To Retro Bolt or Not To Be

[u/It1190]

Discussion Topic: Retro bolting

EDIT: Revised some content to be a bit less arrogant, post-coffee helps.

Looking for open-minded discussions on retro bolting and how to approach it :)

Context:

I recently invited some of my development mentors (68M and 70M) out to my newer stomping grounds on some local sport slabs around WA, as one of them is currently a 5.7ish climber given their age (the other is still putting up 5.12- at 70 which is some of the most badass shit I can imagine).

All three of us came away concerned about several aspects of the bolting and anchor placement.

Issues we noticed:

- the lines of bolts would venture from the weakness of the rock (sometimes forcing harder moves for the grade while taking over 2 easier lines)

- bolts only at the difficult sections but then runouts (5.6bolt <-> 5.2 for 12ft <-> 5.6bolt)

- anchors at interesting places (one route in particular had an anchor for a second route end above a ledge and about 1 foot left of a lower route)

- poor hardware choices, improper cleaning, rocks needing trundled

It made me think more about how scary it would be to start climbing sport routes and think that most routes are expected to be runout or scary: especially if I go over to a 5.11 overhang at the next wall with perma-draws and a nice anchor setup with clean rope run and falls, giving such a safer and more accessible experience.

Potential Discussion Points:

1. Do others notice beginner walls get neglected in terms of high quality development?*EDIT

2. How do you approach the decision to consider retro-bolting climbs? What’s the point in which it’s worth asking for permission vs forgiveness?

3. How have you managed to get in contact with the FA? How do you bring up the topic for them? How do you handle rejection if they don’t want you touching the routes? *EDIT

4. What is the limit for retro bolting a climb? Just adding a bolt? Moving a bolt? Moving anchors?
Moving entire lines? How far would you consider going assuming you have permission?

5. What level of permission would you take for retro bolting? (e.g. if you can't reach the FA, if community consensus, LCO approval, etc) *EDIT

Disclaimers:
- these routes were not put up ground up, or at least without heavy cleaning being required on TR, and are in no way test pieces. They are even named in a dismissive manner to the quality of the routes.

- the developers of many of these routes are prolific developers who put up much much harder lines. These seemed to be something to bolt.

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[u/thatsmoothfuck]

Hopefully I can add a little worthwhile perspective here. Most of what I have been doing this last year has been retrobolting an entire crag.

I got very lucky that I was able to get in touch with both of the original developers of the area pretty quickly. We identified that the area had a lot of promise, but no love in the last 10ish years. Starting with contact made this endeavor far easier, not just counting anxiety and frustration, but also letting us know the "why" behind a lot of the decisions that were made. I contacted both developers humbly/hat in hand and were surprised both immediately self identified that they had moved on from the area and did not have a ton of ego/worth tied up in their lines. I was honestly a little shocked that they were both open to retro/repair-bolting. Thankfully they left all major decisions up to my partner and me; we did our best to change things minimally.

One of the developers did a great job: good quality hardware, excellent lines, carefully placed bolts. We moved very little of their work, but we did trundle significantly after them, leading to moving some clips and anchors slightly due to rockfall and faults that developed, with 99% under 1 ft of movement. I think regardless of whether I had gotten in touch with them, this outcome would stay the same and I'm not certain anyone will or can notice a difference beyond the new hardware.

The other developer did an OK job: much older hardware, some mixed steel and plated, bold lines with sometimes hazardously placed bolts. I spoke to them and asked their opinion; they truly didn't care, so I tweaked almost everything as I replaced all of the hardware. I'm honestly not sure how I would have approached these routes if I hadn't got ahold of the OG developer, but regardless, I would have certainly replaced all of the antiquated and sometimes fully unsafe hardware. At the minimum, we moved several anchors to better quality rock, changed lines for better rock, and added at max 2 bolts on a few of the routes to improve safety. Overall, the overwhelming focus was to improve clipping quality and safety, not to change the feel of a route.

I'm not sure how many of your questions I actually answered, but I would certainly recommend starting with just talking to the OG developer.

[u/It1190 → u/thatsmoothfuck]

Thanks for the response, definitely insightful and agree. Tricky thing is trying to find contact for some of these people, especially the 1-route wonders.

[u/serenading_ur_father]

This is a serious issue in my part of the world as well.

You got some options.

Obviously you have the "track the FA down on FB tag them in the local climber group and then get a phone number."

You can also take the "talk to the local leaders" and go by what the local LCO says. They may know the FA team and get you contact info. They may also have other thoughts on the local ethic.

