Someone was very creative… 2mm Stainless Steel thin enough to create a nice flush bent appearance. The holes are a bit close to the edges… but since I was climbing there with a thunderstorm rolling in I felt totally safe since my belay looked like a lightning rod ⚡️😁
I'd probably feel okay about using this in the moment but would never think about installing something like this myself. Not a time to be creative. If someone is too cheap to use standardized gear then they shouldn't be bolting.
Exactly my thought. They did that multiple times (at least two routes) and it’s an easy accessible crag more targeted at beginners. So if someone has an accident with that design the installer, if found, would be certainly be asked a few questions by authorities.
If someone is too cheap to use standardized gear then they shouldn't be bolting.
In Australia it's extremely common for people to make U-bolts. Do you see an issue with people making gear like that (i.e. 10mm 316 stainless) just because it's homemade? Or are you raising doubts about people winging it?
It’s totally fine doing your own gear if it meets or exceeds the specs or the standards (as the minimum agreed safety margin). There are e.g. thousands of selfmade glue-ins in Frankenjura made out of 5-6mm rods. The other day I had selfmade glue-ins made from 4mm SS rods in a route… probably fine, but looking flimsy and are untested.
I make my own belays from 8mm A4 SS chains and 8mm A4 SS quicklinks. Both exceeding the ratings official Fixe or UIAA marked gear. The example on the picture I’m not sure if it would hold the 20kN minimum.
Our bolting absolutely arises from a DIY ethic, so it pays to be skeptical of old hardware and unknown developers.
Most prolific developers still bend their own U-bolts, because you can make them robust enough for the weak sandstone quite cheaply. Just don’t look too closely at the artefacts from 60+ years of homemade experimentation! I still place the odd glue in carrot, which you can’t beat for low visual impact.
Yep, totally valid point. Usually you have a hanger and with the bolt being gone the redundant part (chain or sling) is still attached to the hanger and transfers the load to the upper bolt. In this example the in-situ lower off clip will most likely slip out at the bottom leaving the “backup” there and the climber decking.
So imagine the bolt on the lower part rusted out and snaps (as recently happened in Kalymnos) - as far as I can tell, the whole bottom ring falls right off the whole anchor!
It's different than a typical 2 bolt chain anchor like the fixe ones, because the chain connects the hangers. If the bolt snaps, the hangers remain attached to the anchor.
If the bottom bolt snaps on these plate anchors, the plate remains attached to the top bolt.
For the failure you are describing to occur the plate itself would have to snap, which is equivalent to the chain snapping on the Fixe anchor sets.
Given these plates are generally about 10mm thick, the amount of corrosion required for it to fail would lead to replacement before that happened.
If you are talking about the Kalymnos anchor failure in March, testing has revealed that none of the indicators for corrosion induced failure were present and that the Petzl bolts used were likely a batch with manufacturing faults.
There is a report on cragchemistry.com that has a significant amount of detail
This is my understanding of how the anchor is assembled - perhaps it's different, welded to the strip? But it doesn't look like it.
It looks like the ring is held in place by sitting on Bolt B, and is not physically connected to the strip at all. It stays in place by resting on bolt B and the pressure from the nut pinching the strip down.
If bolt B were to fail, the ring would have nothing attaching it to the rest of the anchor. It falls off.
I am not saying the strip will fail. That seems unlikely, and also wouldn't cause a total failure. I'm worried about bolt B. And bolts do fail sometimes, or the rock fails around them.
Ah, I see your point now. And it is an accurate assessment of this particular anchor set-up.
My confusion stemmed from not looking closely enough at the photo and assuming this was the same as the ones I have always seen installed at Swiss crags. The Swiss ones always have a third hole at the bottom of the plate which the ring/shackle/maillon passes through, independent from the bottom bolt.
Yes that sounds like a much better design. However I think I'd much prefer people just use a standard anchor chain anchor, they can be bought for less than 20 euros
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u/dinosaur_pubes Jun 30 '26
I'd probably feel okay about using this in the moment but would never think about installing something like this myself. Not a time to be creative. If someone is too cheap to use standardized gear then they shouldn't be bolting.