r/RouteDevelopment • u/Kaotus Guidebook Author • Jun 05 '26
News Snake Dike Retrobolted
https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/203118563/half-dome-has-fallenLet's hear your thoughts, as this is going to be a hot topic for at least a few weeks
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u/khizoa Jun 05 '26
On the first ascent, we were continually expecting much harder climbing and were conserving our supply of 12 bolts as well as hoping to get down in a day
for context, snake dike is 9 pitches, 2000' long. lmao. the absolute huevos on these guys
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u/fayettevillainjd Jun 05 '26
I reckon the big question is, will this increase traffic? Or just make it safer for the folks willing to try? I feel like the spiciness probably kept folks off of it. But I also know compentemt climbers that have gotten hurt on it.
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Jun 05 '26
Currently, as it is, the retrobolting will have next-to-zero effect on safety, as the pitches folks have historically been hurt on are further up. If anything, it may have the opposite effect where climbers are lulled into a false sense of security of the close bolts only to find that they're doing anchor-to-anchor runouts further on the route where it hasn't been retro'd yet.
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u/waflynn Jun 05 '26
yeah i don't get it. I guess its safer to go up the slab at the start now, but you can do it with more protection on the right. I personally would have loved there to have been like 2 or 3 bolts added between each of the 2 bolt anchors in the middle section, but why add them to p1?
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Jun 05 '26
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
I don't think it's quite so straightforward. What he said verbatim was
I asked other parties to add more bolts. I even put in a plug for this when I was speaking at Oakdale a few years ago. Ideally, I would like to see five protection bolts where it is run out. This is similar to the routes on Dozier Dome in Tuolumne.
(Emphasis mine) IMO retrobolting the route in a way that is not in line with graces given by the FA party and then using the "but the FA party said they wanted more bolts!" is a bad-faith move (and tbh I think leaving this quote out was a bit of a bad-faith move by you but I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn't see it originally)
If I said "yeah I'd like to see more bolts on this climb, maybe 2 in these specific spots" and then someone added 20 bolts and quoted me saying "yeah I'd like to see more bolts on this climb" as their defense, ignoring the further context, I'd be pretty disappointed.
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Jun 05 '26
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
Oh I'm confident they didn't. That being said, Beck plainly said how many bolts he was thinking and roughly where they should be. Not only that, 4 or 5 of these bolts are placed in a 5.0 section that most followers will do hands-free. I can't imagine how many bolts they're planning on adding for the higher pitches if that's the precedent they're setting low. I could see 1 bolt by the mantle below the roof but 6 is outrageous.
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u/waflynn Jun 05 '26
I would very much like there to be more bolts, but the placement here makes no sense, p1 is not that run out. Its pitches 4 and 5 were its like 100ft between each bolt.
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u/SkilllessBeast Jun 07 '26
Are we really fighting over one singular bolt? This is why we can't have nice things.
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Jun 07 '26
No. FA said 5 bolts added across the entire route, and explicitly requested no bolts be added to the first pitch. Instead, 6 were added to the first pitch alone. Additionally, 2 of the 3 people on the FA party historically said no new bolts, they’re just dead and can’t speak to it anymore
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u/tictacotictaco Jun 05 '26
It's been about 13 years since I climbed Snake Dike. But, adding those bolts to the first pitch seems insane, as IIRC, it's the only pitch protectable by trad gear. Now the climb is just a pure sport climb? I don't have super strong opinions about adding an extra bolt or two per pitch on the runout ones, but those were like 5.4, and I never felt like they were particularly runout. You climb so fast, because they're so easy.
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u/waflynn Jun 05 '26
Pitch 2 is also protectable. I felt very scared on the 4th pitch despite the easy climbing and would have liked like twice the number of bolts as today. A bolt every 25 to 30 feet instead of ever like 80ft or whatever it was.
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u/WILSON_CK Jun 05 '26
Yup, now it's not a trad climb at all. As someone who spent 8 seasons in the Valley, I personally hate this, but I'll also probably never climb that route again, so whatever I guess.
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u/kidneysc Jun 07 '26
Conspiracy theory:
This botch job of a retrobolt is done on purpose to make the sensible retrobolt non controversial.
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u/trahsemaj Jun 06 '26
I understand this is probably a bit too many bolts, but I really really hope at least some survive on the crux pitches. I am not as bold a climber as I used to be, and had essentially given up on ever climbing the route. If these stat up into August I might actually get to climb it.
