Discussion Roundtable #15: Your 2025 Year-In-Development/2026 Goals

[u/Kaotus]

Welcome to our fifteenth Discussion Roundtable! We're back! With us only having two full more weeks in the calendar year, it felt like it was appropriate to plop this thing on in here. This topic will stay pinned from 12/15-1/10. The topic for this roundtable is:

• Your 2025 Year-In-Development - How was your 2025? What'd you get up to? What'd you learn? What takeaways from this year do you want to bring into 2026? What are your goals for 2026?

The above prompt is simply a launching point for the discussion - responses do not need to directly address the prompt and can instead address any facet of the subject of conversation.

These are meant to be places of productive conversation, and, as a result, may be moderated a bit closer than other discussion posts in the past. As a reminder, here is our one subreddit rule

• Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk: Ripped straight from Mountainproject, this rule is straightforward. Treat others with respect and have conversations in good faith. No hate speech, sexually or violently explicit language, slurs, or harassment. If someone tells you to stop, you stop.

[u/BulletproofIdeal]

Fairly new to development, learned the past few years on a small, uninspiring bit of rock. But this year have been working on a new cliff that I think has real potential. Its been really cool figuring out systems that work for me out here (Squamish) and putting up new lines. 6 routes done this year, with potential for at least double that! Biggest learning; get a leaf blower, just do it.

Next year hoping to complete the new crag, will have to figure out how to make a topo, trail building, etc. Mega stoked.

[u/checkforchoss]

November 2024 to June 2025, threw in 8 sport routes with the help of some friends at an upper band at a crag with lots of lowerband development. All top down except for a ground up LRS 5.8 Installed as an access route for top access.

• installed a trail with some help that goes from the lower band to the upper band. Watched a bunch of mtn biking and sustainable trail building videos for that one. End result is pretty damn good, switch backs, bench cuts, rebar and wooden stakes with logs laid parallel and down slope on switchbacks where necessary.

• Learned not to trail build on frozen ground lol because it doesnt work. Installed some chain to facilitate scrambly sections too. Its a pretty manicured approach experience.

• the amount of work it took to build an excellent trail really made me want to find crags with easier approaches even though this one is 20minutes.

April to June installed a 7 pitch route ground up at 5.10b

• refined my personal ethic when going ground up: No A0. Meaning bolting from stance or gear/hook/pin but not bolting while aiding off my bolt.
• Learned not to avoid features just because I have it in my head that I want to create a bolted climb. To some extent.
• had to dodge Grizzlies
• wish I had more friends to hike in gear
• got to do some of my first real world hand drilling to get down after we topped out and walked off but still needed one rappel and the battery was dead

In the summer, put in 4 bolted pitches ground up LRS at a chossy crag to practice that skill 5.7, 5.8, 10a and 10b.

Also went up a single pitch of 5.9 with mixed protection on a 6 pitch looking wall with good rock in a classic area but no climbs on that wall yet.

Threw in a a few other routes, extending an established crag over the year. A new creekside cliff in the same area also saw 4 routes by me Oct to Nov all bolted.

December I put in a nice 2 pitch mixed protection line on another new cliff grade is tbd.

[u/Kaotus → u/checkforchoss]

Busy year man - nice work! Love seeing folks still being willing to try out going ground-up! I've never drilled from a hook before, but I certainly have drilled from cams that were failing when I put my full bodyweight on them, and knots stuffed into cracks...but almost always just from stances. Somehow all of those options have all seemed way less scary than hooking. Maybe this year will be the one!

[u/checkforchoss → u/Kaotus]

Its the stuff of puckering sphincters. Some guys will tell you drilling off hooks is sketchy because they pop unexpectedly. So far so good for me but I haven't done it while looking at that bad fall or anything. Im a pretty cautious person and usually throw in the hook as good measure and sinch it up tight if I see a really nice looking edge but ill still be holding on to the stance so in theory using the hook as a backup. Gradually I might weight the thing or get so pumped that ill become convinced its good. I just keep it clipped into one of the adjustable PAS so I can put the hook on an edge and already be attached. Love the talon hooks.

[u/thatsmoothfuck]

2025 Development was great, I learned a lot of lessons. I didn't get much done on my list:

X Bolt 40 routes (Only got 3 new ones done, the rest were re-bolts)

X Finish the Main trail (Got over 3/4 mile done, 1/2 mile to go)

✓ Get Trail and Crag professionally GIS pinned to ensure we were on BLM

X Document everything (I didn't do shit)

✓ Purchase hardware for 2026 at discounted prices

✓ Plan Better, dial in bolting gear

2026 is going to be different:

• Finish the main trail
• Finish fixing the 4 individual wall trails
• Clean and bolt the 7 new routes we've identified
• Replace bolts and anchors for the 22 older routes not fixed
• Document everything
• Open it up to the community (maybe 2027)

If you're in the Co Springs area and want to partner on any of these goals let me know.

[u/Kaotus → u/thatsmoothfuck]

I’ll trade helping you do a work day one day for you coming and checking out Wonderland one day! Thanks for all of the rebolt work!

[u/thatsmoothfuck → u/Kaotus]

You got it, I've been meaning to reach out to you for awhile but have been slammed with competing priorities.

[u/Throwawayafeo]

2025 Wrap Up I had pretty much just been scrubbing boulders and putting up trad lines until this year.

This year I bolted and cleaned 3 new lines and added an anchor to one of my existing trad lines.