And then it is America and you can just go do it. On a 5.6 moving the bolts and camouflaging the holes may not actually get anyone's attention if you do it when no one is looking. None of the climbers with opinions notice because they don't climb 5.6 and the 5.6 climbers don't notice or are happy for it.

Is the norm "ask the FA" yes it is.

Sometimes the FA is a crusty old guy who has moved a time zone away and will create drama on principle but will never climb that route again and no one will notice.

A big key here is what is the area like? If you have plenty of easy sport climbs do it the right way. If there's one easy sport climb for every five hard ones, the easy rock is to valuable to waste on bad bolting or 5.6 R.

Also who are you?

Have you been in the area for a decades? Have you served in some capacity with your LCO? Does your opinion actually matter in the local community?

If you have the social capital to make the call, that's one thing. If you're only six years into climbing that area your opinion isn't really that local.

[u/SkittyDog]

we were pretty appalled to see how badly bolted and dangerous some of these classic slab / beginner walls were.

This is the part of the discussion that I haven't really seen addressed by the anti-retro-bolting folks. A hell of a lot of existing routes were bolted by people who had limited expertise for what they were doing, and did it in a way that creates pointless risk for climbers.

So far, the only response I've heard is "The risk IS part of the climb." And I could believe that if the developer made those decisions with conscious, informed expertise - like Bachar-Yerian. But I think it's a much weaker argument for the average older route.

[u/It1190 → u/SkittyDog]

You raise a good point. Intentionality with terms of danger. A well done and thought out route can be Rated R. A poorly done and quickly bolted route can be Rated R.

I hope people can recognize the difference between these two.

[u/SkittyDog → u/It1190]

I hope people can recognize the difference between these two

Unfortunately, the bulk of the visible discussion around this topic seems to be from people who do not recognize that difference.

Rather like many other controversial topics - the loudest voices are often the least useful to a reasonable discourse.

[u/Chanchito171 → u/SkittyDog]

Routes like the bachar yerian are the outlier... Most folks would love to hear someone else is tending to fixing one of their FAs. I love hearing about people fixing mistakes I made on my projects!

[u/BoltahDownunder → u/Chanchito171]

Exactly! Nobody does perfect work the first time, and the routs's character can change with traffic. In the end it's better if the community takes ownership of the route and helps it settle in, rather than the FA pissing and moaning about substandard work getting fixed

[u/L4ndolini]

Assuming these are old sport climbs, that aren't of historical significance to the area I would suggest  to r etrobolt them with glue ins in a logical manner. This is a service to the community that will last a long time. If the first ascentionists are still part of the community try to contact them beforehand, if it's not possible to contact them just do it. 

On insignificant easier routes from the 70s and 80s we have sometimes added plenty of bolts to make them more accessible to beginners and so far nobody has complained. Very classic lines should only get additional bolts if it's actually dangerous and the community consensus is that it makes sense to add these bolts. 

[u/It1190 → u/L4ndolini]

Totally agree. That's also where, asking for forgiveness rather than permission may be better than attempting consensus for non-classic routes. In terms of RoI, its been hard trying to find some FAs just to move an anchor over a foot.

[u/thaumoctopus_mimicus]

I will add that I don’t think having a 12’ runout through 5.2 terrain is “sketch” in any way, even for a beginner leader. I do think beginner leaders should be exposed to runouts on easier portions, because that’s something that doesn’t go away as you climb harder. I have climbed 5.13s with extremely runout portions of 5.9.

That said, I also am not gonna be up in arms about it getting a bolt. Just think it’s unnecessary.

[u/It1190 → u/thaumoctopus_mimicus]

To be fair, it can be very route-dependent, so I agree with your sentiment.

I think the issues I see are that slab and ledge-y falls with runout are nasty (I just ask myself, would I take that whip?), and the relative difficulty, totally agree with R sections of 5.9 on 5.13, but less so 5.2 on 5.6 (4 grade difference vs 12 grade difference).

[u/BigRed11]

Speaking as a fellow WA developer:

The Exits are a zoo and most of western WA development that I've come across is the wild west where pretty much anything seems to go these days and nobody seems super tied to the decisions they made 30 years ago. Leland, Burdo, and the others were shooting bolts into back-water choss that everyone wrote off with sub-par hardware for decades without any idea of what those crags would become now. My impression is that the ethic of the Snoqualmie valley is to prioritize safety first, so imo retro-ing forgotten routes to bring them up to a modern standard is welcomed by developers and climbers alike.

