so, what are the odds of a bolt failing??

Having replaced a lot of bolts, I can say that bolt jobs are often lousy and that, depending on your climate, non-SS bolts can deteriorate at a remarkable rate. Bolts need to be installed correctly and maintained over time; when they're not it's highly problematic.

So what are the odds? No telling, but blind trust or any notion that bolts in the wild are like bolts in a gym is very bad mindset to have.

the odd thing is that the first climber actually fell on that bolt several times, at least thats the story my friends told me... and the guy that fell, just hang from the bolt, without falling, just hanging there... he never climbed past the bolt....

the odd thing is that the first climber actually fell on that bolt several times, at least thats the story my friends told me... and the guy that fell, just hang from the bolt, without falling, just hanging there... he never climbed past the bolt....

Where did this happen?

Bolts react very different when being pulled straight down parallel to the rock and pulled outward.

Perhaps more of a thread for the Lab since the facts are 2nd hand

Asking what the odds of a bolt failing are is probably a little misleading, as if it is just "bad luck" and random chance. The odds of a crappy bolt failing I'd say are pretty high, the odds of a properly placed new 1/2" stainless steel bolt with a modern ss hanger in dense granite are extremely low.

The more important take away is to treat climbing gear as a safety system that achieves a reasonable margin of safety through the strength of the individual components, dynamic properties, redundancy and a climbers own risk assessment and decision making. Accidents and epics can frequently be traced back to an accumulation of errors that have stripped away these redundancies to the point that very little needs to go wrong to be fatal.

Clearly you know this but the mistake was really in cleaning those lower draws. Most climbers would expect to be able to hang off a bolt and have it hold, unless it looked off for some reason. But that doesn't mean most climbers would want to trust the entire shooting match to a single bolt unless that's the only option.

Its not done much, but there is something to be said for rapping from a separate tag line with the belayer taking in slack on the lead line, when bailing from a pitch. This way you get most of your gear back without risking an increasingly bigger fall or an outright ground fall.

well he didnt want to bail, he wanted to try to finish the route, thats why he rested....

and i know without seeing the bolt we cannot say the odds of it failing... but what we find really weird is that everything aligned for him to fall.... this is the first, and so far the only, case that i know of about a bolt being pulled off the rock... and it had to happen to a new climber, without any backup, at 30 feet from the ground.... if he wasnt new, he would have lead the entire route, so he would have had a lot of other quickdraws to hold him....

well, this is not really a recent event. it happened Jaunary 5, 2009. i personally know 2 of the people involved, so ill write this as they told me it happened...

there were 5 or 6 people climbing on a local crag. the one with more experience had been climbing for about 6 months... first bad sign... the other "climber" used to be always playing around and climbed a little bit, but he never payed attention or never was interested in learning things such as anchors, systems, etc....he also had about 6 months of experience outside... and another one, the one who fell, had been climbing at the gym, this was his first trip out... the rest of the party were non-climbers invited to the camping trip...

well, they were trying a route, and the "experienced" one tried to lead it, but failed, falling as he tried to reach the second to last bolt... so he was lowered from the quickdraw, as the other climber and the gym climber wanted to try to finish it, but were going to climb on top rope to the last QD placed.... now, heres the biggest mistake they did: when he was being lowered, he took the rest of the quickdraws with him, basically leaving a top rope from one hanger....

so the other climber tried the route, but failed at the same place and was lowered from there. then it was the turn of the gym climber, on his first trip to the rock. his mistake was to trust his friends, who were as noobs as himself.... so up he went. they say that when he reached the hanger, he yelled "take", because he wanted to rest... so when he leaned back, he pulled the bolt out, falling about 35 feet.... my friend was belaying him, and he says he tried to spot him, but they didnt even had a crashpad, and at the speed he came down, there was nothing they could do... they were in a remote area, so the ambulance took about 2 hours to arrive... by then, he was already pronounced death by the 6 month climber, who is also a paramedic... they say he had breath and pulse for about 40 minutes, but he was unconscious...

so, what are the odds of a bolt failing?? we had never heard of that happening.... how many of you have heard about it?? and to this guy's bad luck, it was the only bolt he was clipped to... if he had been leading, he would have had just a fall and a story to tell.... we still wonder why the only fall that we know of that has failed, failed during the most critical moment...

Shu2Kill just for the record I don't want to minimize in any way the tragic nature of the loss of your friend and what I can only imagine is a heavy burden for the other friends involved. Accidents are by nature an alignment of events. No doubt we all get lucky many times, half the time not even realizing we've passed through a near mishap.

I guess its the nature of analyzing an accident... hindsight is 20/20 and we're all armchair quarterbacks with opinions of how "we" would have done things differently.

Unfortunately your crew of friends were both inexperienced and lax and this intersected with a "freak" event. It rests on each climber to consider their own safety, and it rests more heavily on the experienced to look out for the novice.

It all gets us back to the fact that cleaning the draws when the "team" was still trying to climb the route was totally unnecessary. Even once they had been cleaned, they could have been replaced by whoever headed back up to give it another go.

All this said, we all f up and luckily we by and large get away with some crazy shit most of the time. Sorry once again for your loss. Hopefully we all learn a bit from the experiences of others and escape similar tragedy as a result.

so, what are the odds of a bolt failing?? we had never heard of that happening.... how many of you have heard about it??

I think it will become more and more prevalent as the climbing world collectively reaches the end of the life span of a whole generation of bolts. Add to the equation: crux bolt, popular route, climate inhospitable to non-stainless hardware, and I think the chances are getting better and better all the time. Granted, I made a lot of assumptions in there, but that's why I think it's so important to support organizations on the ground doing the rebolting work. American Safe Climbing, the ARI, RRGCC (Red River) and NRAC (New River) come immediately to mind.

i wish we had those organizations in Mexico... i just pulled 2 rusted bolts off an anchor i replaced, plus the guy that pulled the bolt and fell, and still the local community wont help support a rebolting program.. i offered my drill and my time, all i need is the material, but they wont agree....

Organizations start with individuals, so keep at it. "Community support" builds up over time, but even in places like the Red, etc. it is only a small fraction of the community that does anything, however minor, to support RRGCC, and it really comes down to a very small handful of individuals who contribute an inordinate amount of work and money.


I am sorry to hear about another loss. Trusting one bolt is always iffy-- even though we do it as climbers in many situations.

Think of a situation where the crux of the climb is above the first bolt... A bolt pulls, and you are on the ground. You can stick-clip a second bolt, but if the second bolt pulls while you are effectively on TR below it -- the same story. Or if the crux is above the second bolt and it fails... or the third bolt... etc. etc. The last clipped bolt failing will result in a ground fall for almost half of the route length on many sport pitches, even if al lthe bolts below it are clipped.

Or, think of a stick-clipping through the crux scenario. Go in direct, lower a loop of rope to get a stick clip... You are hanging on one bolt, and not really on belay with all that rope out.


Or bailing off a 'biner hanging on one bolt...

So many situations where climbers trust their life to a single bolt...

I've climbed in a number of small areas in Mexico, Guanajuato, Guadalajara....I think thee are many sketchy bolts down in Mexico.

I easily pulled a bolt out by hand at a belay station in Smith rock. I climbed past to the next lead bolt and funked it all together with my rope.

I think the biggest problem with bolting is the wrong type of bolt used for the specific rock and less to do with the actually rock integrity or a perfect hole drilled.. With softer rock the hilti studs are no good.

thats why we are now using 1/2" sleeve bolts... some people wanted to use 3/8 sleeves, but that would give us 5/16 of actual bolt...