What to do when you encounter a bad bolt?

What do you all do when you encounter a bad bolt or a bolt that looks like its pretty banged up?

I'm interested in how people share this information through out local climbing communities and how someone from out of town would learn about routes that are unsafe to climb.

When I was at Red Rock Canyon last year I was eyeing up a route and I was fortunate enough to bump into a group of climbers who warned that the bolts may be in bad shape and that I was better off avoiding the route. If they had not been there, where could I have found this information?

Thanks for your help.

Back up suspect bolts with cams, nuts, or whatever is suitable.

Find out beta through MP or the like, guide books, or other. Local climbing gyms or stores may have information too. Another approach is to climb the route and find out for yourself.

I find that too much information takes away from the adventure, but your mileage may vary.

In Red River Gorge, and some other areas we use badbolts.com to report bad bolts, spinners, and routes in need of updating. For single pitch routes, a lot of the time the bolts were all put in the same time so you can tell a good amount from what the first bolt looks like. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, and this is not always true. Look at the comments under a route on mountain project or a site like redriverclimbing.com, this is where people often share information like this.

Usually (not always), a route is bolted because there is no other pro, so backing up the bad bolt is not always an option. I think it depends on how high you are on the route. If it is the first bolt, you may be able to down climb if it is easy or traverse to a neighboring route with better bolts and bail from there. If you are higher on the route, you could climb through the bad bolt in hopes that the next will be good, although this could be risky. I would only do this if the fall would be clean without clipping the bolt. I always take a few bail biners on routes in an unknown area just in case (use two for redundancy--don't be bailing off of one suspect bolt!)

All climbing is risk management, and each case is different, so it is impossible to say what to do in every situation. Better to be safe to climb another time than do something regrettable.

FYI Badbolts.com is a work in process, so although it is rather complete for RRG, the list of routes for other areas is incomplete. You can email the administrator if you encounter a route with bad bolts and it will be added to the database.

jonalexander wrote:What do you all do when you encounter a bad bolt or a bolt that looks like its pretty banged up? I'm interested in how people share this information through out local climbing communities and how someone from out of town would learn about routes that are unsafe to climb. When I was at Red Rock Canyon last year I was eyeing up a route and I was fortunate enough to bump into a group of climbers who warned that the bolts may be in bad shape and that I was better off avoiding the route. If they had not been there, where could I have found this information? Thanks for your help.

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The Nevada forum here has a sticky on bad bolts in Red Rock Canyon; last update 12/29/2014. The ASCA maintains a searchable database of bolt replacements.

Old school is to slip a wired nut cable around the base of the stud under the hanger and soldier on. As was mentioned every encounter can be different. For a bent un-clippable hanger you thread a sling and clip in to both ends of the runner; no girth hitch or larks head.

contact the local climber coalition or find a local group through the access fund. it would be nice to have the info before hand. nothing like rapping off homemade rusted out hangers with hardware store chains from the 70s. and remember not to fall.

mountainproject.com/v/lvclc…

Not a bad idea to carry a screamer or two on long routes.

Sadly there's no magic method to making old bolts or bad bolts go away. The best method is to educate yourself simply on bolting, the mechanics or bolts themselves, and ways to right the wrongs. You'd be surprised at how many "bad" bolts are actually simply a loose nut that just needs to be tightened down. A LOT of people think a bad bolt is a loose nut. Carry a wrench with you, maybe even some loctite and fix those spinners.

if you do bail on the bad bolt ... and cant downclimb ...

leave the biner/draw below still in so you still have a bolt below ...

however this can also mean a big fall as there will be up to twice the length between the top and last bolt of extra rope out should it fail

you can protect yourself from this, or if yr lowering off a single bolt, with petzls technique

from petzl

for overhanging sport climbs with fairly close bolts it might not matter if the top bolt goes POOF while being lowered if the next bolt below is good

for moderate ledgy climbs, especially runnout slab where bolts are easily 20+ feet apart, it can be a serious issue

;)