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Bastille | Northcutt Start, missing pin: replace with a glue-in bolt?
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This will probably be a dumpster fire of a discussion, but I'd like to see what folks think. I plan to submit an application to ACE where it will be hashed out via the regular process, but often only a few people bother to read and vote. Several pins in Eldo protect routes that will feel very different after the pins deteriorate and disappear. This one was most recently replaced in March of 2021, so it lasted 4.5 years. https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105748678/northcutt-start  location of the former fat baby angle  closeup. The nut tool bottoms out there. The space appears to taper and has rounded railroad track grooves from the previous pin.   the flaring crack below the pin location. reportedly takes a #0.1/0.2 cam  looking down at the crack below  and down to the rest of the route  there is a fragment of a broken knifeblade pin above, but that's been gone a while Options:
Discuss. |
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In the abstract (and ignoring all local ethics, etc) it seems reasonable to me to replace an irreplaceable pin with a glue-in in the same spot (mostly so as to block the hold similarly, and I guess to a lesser extent to preserve the location of the protection). |
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I led this route a few days ago and I was pretty surprised when I got up there and found the pin to be missing. I did have a BD Z4 .02 on me which I placed in one of the pin scars. I fell at the crux on that .02. (Unsending) Shortly after, I read some of the comments on MP stating in fact the pin is gone. Someone also commented that an offset .01/.02 would be a good piece there in that pin scar. I can see how that offset would be a great option there but sadly I don't have one. The .02 I placed did the trick though considering I did fall on it. I honestly don't have an opinion either way I am only sharing my recent experience with the route. |
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Option 3 seems very strange to me compared to 4. If a bolt is going to be placed, I think it should just be placed normally in the rock, not the crack. I'm in general favor of replacing pins with bolts because bashing in a new pin and waiting for it to fall out in the year 2025 sounds absurd. If the route protects safely with modern gear (e.g., the 0.1/0.2 below the pin) then I think the pin should just be removed and no bolt placed. If we're talking PG to R without the pin then yeah just do option 4 and let's move on with our lives. |
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I'm on record supporting option 3 in the route comments and elsewhere, so I should make my case here: The charter for ACE makes it plain that preserving the character of these routes is the top priority. That sometimes seems a little precious and twee to non-Eldo climbers. Fair enough. (note: I served on the ACE board previously, but haven't since ~2016) Option 4 would create a protection point just as strong as option 3, but I think the optics would be more jarring. A bolt next to a crack looks like a mistake. Granted, a bolt _in_ a crack is a little odd, too. But it does the best job of preserving the experience of leading this route the way it has been led for decades. An argument could be made that we should use a really short 60mm glue-in just to add some spice and make the leader worry that it might pull, but that's a pretty silly game to play. There has been a fixed piece there for a long, long time that has been relied on as if it were a bolt. Once upon a time that confidence was justified, but the crack looks as if it is tired of holding on to any piece of metal shaped like an angle piton. Using a Lappas 120mm corkscrew bolt might make it look more like a funky piton placement to the uninitiated:  |
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Making fixed gear "dicey" on purpose is stupid. Fixed gear is fixed gear, make it bomber or don't bother. I led it on the .1/.2 only by surprise the other day, and I'm fine to do that going forward, but this route is number grades below my ability and doing so is a decidedly different "experience" than when it was led on TWO solid pins. And I agree that pounding in another pin to fail in a few years is silly. I have no strong opinions on a bolt or not, but want to point out anyone who argues against it is arguing against a different character than when the route was established. |
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How about drilling and glueing a baby angle back into the old pin scar? A glued angle is plenty strong, and would look more natural in the crack. I would want to use a slow cure epoxy rated for cracked concrete. I do question if over time that freeze thaw and and moisture flowing around the pin/bolt would lead to failure when placed in a crack. Maybe you could angle the hole into sound rock on one side of the crack. |
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Option 4! If that can't be approved, option 1! I would prefer to clip a bomber fixed piece. If that is is unpalatable for some reason, I would prefer to have nothing so that I could place that 21 offset and have some type of understanding of my risk. Clipping a piton that falls out every 3 or 4 years will not clarify the risks for anyone that doesn't know this place and this route well. They will likely assume it is solid, like I did last time I climbed this in 2021 right after it got replaced. Sounds like a bad assumption to me now. |
