Shelf road need new anchors

I was at shelf road a week ago and noticed that the anchors on " lunch at the Y" were pretty worn. The left hanger was half worn thru from rope friction and the right nut was loose. I was not sure who to contact outside of posting here. Does anyone know who does the maintinence there or who to ask to get this fixed?

(eating popcorn, watching for thread responses)

Matthew Sharrow wrote:I was at shelf road a week ago and noticed that the anchors on " lunch at the Y" were pretty worn. The left hanger was half worn thru from rope friction and the right nut was loose. I was not sure who to contact outside of posting here. Does anyone know who does the maintinence there or who to ask to get this fixed?

Hey Mathew!

I'm not in your area but this sounds like a great opportunity for you to help out your local climbing community. As someone who is relatively active in placing and replacing hardware I can tell you it's not hard.

If I were you I would buy new hangers, preferably ones that already have rap rings attached, and use an adjustable crescent wrench. Simply back yourself up while you work and replace one hanger at a time. It sounds like the anchors don't have extension like chain so they wouldn't be that expensive to replace if you only needed some rap anchors. Probably $25 or less and the rest of the climbing community would have you to thank for years or decades to come! Make sure to buy stainless steel!

I personally recommend these:

backcountrygear.com/fixe-ha…

But these are good too:

backcountrygear.com/fixe-ha…

Cheers!

^^^ this.

But it may be a good idea to reach out to pikespeakclimbersalliance.o… and see what the protocol is, and ask around for an experienced person to help out your first time just to make sure you get the details right :)

Cotopaxi,

Thank you for the contact info. I messaged them to let them know. Sadly I dont live in Colorado, so I wont be able to help out.

Matt

I've been curious about this for a while. Is it that simple? Do you need a torque wrench, or just cinch it down tight?

J.D.D. wrote:I've been curious about this for a while. Is it that simple? Do you need a torque wrench, or just cinch it down tight?

Torque wrench is best, especially if you don't know what you are doing. Some folks who have a lot of experience swear that they have a pretty good feel for getting a bolt tightened to within the acceptable tolerance with a 6 inch box wrench, but I suspect that are not inside the tolerance nearly as consistently as they think they are. Also, if you are doing the maintenance anyway, take the nut off and add some loctite before you tighten it down.

The PPCA will be doing bolt replacement as part of the Shelf Road Appreciation Weekend (April 23-24). I will make sure that Lunch at the Y is on the "to-do" list (unless someone else gets to it first...)

I don't think there as an ethic against it but lowering biners have not caught on at Shelf.
Routes that have had anchor upgrades will generally have a quicklink/steel ring combo with the concept being the ring is easy to replace once worn. It is preferred that you rappel from anchors that are not easily replaceable (i.e. cold shuts and single ring Fixe anchors).

Its the ethic. And in my experience fairly common in colorado. But feel free to add some, no one is stopping you ;)

Tim Lutz wrote:I was on the Cactus Cliff a few weeks back. I was surprised to find that all the routes we were on, 'classics', didn't have lowering biners. Is this the local ethic, to thread, even on trade route 10s? or has the hardware simply not been updated?

That would be sweet, but unfortunately when people add them they get stolen by assholes within a matter of days.

Cactus cliff is colorados outdoor gym. It is spray lord heaven, gym rat paradise, and collects noobs like a shit strainer in a shit stream. Unfortunately the shit stream has turned into a class 5 raging shitsunami and wiped out any tranquility of shelf. Disagree? Just read the comments on the front page of shelf.

Im not surprised that people would steal anchor biners. Watch the video about the draw thief on the front page of shelf in the comments.

J. Albers wrote: Torque wrench is best, especially if you don't know what you are doing. Some folks who have a lot of experience swear that they have a pretty good feel for getting a bolt tightened to within the acceptable tolerance with a 6 inch box wrench, but I suspect that are not inside the tolerance nearly as consistently as they think they are.