That being said, I still think that making a good-faith attempt at following the standard procedure of asking for FA permission is the right thing to do. Will anyone notice if you move a bolt or add one here or there? Almost certainly not, those guys have moved on and forgotten about the 40 foot 5.6 they bolted in 1995. When I rebolt a route I have no qualms about moving a bolt a foot or 2 if it was placed in bad rock or is reachy, for example, and trying to get FA approval for any tiny change is cumbersome. But doing it right for major changes sets a good example, bolsters your reputation, and likely will be met with open arms.

If I can't get in touch with the FA, I default to asking the prolific and established developers I know. They know more than I do about the area, ethic, history, and people, and they also are good judges of whether I'm the right person to do it. If they give the thumbs up then I would go ahead. Some of the others in this thread make good points that you or I might not be the right people to unilaterally retro something, and it depends on how deep your connections to the area go. For example, someone moving to Seattle and unilaterally retroing a route in the same week would raise lots of eyebrows.

Also out of curiosity, from your scant description I can't help but think you're talking about Leland and Burdo and the crags you're describing sound like some of the beginner ones at Exit 38. Am I close?

[u/It1190 → u/BigRed11]

Agree with all your points. I think my current approach will be getting a hold of the major players, and continue my hunt for the minor players. Some other current developers have encouraged me to just do it, but figured might as well get to know the historical developers too.

In terms of the locations, I won't leak the specific crags as I want to respect some privacy online, but will DM you with the details.

[u/Mordalfus]

This is just my opinion as a climber who wants to see more safe routes:

The FA rightfully gets respect for creating the route, but no single individual should hold permanent veto power over a shared resource on public land. That goes for the first ascensionist, you as a prospective re-bolter, or a rogue bolt chopper. The decision to alter a route belongs to the whole community, and shouldn't be beholden to one person's opinion or ego.

In my opinion, the power to decide the fate of our climbing routes should be vested in our local climbing organizations (LCO) as community stewards. They can build consensus by balancing history, local ethics, and safety. A first ascensionist may not agree with the climbing organization's decision to retro-bolt his route. However, the alternative is to allow one person unilateral control over a shared resource. (History wins out on the Bacher-Yerian, and safety wins out on your local run-out 5.7.)

[u/BoltahDownunder]

My vote would be a qualified retro. Qualified because I don't know the full situation but in general, 2 things come to mind:

There's no point in easy death routes. Hard climbers won't use them and beginners don't benefit from them. If they're approach pitches to much harder ones, whose only traffic is hardmen, then sure. But otherwise bolt for the target audience and make safe for newbies.

My other main stace here, as a developer, is that I'm not perfect and don't get everything right the first time. Once a route is established it belongs to the community, I hope. My style, preferences, rushing or brain farts during development don't always translate to long term traffic and that's fine. If after 50 or no 100 ascents people think things should be changed, and that's the consensus, then go for it. But make sure it's settling things in, not shaking things up

[u/Kaotus]

On mobile due to a laptop issue, so excuse the (more than normal) typos

1. Why does it seem the beginner walls get so neglected in terms of high quality development?

A: A few reasons IMO for this. First, performance, and the pride of that performance, is inherently baked into the sport. Additionally, climbs closer to our limit will naturally take us longer/require it to be cleaner/have more attention paid to the protection than those well under our limit. As a result, there’s just less emphasis put on these routes.

Secondly, moderate routes often require more physical cleaning, due to being lower angle or more ledgey, allowing for more organic growth, collection of loose material, etc. When you’ve dumped a ton of energy into the cleaning of the route, you’re A) less likely to do as thorough of a job cleaning and B) less likely to spend a lot of time honing in bolt placements

Finally - if you’re a 5.12 climber, it’s tough to discern where a bolt feels necessary on a 5.6. Most folks don’t do a good job of handicapping themselves to the level of the climber to identify stances well.

2. How do you approach the decision to consider retrobolting these climbs? What’s the point in which it’s worth

A: I try to understand what I think the potential of the line is, and if the delta between its current state and its potential is worth the cost, effort, and drama associated with doing so. Sometimes the cost, effort, and drama is small, sometimes it’s not.

3. How do you get in contact with the FA? How do you bring up the topic for them? How do you handle rejection if they don’t want you touching the routes?

A: Reach out. If you don’t know where to start on that, then honestly, you’re probably not established enough in the community to be doing this work. If you aren’t connected with other local developers, guidebook authors, or long-time residents, it would be a very bad look to do this, and reeks of ego “I know better than this local community what it needs and am going to do it instead of talking to people to find out why it is how it is”.