Michael Buttswrote: Seems like modern gear has eliminated the need for fixed protection in this case. |
Daniel Shivelywrote: I don’t think this is true. The experience of showing up to a crux and clipping a fixed pin is very different than the experience of showing up to a crux and needing a specific piece of gear placed in a specific place to protect it. Especially when that specific piece is a semi-niche cam. I personally feel it’s high time Eldo gets off its fixed-pin high horse and finds a modern solution to the issue. When many of these routes were first established you’d show up, clip a bomber fixed pin, then continue. Leaving deteriorating gear in the wall until it eventually pulls on some unfortunate party is a completely absurd notion, and creates a different route than the character of the route when it was first established (on a bomber fixed piece of gear). It’s even more absurd to purposefully replace that gear with gear that will again rip on some unsuspecting party at some point in the future. I think that bolts (while obviously different from pins) actually help restore a route closer to the original experience versus the 40-years-on-a-ticking-timebomb-experience that modern climbers get to enjoy on many Eldo routes these days. Obviously I think everything should be done on a case by case basis, but a glue in seems appropriate here. In my worthless yet sorta strong opinion. |
Todd Rwrote: I agree that clipping fixed gear is a different experience than placing pro. I disagree that modern, small cams are niche gear. The route description calls for small gear. Michael Butts placed and tested the reliability of the cam that replaced the old pin. I would speculate that Ray Northcutt would have used a cam instead of a pin or a bolt if cams existed in 1959. In my casual opinion, gear and techniques continually evolve, and this, to me, is preferable to placing unnecessary bolts. In some cases where old fixed pins are not made obsolete by modern gear, bolts could be a suitable replacement. |
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While weird pin placements may be rare, they're not unheard of. Here's another example (from an equally old school area) with a very funky glued-in pin that actually used to be a glued-in pin stack. Sounds like it recently got an upgrade. Just something similar to think about. Unfortunately I don't have a picture but you can read the comments to get the idea: https://www.mountainproject.com/route/107879239/riders-on-the-storm |
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I have lead this many times in the past. My priority was always to place a piece as high in the crack as possible to back up the fixed pin. Without the pin, you will put in a small cam into a pin scar that may or may not hold. Just because it has held before does not mean it is good. Having a bolt would change the character of this route a little bit because you wouldn’t have to worry as much about placing something to back up the pin. Without the pin, I expect people to deck on this Climb sometimes which would be a shame, and in my opinion rather unnecessary. I think a bolt is a good decision on this. I would assume, for many years there were multiple pins to clip at the crux. For the last 15 years, I believe there’s been just one pin. I think I remember a pin where it goes from the corner crack into the seam, which also must have pulled or was removed. This Climb gets led often. I would assume if the pin is not replaced or bolt is not put in, it will be top roped regularly from the first pitch of the Bastille anchor. Next-door on the northwest corner, this climb almost never has anybody on it now that the pins are gone in the crux. Obviously, sometimes those cams work and hold, but I don’t trust them, and I would assume that since I almost never see anybody leading the northwest corner these days, that most other people don’t trust them either. Bolt please |
Daniel Shivelywrote: Heard, and in theory I agree with you. While I agree that modern, small cams are not niche gear, an offset 0.1/0.2 is for sure a niche piece of gear (and you have to have it on your harness at the right time). A sample size of 1 does not mean that the 0.2 that Michael whipped on in that pounded out flared slot is bomber pro. Speculating what ray northcutt would have done in an era he didn’t put the route up with gear he didn’t have is sort of a pointless argument in my opinion. All bolts are unnecessary, as is climbing itself. I stand by what I said - that in this case (as in many others around Eldo) a bolt would actually help restore the route to the character in which it was originally climbed as opposed to change it in a negative way. What is it about pins that people view as “natural” and bolts which are by extension presumably “unnatural?” There’s a lot of ridiculous arguments in climbing but this “pins are ok , bolts are not” one really gets to me… |