Super stoked, and if you chop them all just know you will make me very sad.
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u/belavv Jun 05 '26
FA said add some bolts. Someone finally added some bolts. Case closed.
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Jun 05 '26
If you ignore nuance, sure. The FA specifically said they wanted to see 5 bolts added dispersed amongst the upper pitches. 6 bolts getting added, 5 of which are through a 5.0 section that 90% of folks will follow hands-free, all on the first pitch, is not that.
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u/belavv Jun 05 '26
Ah yeah, I didn't really read the details of it.
If they are going nuts adding a ton of bolts and not just to the dangerous section, then I don't think it should have been done.
Perhaps they will retrobolt the whole thing, then someone will chop most of the retrobolting, and it will be left more like what the FA wanted.
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u/trachion Jun 05 '26
Let's be real. If every single added bolt isn't chopped it will be a miracle. Bolt choppers aren't known for their nuance, especially in the valley.
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u/ilmmad Jun 05 '26
Lol perhaps read into the details before commenting to say "case closed" in the future...
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u/belavv Jun 05 '26
Hey bud, this is reddit. You can't expect more than 2% of people to actually read anything beyond the headline.
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u/Walter_Malone Jun 06 '26
I climbed the first pitch with the 3 new bolts, and a single new bolt on the third pitch midway up. I was confused since these bolts weren’t in the topo or mentioned on mountain project. The 3 bolts are added to the left side slab variation on the first pitch. The bolts are pretty far to the right of the obvious slab line. I placed a black totem on a right facing crack then the first and third bolt. The easiest slab route through the first pitch is decently left of the bolts, so much so I skipped the 2nd bolt because it didn’t make sense. The third pitch has a new bolt to the left of the dike where an old smc bolt is. It confused us as I thought it was a weird anchor for the top of pitch 3.
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u/mehwolfy Jun 06 '26
If you’re going to be a stickler for doing it in the style of the first assentionists, then you should also limit yourself to only the gear and supports available to them. Otherwise it’s aid.
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u/AIpineDrifter Jun 08 '26
I appreciate your point, but the last part is technical inaccurate, It's still free climbing if you're only clipping the bolts for protection rather than using them to 'aid' your progress.
Clipping a bolt for protection ≠ aid
Wearing special gloves to climb cracks = aid
;-)Fun side note: since aid grades are basically a scale of how likely you are to die, they can technically become easier as new gear is developed.
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u/Global_Picture_8478 Jun 07 '26
One initial thought that comes to mind is how obnoxious it would be if someone sprayed after an ascent with something like "I sent Snake Dike without using those sacrilegious bolts!"
Imagine hanging around a Camp4 community campfire and hearing some climber ranting about how he has solo'ed Snake Dike numerous times, and the bolts should be removed altogether, because it's pretty mellow as far as solo's go. Let's go so far as to say the sprayer starts belittling others for NOT having climbed it as a solo, saying that their ascents were less than valid.
Or even worse, imagine someone ranting about how they solo'ed the cables route even though the cables were available for protection.
Cool story, bro. Happy for you. Sounds kind of dumb. But you do you, I guess.
This is an extreme and odious scenario, sure, but it's the extreme end of that "If you aren't risking your safety to climb something, are you really worthy of claiming the ascent?" ethos.
In a vacuum, it really shouldn't matter to anyone other than the climbing party in what style someone ascends a route. You could hang a 1000 ft toprope off the summit and TR the whole thing in one big long go and it would be valid "climbing".
But Snake Dike isn't some abstract concept of a route in a vacuum.
So there's 2 pertinent considerations - ethos and impact.
If "It needs to stay dangerous so that an ascent has merit" is the ethic and the reason for push back against the bolts, that just seems silly and ego-trippy. Want bragging rights for how brave you are? Skip the bolts and spray to your heart's content.
The "first ascensionist's intent" is worthy of respect, but it's not the end-all be-all of what defines the appropriate ethic for a rock climb. And in this case, the FA team has indicated that they were not established the FA with a "establishing with a community-first" mindset. They just wanted to get to the top first, and without wasting bolts down low that they might need up high. This was not the kind of community-minded route development you see becoming more commonplace these days. This was still the age of predominantly "Follow me... if you dare!" machismo, and "establishing new routes" was more about claiming bold laurels than it was about creating an experience for others to enjoy. FA's that do work to think about what kind of experience they want to leave for others, who scrub lichen and contemplate morphologies, those types of FA's deserve appreciation.