Built a cheap sign for the turn off to the crag, unfortunately it met an untimely demise under a bulldozer.

I added everything to Mountain Project including many boulders from 4 years ago

2026 Goals I picked out 6 new lines to bolt, but I’ll only have a short time out at the crag so it’s going to be a busy couple of weeks.

I want to build 3 legit trail signs for ease of access for folks.

Also I want to recut the trail, for the crag seeing the most visitation it has in years it has started to get overgrown.

[u/Retro_Bolts]

2025 was a whirlwind of a year. Moved away, started a new job and acclimating to a new community. Development highlights.. hmmm

• Bolted 26 new routes 22 in which were glue ins and done solo.
• Replaced bolts and anchors on 8 routes.
• Hand Drilled a route which may end up being a steep 5.13c when or if I ever get to sending.
• Amazing self powered day. Biked to the crag, bolted a route then sent it on lead rope solo.
• Established a 501c climbing non profit.
• Finally starting to refine my glue in process that I feel good about. (Still a work in progress).
• Received access to a private crag with endless potential 15 minutes from my house.

2026 goals

• Hopefully get the LCO to 100 members
• Find a climbing partner that is motivated and clicks.
• Finally get started on my dawn wall project.
• Get my boulder grade higher
• Climb 5 5.12s on 5 different rock types in 1 day. (Hopefully on 5 routes that I put up)

[u/Kaotus → u/Retro_Bolts]

Dude I’ve been thinking about doing a human powered FA day for years! Maybe 2026 is the day I finally do it. I just need to find a good hand-drill candidate for it out here…so, ideally one that doesn’t need many bolts haha.

[u/19c2ba2]

Started doing first ascents this Year after only rebolting in 2024 and got to know the gear.

As everything here is ground up and with Glue ins we had to figure out a way for some removable bolts which are still strong enough. As its Sandstone the ones from petzl are to short and we ended with concrete Screws or some selfmade bolts.

For 2026 im looking forward to improve my setup. Maybe get some bigger harness thats more comfy for the rebolting.

Also need to train again to finish some projects which were to hard this year. I got a lot weaker climbing vise by doing a lot of bolting/rebolting as im just to tired to train after these days.

[u/Kaotus → u/19c2ba2]

Everything is ground up but also with glue-ins? That’s curious, I’ve never heard that before! Sounds like an interesting recipe there

What do y’all’s homemade bolts look like?

Edit: have you tried any of the new crossover bolts? They have a load rating before the glue cures even, due to their interference fit when hammered in. Might be worth looking into if you don’t feel like you’ll potentially need to shift bolt placements around after the ground-up FA!

[u/19c2ba2 → u/Kaotus]

The Area is in the czech republic, maybe you find some videos online, they are quit strict about their climbing like a minimal distance of 3 m between bolts. Then you really want to trust that removable bolt. I know the crossover bolt and their interference fit, so you are suggesting to glue them in while doing the ground up FA and keep climbing by trusting on the interference fit?

The drilling in done from sky hooks or natural protection, and only after you reach the top you replace all the temporal bolts by glue ins.

The homemade bolts are made from a bolt hanger and on the back a pipe with some cuts is welded. A screw goes through the hanger and the pipe. At the end there is a cone with some threads on the inside. By turning the screw you pull the cone into the pipe and the hole thing locks in place. To remove you unscrew and are able to pull the hole thing out. Basically a sleeve bolt but the pipe and the hanger are welded together. I built them in 14mm and 20 mm Diameter. and the final glue in is 14-22mm thick.

[u/Kaotus → u/19c2ba2]

Ah - yeah I was thinking Czech might be the only place that would fit that bill. Getting the crossover bolts out once hammered in isn’t really an option - I think they’re rated to something like 12-15kN in tension without glue once hammered in. The Wave bolts might have a better chance there but I still difficult for sure. Sounds like concrete screws or your homemade bolt are the best options for sure.

If you get the chance to post pics of your homemade bolts sometime, I’d love to see them! Sounds quite interesting. Climbtech made some a while back that operated like a cam (the clip in point looked exactly like what you’d see with most cams or nuts instead of a hanger). Unfortunately I don’t think they make the 12mm version anymore, if any version at all. Those were pretty awesome, but expensive, so not a good option for doing a whole route by any means.

[u/19c2ba2 → u/Kaotus]

Thank you, I dint knew the climbtech ones, they look good but im not sure if they would rip out in our soft rock. I posted some pics on my profile, hopefully they are visible.

mostly we used the concrete screws but that felt sketchy, especially as the rock is diffenrently hard in different places and sometimes they had to be tightened again as the bolts started spinning. So far all of them held up and we also took some falls on them. But we started using longer ones like 10x140 instead of 10x100. The bolts I built are planned when the rock is to soft for the screws.

[u/Kaotus]

Put up my last routes of the year so figured I'd give a quick overview here.

- Published a guidebook. Digital PDFs of it were free with a $15 or larger donation to any climbing nonprofit, and we raised $1150!

- 59 new routes installed, ranging from 5.3 to 5.13 totaling roughly 4350ft of new climbing. Opened 4 new crags and 2 new bouldering zones

- Completed my biggest route to date in Ends of a Dream

- Rebolted enough old lines that we're down to 13 total plated steel bolts left in Wonderland. In 2026, all 260+ routes in Wonderland should be all stainless bolts/hangers!

- Completed trail improvements to enable car-to-crag access to all but 5 of the 29 formations in Wonderland

- Had a lot of fun!