I'm of two minds on this...

On one hand, I am one of those people you speak of who swears they have a feel for getting a bolt tightened well. And well...you're probably right. I doubt I'm as accurate as I think I am.

On the other hand, I'm just not going to bother with the bulk, weight, and price of a torque wrench when my $8, 6-inch wrench will do the job.

Luckily, I've mostly switched over to glue-in bolts so I don't have to worry about it but of the 8 or so people I know putting up mechanical bolts not one of them carries a torque wrench. I'm usually pretty on the "do it right" track but I just don't think it's a realistic expectation that we all start lugging expensive torque wrenches around.

Anyone know if the recent Future of Fixed Anchors II Conference touched on any of this?

Glenn Schuler wrote: That would be sweet, but unfortunately when people add them they get stolen by assholes within a matter of days.

"Red necks hot after snap links"

Are these peoples perhaps from west virginia?

grog m wrote:collects noobs like a shit strainer in a shit stream. Unfortunately the shit stream has turned into a class 5 raging shitsunami

Sounds a bit like Jim Lahey.....

youtube.com/watch?v=hcQW04A…

Aleks Zebastian wrote: "Red necks hot after snap links" Are these peoples perhaps from west virginia?

To be fair, I've learned a lot of nice thing about the good people of WV on MP lately. Could be a boyscout troop with extra water bottles they need to clip to their packs.

KrisFiore wrote: I'm of two minds on this... On one hand, I am one of those people you speak of who swears they have a feel for getting a bolt tightened well. And well...you're probably right. I doubt I'm as accurate as I think I am. On the other hand, I'm just not going to bother with the bulk, weight, and price of a torque wrench when my $8, 6-inch wrench will do the job. Luckily, I've mostly switched over to glue-in bolts so I don't have to worry about it but of the 8 or so people I know putting up mechanical bolts not one of them carries a torque wrench. I'm usually pretty on the "do it right" track but I just don't think it's a realistic expectation that we all start lugging expensive torque wrenches around. Anyone know if the recent Future of Fixed Anchors II Conference touched on any of this?

I hear you man, the gentleman who taught me to bolt is as you say, a "do it right" kind of guy. He even owns a torque wrench, but uses it probably half the time. That he does it this way doesn't bother me too much because he has put up more routes than god (literally thousands, GU and TD), so if anyone has a "feel" its probably him. That said, for the majority of us who have sunk less than a 1000 bolts, it really probably is best to use a torque wrench. And really, they are not that expensive, see here ($17):

craftsman.com/craftsman-3-8…

Now, is a beam style the most accurate? No. But its certainly more accurate than "feeling" a 6 inch box, and this one is a Craftsman so its decent quality. And at sub $20, it seems a reasonable tool to have if you sink a lot of bolts. Plus its not heavy to carry at all unless you are going GU.

Cheers.

Ah. Yeah for sure those beam ones are cheaper. I forgot about those even though I have used them.

But man, they are a pain. The handle-twist ones are more accurate but really aren't worth it until you push up past the $50 ones. The reviews on the cheap ones tend to be crap.

The true irony is the one route I've put up that has the most complaints about loose hangers is the one I used the beam wrench on. Go figure.

KrisFiore wrote: Make sure to buy stainless steel!

That's great advice as long as you are replacing the entire assembly (including the bolt). If you are only replacing some components "downstream" of the bolt, then you should use the same material as the bolt. The existing bolt is almost certainly Plated Steel (since we are talking about an old route at Shelf). Adding a stainless hanger to a plated bolt will destroy the bolt. Adding a stainless quicklink to a plated hanger will destroy the hanger, then the bolt, and so on.

Monomaniac wrote: That's great advice as long as you are replacing the entire assembly (including the bolt). If you are only replacing some components "downstream" of the bolt, then you should use the same material as the bolt.

Good call. Don't want this:

mountainproject.com/images/…