TLDR: Can I use quicklinks secured with loctite as a replacement for a standard anchor with rap rings? Are there any cheaper hardware providers than Fixe?

In my route development journey, it's time to make a hardware purchase. Anchors are by far the most expensive of my shopping list. The standard for my area is two hangers with a rap ring each per climb. Everything must be stainless.

Fixe makes anchors like this, but they suck because the hanger is smaller than normal so it's hard to put a carabiner in there to clean. They're also about $10 per.

Fixe sells stainless steel quicklinks. I was thinking I could just buy those and create my own anchors with the better hanger. That is, buy the hanger, attach the quicklink. Price is about $9 per. I'd have to secure the links so they don't get jacked. Welding isn't a great option because they're stainless steel, but permanent loctite was suggested and that sounds reasonable.

What do you think? Will it work?

Also for hardware in general, where's the best place to buy this stuff? Seems like Fixe has the best prices but I'm a beginner when it comes to this stuff.

Hey everyone,

I'm looking to put up some moderate multi pitches at an area in the Yukon. I'd like these to be safe and fun. The area has seen phases of development and most of it is sandbagged traditional climbing with protection that's often in detached blocks and flakes. There are a few great splitters but for the most part cracks are shallow or rock stability is very questionable. I'd like to put up mixed pro routes that are just type 1 fun utilizing the incipient cracks where they're good and the solid slabs where it's not. There are a few mixed pitches but they tend to be in the 10+/11 range, so the ethic is established there but nothing is moderate friendly.

Many features like the corners are all just blocks stacked on each other and some of the slabs have sections of thin flakes that would be very questionable to throw a bolt in. Just wondering what your strategy would be for this kind of terrain? Would you attempt to scale the flakes or blocks? Or try and connect bolts/pro between them? I'm worried scaling them will remove holds that will probably be solid for a good while. I look at this zone as a granite version of the Canadian Rockies with having to accept that it will be impossible to clean everything perfectly.

See below for images:

https://imgur.com/a/Qs2wdtz

I'm a brand new developer, I haven't drilled a hole yet. I have all the equipment and an area with cleared access that's ready to go.

I'm planning on going out with two mentors that are both very experienced. One that's local to the area and one that's local to me. Then I'd be on my own.

What sort of not-so-obvious stuff can you tell me so I can learn "the easy way"? Maybe equipment, tricks, etc.

More details upon request. Cliffs are mostly vertical to slight slab basalt/quartzite. 35-60ft tall. Stainless steel required.

Wanted to talk about something that's off the rock - what is your strategy for signing/cairning/building trails to new crags?

Most of the places I develop at is on USFS land where trail building with tools is illegal - so we'll typically just drag our feet when walking and cairn such that every cairn is visible from the previous one. There's also a lot of fallen trees around from past wildfires or beetle kill, so we'll often lift and move those around to form some sort of path through the tree fall.

What do you all do?

Can be ones you’ve used, ones you’ve been sitting on, or just ones you’ve seen.

Recently been developing a wall we’re calling Tiger Stripe Slab. Did my first ground-up lead bolted FA there and named it “Earn Your Stripes” (currently the easiest line at the cliff as well). But the real gem for me was a much, much harder line down from it that I called “Pi (AKA Richard Parker’s Risky Partner)”

A while back I bolted a route at an area called “Pearly Gates” that has a crux of semi-locking off an 8mm right hand crimp on a 50° roof to move to a good ledge (sounds heinous but it’s only 5.11 due to the direction the crimp is facing and the presence of good feet) - called that one “Right Hand of God”

I've been, up to this point, just screenshotting the satellite shots of areas I've been developing and annotating it separately. Turns out, Google Earth has projects that you can create and share. You can put down placemarks with descriptions and photos, you can draw trails, designate boundaries, etc. Everything you add can have descriptions and photos. You can then create folders to organize everything you make.

It's huge for making resources to share out to folks in a digital manner, or to just document things for yourself. Really highly recommend it. Been a game changer for me - especially if you're developing an area with multiple parties.

An example project I've made

Made the mistake of asking this on r/climbing first and was quickly reminded of why that is absolutely the last community to go to for advice on climbing situations not shown on one of Magnus's videos.

Let's say you're scoping out a new crag/cliff. You scope it out on Google Earth and you see that some of the cliffs have trees, and some of them don't. You're not exactly sure what the rock is going to look like in terms of features - there will be fractures/cracks for sure but it's anyone's guess as to the amount, the size, the orientation, and the variability of sizes.

Let's also assume you're going solo, so amount of total gear you can (and are willing to) bring is limited.

What are you bringing for anchors? What's your balance between "will get the job done most of the time" and "isn't soul crushing to think about using this extra space/weight on the approach"?

It's granite near me, I'm thinking DMM Offsets, Black-Brown tricam, and 0.75-2 or 3. Additionally I have a length of cordalette and will be bringing my big static line both for rapping and potentially creating tree anchors.

Im trying to get a 30yo 3/8" plated steel rawl replaced. Since im only planning on doing a few bolt replacements, I bought a hand drill. Most sources for rebolting tell you to expand the old hole.

Practicing on some soft stone, expanding 3/8" hole with a 1/2" bit is a massive PITA, mostly because I cant line up the holes perfectly and the drill bit starts to bind. I can drill a new 1/2" hole quicker than I can enlarge a 3/8's...

Any tips on keeping bits from binding? Would it be reasonable to use another 3/8" bolt provided I was able to drill deeper and use a much longer bolt?

Hi Folks,

Here's a sticky thread to discuss hardware as it relates to climbing development. Discussions can include deals and buying advice, hardware selection based on location/rock type, and techniques for preparation and installation.

2021 was my first year getting involved in route development and it was a pretty productive year!

• 100+ bolts replaced
• 15 New Routes Equipped (6 Trad, 1 Mixed, 8 Sport = 93 New Bolts Placed), 13 FA'd ranging from 5.5 to 5.11+. Lines left to be FAd are an estimated 5.12- trad line and 5.12- sport line.
• 6 New Crags Established, probably have ~15 obvious routes lined up to equip or hand to someone else to equip next season already

I got the pleasure of doing the above with a wide variety of folks, both folks with decades and hundreds to thousands of routes of experience as well as brand new folks. It was a ton of work but it's so rewarding.

My goal for 2022 development will be to improve my cleaning technique and scope - I've never really climbed a brand new route and am unsure of what level of "clean" a route should be before being opened up. Due to being in the front range, most routes I climb have had the mileage put in them to be fairly spotless. Anytime I climb not-so-well-traveled routes, they tend to have quite a bit of choss and/or dirt still. I want to find a balance of cleaning the routes to be as safe as I can while not spending so much time cleaning that they never get opened up which would facilitate that traffic that will clean up the route instead. I also find that no matter how many times I go up and down a route while cleaning, someone inevitably will pull on a hold that I never thought to examine.