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If you look at the downward angle of that nut tool, you see that the pin was driven upwards and the fall pulls axially. I think that's a vote against an epoxy-plug-angle-pin sandwich since there isn't much of an interference fit. Shear-loaded glued pins in Zion are bomber, tho. The upper and lower face are not divided equally by the angle of that rift: the upper part is more acute. If you look at the broken knifeblade area it looks like two errant hammer blows chipped off the edge. That makes me think that drilling orthogonal to the plane of that lower face might work even if the bolt were placed right in that spot. You would get into a lot of good rock. Call that option #4(b) |
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I'm confused on how you could put a glue in into a crack? How would you keep the glue from running and compromising the integrity of the bolt or angle? |
Todd Rwrote: Where I live and climb, eastern sierra/yosemite, small, offset cams (down to blue/black alien size) are in common use and trusted. I understand we‘re discussing Eldo , so acknowledge differences in gear preference. Perhaps if climbers want to experience a route in the character in which it was originally climbed, foregoing the use of modern equipment should be considered too. 😂 Not all climbers believe that a route with less fixed pro and techy gear placements is “negative“. I do not and have not known anyone that claims a difference between fixed pins, or bolts. I acknowledge that most see bolts as a safer option. Thanks for a civil convo, and since I‘m not local to this situation, I‘ll check out of this thread and defer to Eldo regulars to hash this out. |
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I think if the biggest priority is to preserve the experience of climbing the route, some type of fixed piece needs to replace the pin. Most straight forward and safe option seems to be #4. No reason to overcomplicate things. While we're at it, maybe we can revisit the missing pins on Northwest Corner ha! |
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That pin held my first lead fall 40 years ago. At that time we trusted the pin almost as much as a modern bolt, especially with the other pin as a back up, which meant it felt pretty much like a sport climb. So not having fixed gear in that spot would definitely change the character of the route. I’m not opposed to falling on micro cams, but I’m so big I often destroy them. So I guess I’d vote to put a glue-in into the pin placement.  |
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Thanks to Greg for initiating this discussion. While it can get "internet messy", gathering public input is exactly how these issues should be hashed out. We very rarely come to 100% alignment on these piton discussions but there is very solid guidance provided by the ACE Fixed Hardware guidelines: http://aceeldo.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ACE_Fixed_Hardware_Guidelines.pdf.. If you care about this shit then you should read the guidelines. An application to replace the piton is already in the hands of ACE and is being reviewed. It will probably be edited based on info gathered from this thread and it will be posted up for public review & online voting in the coming weeks. The most important thing you can do as an Eldo climber is to comment and vote on these applications. Full disclosure: Like Greg, I am an ex-ACE board member and I climb in Eldo a bit. A couple excerpts from ACE's guidelines:
These guidelines were written to preserve the character of climbing in Eldo. As mentioned, this may not be important to some climbers anymore but I hope and believe that it does matter to enough climbers that Eldo will continue to be "different" than most other climbing areas and it's importance as one of the cornerstones of traditional climbing is preserved. (Along with the Gunks, Yosemite, etc.) Do we really want all climbing areas to feel the same? Optics are important to some of us and the optics of a bolt are very different than a piton. Pitons can be bomber but the problem is that in order to know this you need a hammer and some knowledge around piton limitations. (outward or diagonal forces, corrosion, etc) Last I checked we rarely climb with hammers. Shit, most people don't even climb with gear slings anymore but that's a personal issue... As pitons age and potentially fail in Eldo on classic routes, the best case scenario is that modern gear can be placed at or near the current placement. A similar issue came up on C'est La Vie years ago when a bent knifeblade finally broke and neither a new pin or gear could be safely placed in the same location. That's why that first bolt before the under-cling move is there today. The public and the ACE board aligned on replacing that piton with a bolt. The process works. T2 p1, Upper Ruper, the Naked Edge p4 (x2), Super Slab p1 (x5?), DG p2, etc all have pitons that require some maintenance and may eventually lead to an application to be replaced with a bolt. In the meantime, back up pitons when you can. Don't climb past pitons with the same mindset as climbing past a bolt at a sport climbing area. If this needs explaining then maybe you've been sport climbing too much? Option 1 is the best but I really doubt it will be publicly supported, so I'm probably going with option 3 with a 150mm length. IMO it's the solution that best preserves the character of the climb. Cheers |
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Can we also get a bolt on the Bombay chimney pleaseee |