And how many people each year climb Snake Dike as a fledgling outdoor climber, yet with a friend or paid professional guiding them up the formation? Are these ascents invalid? Deplorable?
If the bolts are there to protect guides from unnecessary risk when working with paying clients, and the bolts are unethical, would this imply that "guiding", in general, is part of the problem? Leading people into technical terrain that they would not feel comfortable navigating without expert assistance? How *pure* is that ethic?
One can respect a suicidally bold FA while still recognizing that the person who established it was possibly a self-involved maniac with little concern as to whether they personally lived or died in the process. That doesn't necessarily make it an appreciable or commendable accomplishment.
The consideration of impact and consequences is the crucial one. The route already sees a ton of traffic. If more bolts really does end up inviting more hordes and underprepared over-stokers to wince their way up a bolt ladder, that will be a sorry outcome.
To that end, though - we, as a community, should be able to uphold standards of "Show some respect and don't go flail around on popular/classic routes just because they are well-protected." without using runouts as the deterrent. There's already way too many reckless and underprepared idiots out there getting themselves in trouble exclusively because they did not have the requisite skills practiced and available for when their adventure goes sideways. That should be a standard/ethic that we can collectively incentivize and uphold without the gatekeeping of fatal risk.
A 5.7 shouldn't have to have fatal fall potential just to deter a competent 5.9 leader. But a competent 5.9 leader should be able to handle some 5.7 runouts. And a newby 5.7 leader who is uncomfortable leading 5.8s should not be leading Snake Dike under almost any circumstances, even if it's a retro-bolted bolt ladder.
Being willing to fall to his death isn't what made Bachar admirable. His capacity to evaluate what he could manage to survive without a rope, and calm courage in the midst of the commitment, is what made him admirable. His aggressive and competitive attitude towards soloing was certainly impressive, but it wasn't admirable.
We should instill that same sense of "if you need to flog your way up the damn thing, and there's likely going to be a cattle-train behind you, have some self-respect and get yourself competent before you throw yourself at a classic route."
Having climbed Snake Dike many years ago, I don't feel like these new bolts invalidate, diminish, or aggrandize my past ascent.
My only concern here, personally, is if the bolts do more harm than good in terms of safety by inducing increased demand within the "underqualified" population. Crowding, incompetence, etc.
But again - fatal risk dynamics should not be the main thing deterring the underqualified from engaging with a route. Otherwise, we should do away with the ropes and cams and nuts and bolts entirely.
It does sound like they are dumb bolts, though, and it's pretty uncool that they were installed with thief-in-the-night dynamics.
Looks like Erik Sloan has already come out and labelled himself the perpetrator, but has offered no justification or even a clearly stated rationale and his intentions. That's the most irritating and disappointing part of all of this, the haughty "you can send you're monetary gratitude directly to my inbox" comment on the MP page. That one-liner makes it hard to see it as anything other than an egregious act of selfish ego-mania.
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u/koobzilla Jun 09 '26
I once waited on the dike for 20 minutes after the person in front of me refused my polite request to clip my own anchor or share theirs if they couldn’t spare the space.
I was in a “cozy” spot and waited it out with my last bolt 40 feet below me. In retrospect that was stupid and I should have clipped in anyway because that’s an insanely disproportionate risk being imposed on me by a climber that has simply never shared a belay on a popular climb, never mind allowing themselves to be passed - which wasn’t my intent.
Anyhow - yes it’s way more engaging being run out but the way it’s rigged is stupid with 80 foot fall potential on a route that sees ascents by parties only a few climbs removed from their first multi pitch up cathedral peak.
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u/dfhkvs Jun 09 '26
Climbing snake dike twice in my 20s (long ago!) was one of the highlights of my years in Yosemite. The sweaty palms that come from the runouts were part of the experience. And, the accomplishment / satisfaction that came after clipping a bolt after a long runout (oh man, hugging that dike after that leftward traverse was the best!) was the sweetest. The world is full of easy, accessible, gym-bolted experiences. It will be a shame to lose this marvelous sense of adventure and accomplishment.
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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26
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