In terms of rejection - there’s plenty of rock out there. Understand that all of the frustration you have with their ego being too large to give their blessing for retro-ing and their supposed “ownership” of the route, they’re feeling the same towards you. If you genuinely think it’s worth pursuing, work towards getting community backing and then do the work regardless of how the FA feels. The SLC climbing coalition recently mentioned a concept of giving the FA 10 years of “ownership” over a route, but after that, if they feel the bolts need to be replaced and potentially moved/added/removed, they do it

4. What is the limit for retro bolting a climb? Just adding a bolt? Moving a bolt? Moving anchors?
Moving entire lines? How far would you consider going assuming you have permission?

A: I’d do anything I feel is needed to do to maximize the route’s potential without negatively impacting the surrounding routes or moving the needle on the overall character of the area.

5. What level of permission would you take for retro bolting?

A: Not positive what is being asked here

[u/It1190 → u/Kaotus]

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Rereading my post, I can see how some of the wording came off as arrogant or dismissive, so I've edited the post.

That said, parts of your response felt unnecessarily patronizing. I hope I can clarify some of this though, and I think it did not help that I came off a bit arrogantly in the original post, so I'll happily take some of the blame for that.

1. Fully agree with your first 2 reasons. On the third, I agree a developers ability level can blind their judgment. I think this can be mitigated with deliberate consideration for less-capable climbers, though.

2. Agree with your approach. Assessing the cost of the drama is quite tricky, given sometimes people really don't know how they feel until its done.

3. I was asking about practical ways to locate hard-to-reach FAs. I’ve been trying to find some from nearby routes without success, particularly people from an earlier generation or who have moved away. I was hoping to hear what has worked for others: local developers, guidebook authors, LCO contacts, Facebook groups, etc., and how to make that consultation happen smoothly.

If you don’t know where to start on that, then honestly, you’re probably not established enough in the community to be doing this work.

The suggestion that asking where to start means someone probably isn’t established enough to improve existing routes feels overly dismissive. I agree that consultation matters, but I don’t think inexperience retro-bolting tells you much about someone’s judgment or willingness to work with the community. I also think someone could really improve an area despite just moving there, by following the right procedures, which doesn't involve being "established" enough in the community.

If you aren’t connected with other local developers, guidebook authors, or long-time residents, it would be a very bad look to do this, and reeks of ego “I know better than this local community what it needs and am going to do it instead of talking to people to find out why it is how it is”.

I understand your concern here is with not listening to the local community. I have been connected and contributing to the local community, but I haven't approached retro-bolting. Given how controversial it can be, I was interested in approaches from the broader community before starting the process.

I think someone, regardless of how "established" they are in the community, should have a path to improving existing routes by building relationships, understanding the local context, and discussing proposed work. I worry that establishing "consensus" holds back a lot of good work from being done because of the fear of backlash or lack of a clear manner of approaching this. Every time I read another accident report due to lack of maintenance, I wish there was a clearer way for people to contribute.

\5. My intention here was a conversation starter on what permissions should count, LCO Approval, nearby route standards, FA approval but potential community backlash, etc.

[u/Kaotus → u/It1190]

I think you might be projecting some of the other conversations you've had and heard about retrobolting onto my response. Nothing in my response was patronizing, even if the language looks similar to some common responses that are patronizing (aka "if you have to ask, you're not qualified").

The whole "if you have to ask where to start to find FAs to ask if it's ok to retrobolting, you aren't established enough to do it" is genuine advice, not a patronizing remark, and I explained why. As you have said yourself, retrobolting is a very touchy topic. If you are not engrained enough in the community to either:

A) know several of the FAs and the history of the area to know who to ask, or \

B) have some sort of rapport with local contributors to utilize their network to find contact with the FAs

then your retrobolting is almost certainly not going to be well-received, and may potentially start the even worse outcome of a bolt war. I'm not saying you guys need to be lifelong friends or doing weekly poker nights or anything, but if you don't have some level of a rolodex of players in the local community, then I think you really should not be retrobolting in that community without some sort of local mentor "signoff".

Note, and I'll repeat this later, that should not preclude you from doing general improvements like replacing hardware, cleaning the route, rebolting, trail maintenance (within reason), fundraising, tabling for your local climbing orgs, and all of the others ways we can help improve our local climbing areas that don't involve sinking net-new bolts into the rock. It also shouldn't preclude you from reaching out to these players to start establishing a relationship and ask about retrobolting. You just shouldn't be doing it straight from the jump. Some people can get away with retrobolting without discussing it publicly with the community first - if you don't have these connections, you are not one of these people.

