can help you.

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AndyDavies

Thanks I found the info on ARF web page.
Interesting