Bolting 201

It all started a few years ago when I became obsessed with a new line in Eldorado Canyon.  Eventually, things culminated and I began to set out to figure out how to bolt the new climb.  With a borrowed drill, charged batteries and good selection of drill bits I drove to a semi secluded overpass in North Denver and walked down to a secluded creek bed next to a biking trail and located some suitcase size granite boulders to drill a few practice holes.  Right away I slapped on a 3/8″ bit and went to work.  The action of the hammer drill produces a lot of rock chips flying about as you start the hole and the noise level is significant.  It’s not jack hammer loud, but much louder then your typical hand held home handyman drill.  The hole start is critical.  You have to get the angle correct in the first half inch or less because the rock is totally unforgiving any deeper.  After the 3/8″ hole was down to about 3″ depth I started a new hole with 1/2″ bit which seemed about twice the work.  After about an inch I quit and then just for kicks tried out another 1/2″ bit that looked fairly dull.  This was a total nightmare as the dull bit refused to gain any purchase no matter how hard I pushed.  Keep in mind this is standing on both feet using my full body weight.  I could only imagine what it would be like hanging from a rope on an overhanging cliff side with a dull drill bit.  Feeling confident in my foray I packed up and went home.

Rob Woolf, a good friend from the climbing gym and sometimes outdoors climbing partner, agreed to join me October 11, 2009 to bolt the line.  Rob has bolted numerous routes most notably Rainbow Wall in Red Rocks Nevada in the early 90’s long before it become the sought after modern test piece it is today.  I had all my equipment in order and made sure both Ni-Cad batteries were fully charged the night before.  I even went so far as to buy a $10 dead blow hammer at the local hardware store reasoning that it would be better to use it to drive in the bolts and save the expensive powder coating on the bolt heads.  Early that morning we scrambled up the back side of Lower Peanuts wall and dropped a static line down the route from a solid tree.  The first order of business was to get the anchor established.  Rob went down to the base of the route and jumared back up while I feed him data on the route, proposed bolts and how the rope would move from point to point.  Based on the last clip and taking into consideration top roping and climbers coming down the ridge who might want to use the rappel we moved the anchor location about 4′ right of the originally proposed location.

Rob came up and I went down a few feet and set up to drill.  Things went smoothly with Rob as a second set of eyeballs to help align things we had a great hole.  Out came a fresh bolt and hanger combo.  The first thing I noticed was the bolt didn’t fit into the hole like I thought it would.  I had the feeling once I gave it a few good whacks with the hammer it would go in.  I asked Rob to hand me the dead blow hammer and he sort of looked at me like I was crazy.  “What do you plan to do with that Joe?”  I responded, “We’ll I am going to hit the bolt and drive it in”.  He handed me the hammer with a grin on his face.  It hit the bolt and nothing happened.  Then again and again.  Finally, I swung as hard as I could without taking a chance of missing and wrecking the hand holding the bolt.  Nothing.  Rob looked me straight in the eye and said, “That dead blow will never stack enough to get that bolt moving” and traded me the big wall hammer for the dead blow hammer.  Three or four solid blows with the 16oz. big wall hammer and the bolt was moving, but just barely.  All told I probably hit the bolt 40 times, often very hard, to get it fully driven.  It dawned on me at about 20 hammer strokes that this bolt was better then any piton I had ever placed.  Finally, I pulled out the ratchet and socket.  I spent ten years during my late teens and early twenties working at a go-kart track so “wrenching” came pretty natural.  The bolt was tight enough, but not so tight a monkey could not loosen it. I fitted the hanger with a 3/8″ quick link and attached a 1′ length of stainless steel chain to the quick link.

The second, and bottom, hole of this vertically aligned anchor was much more complicated then the first because it had to be equalized with the already placed bolt and chain.  To accurately accomplish this I carefully hand aligned the hanger placement and marked the rock with a small scratch from a drill bit tip in the center of the hanger.  After carefully re-checking the scratch mark three more times I drilled a 1/4″ pre-hole.  The 1/4″ bit is much easier to control and gives a greater probability of starting and keeping the hole on the targeted scratch mark.  Ten minutes later the 1/2″ hole was fully drilled out, the bolt was hammered in, tightened and we were ready to put on the quick links and be done.  Rob handed me a 3/8″ Rapide Million powder coated quick link and much to my dismay it did not fit onto the chain on the higher anchor bolt.  I thought I had fit all the parts together at my apartment but after some more fiddling it was clear I had bought the wrong size quick link for the chain.  Rob and I talked over our options and we decided he would take the chain with him and hike back to the vehicle pronto and go to Boulder, CO and try to buy two new matching stainless steel quick links that fit the chain. I would stay and continue bolting.

In Rob’s absence I managed to place one more bolt and then half way through drilling the fourth hole the battery died.  These holes were much harder to drill as the rock was overhanging requiring a great deal of effort to get the drill moving into the rock.  Typically, I drilled 30-60 seconds and then rested 2-3 minutes before beginning again panting hard between bursts of drilling. However, of important note, it would have been impossible to drill from above.  Very over hanging rock often necessitates drilling top down with previous bolts being the only means to drill.

After jugging to the anchor Rob and I outfitted it with the new 8mm stainless steel quick links he bought at REI.  Rob then rappelled with a new battery to finish up bolt four and jugged backed to turn things back over to me.  I rappelled and in about twenty minutes finished bolt five, but just as I finished drilling it the second battery died.  So, we managed to get 3.5 holes out of one battery and 1.5 out of the other.  Officially out of drilling juice we packed our gear and called it a day.

Two days later, on Tuesday, I returned armed with the better of the two batteries fully charged intent on finishing the bolting.  I rapped in and dispatched bolt number six which was the hardest on the route to drill due to it being in an awkward spot and very over hanging.  Only the lowest bolt on the route remained which was on a slab of lower angle rock.  This will be gravy I thought. Just after starting the hole I realized the drill bit was not getting good bite and the rock I had chosen to drill was darker then surrounding rock and bullet hard.  It took about 20 minutes to get an inch in depth and of course in the process I killed the battery. The other battery was uncharged and more importantly sitting back at my apartment in Denver.  With a slight hesitation, but total conviction once drawn up I executed the following plan: rappell, drive back to Denver, charge both batteries while eating lunch, and return to rap in again this time to finish it off for good.

I realized when starting to drill again on the last hole that the bit was getting dull and that was part of the problem of why I was not getting good results with my progress on this hole. I switched to another newer bit and sure enough it went right through that harder rock like butter.  However, this new bit was not long enough to finish the job so once I was at about 3.5″ deep I switched to the old bit for the last two inches.  Fortunately, I was now back into some softer rock and the old bit was doing an OK job.  Just as I was finishing up the hole the carbide tip on the drill broke.  Thankfully done drilling I hammered in the bolt, but realized the hanger was not totally flush with the rock because the angle of the hole was not perfect. Mentally I was stunned temporarily.  Here I was minutes away from successfully completing my first bolted route and I had botched my last hole by five degrees and was scrambling to figure a way out.  Then it dawned on me – brute force.  I would simply hammer on the bolt hard enough to bend the hanger ever so slightly.  My plan worked to perfection.  Ten or so heavy hammer blows bent the hanger sufficiently to force it flush with the rock.  To the trained eye the flaw was evident, but the uninitiated would blissfully clip for decades to come.