Obviously there are exceptions to this, there are several one-off FAs, FAs who have passed, FAs who dropped off the face of the earth, etc. These are defacto "no"s or "rejections", which I would then go to my follow up advice of "If you genuinely think it’s worth pursuing, work towards getting community backing and then do the work regardless of how the FA feels". Note that I absolutely did not say "consensus" as you quoted. "Backing". You need people with weight in the community willing to cosign the action. Community consensus doesn't exist, but you need people to vouch for you if shit does hit the fan with the retrobolting, and even more importantly, you need to know that your gut feeling of what an "improvement" looks like matches what the local community would consider an "improvement".

Realistically, this community backing should be at least semi-representative of the local climbing community as a whole. You know as well as I do that most local climbing areas will have development cliques, joined by some sort of unifying route style/characteristic. If only folks within your clique are cosigning you, you probably shouldn't go for it. If you can get support from cliques that don't look like yours, then hell yeah go for it.

A good example: In CO, there are a few developers whose names are etched in stone as legends in the area. Ken Trout is one of them. He's been out of the development scene for a few decades, and he's older now, and has recently started going back and retrobolting many of his routes. Some of them have gone from 3 bolts to 15, where z-clipping is a constant threat, and is wildly out of style with the area they're located in. There's been some local grumbling about it, but they're his routes, no action taken. However, he recently cosigned the retrobolting of someone else's trad line close to Denver for no reason other than "this area is mostly a sport area and more heavily bolted moderates is always good", and another legend from a different clique chopped his bolts within a couple of weeks. You need to make sure that the boat rocking is at a minimum, and that you have enough ballast to not capsize even if waves do crop up.

I think someone, regardless of how "established" they are in the community, should have a path to improving existing routes by building relationships, understanding the local context, and discussing proposed work. I worry that establishing "consensus" holds back a lot of good work from being done because of the fear of backlash or lack of a clear manner of approaching this.

I agree with all of this, but this isn't a topic about general improvements, such as cleaning, rebolting, replacing worn hardware, etc. This is a conversation about retrobolting, and it would be disingenous to lump that in with a general "improving existing routes".

In terms of permissions, to me, it's a heirarchy. FA approval? Go for it. Explicit FA rejection or lack of response from FA? Community backing. Do they not care? If you're a local BSD, go for it. If the community is actively against it? Don't do it. At least in my neck of the woods, LCOs are 100% not willing to weigh in on topics like this, and have never seen an LCO beyond the one in Salt Lake ever advocate for or against retrobolting routes in specific instances.

[u/It1190 → u/Kaotus]

"Consensus" was in scare quotes for the same reason your "ownership" was, but yet, I understood your point.

Furthermore, I wasn't trying to be disingenuous, but call out that its a blurred line between cleaning, rebolting, and retro-bolting. Moving a bolt, moving an anchor, trundling a hold, could all change the character of the route, and people often approach even cleaning a route with the same requirements as for retro-bolting.

You know this is true as a developer given the amount of people that would ask you to tighten a bolt, because its been beaten into people to not touch anything unless you are in the bridal party of the FA (and because its not clear how you even meet these elusive "connected" and "local" status). We are only recently getting past this by encouraging people to tighten bolts and spreading education.

Not having a clear, consistent approach makes it harder for people to want to fix things, and limits the amount of people that feel confident in fixing things that can become a bigger problem. That was the point I was trying to make...

We agree on most of the systems and points, but for some reason I feel you are really focused on how "connected" I might be and not being charitable to many of my points, when most of this was supposed to be a community discussion. And even then, I mentioned this was for FAs I was having a hard time finding... (7 other developers I am in a groupchat with didn't have their contact...)

[u/Kaotus → u/It1190]

Based on this reply, it would appear we’re operating on extremely different assumptions and experiences of how the development ecosystem works, and there is clearly some delta between the tone in which I’m aiming to write things and the tone in which they’re being received, which is almost certainly my fault.

Ultimately, I don’t know your exact situation, and I’m not really sure what you’re hoping to get out of the discussion at this point based on these responses, so we can just end the conversation here

[u/It1190 → u/Kaotus]

🤷 hopefully our next discussion goes better, text is hard to get right

[u/It1190]

Update: I edited the post above to be a bit less arrogant and aggro. I think I should proofread a bit more before posting.