UKC

A bolt failure has been reported on the front bolt of the anchor above West Wall/Woolly Bear on the Isolated Buttress at Harrisons Rocks. This appears to have resulted from failure of the rock in front of the bolt and seems to have occurred sometime around the 17th April. The rear bolt has remained in place (connected to the front bolt by its wire cable) and the area of broken rock has since been cemented over. This anchor should not be used for the time being until another bolt to backup the exisiting one is in place.

The BMC as landowner of the site is very concerned about the mechanism of failure of the bolt and would like to find out more from anyone who was present when the failure occurred to gather as much information about the failure as possible. We will be conducting a technical investigation into the failure to attempt to establish why this happened but any witness information would be extremely helpful in assisting this.

I would be very grateful if anyone who witnessed the failure could get in touch with me direct either through robd@thebmc.co.uk or by phone on 01614383309 with any information or observations you may have.

In the meantime, it’s worth re-iterating that the anchors should only be used for top-roped climbing, following the guidance on setting up anchors in the Sandstone Code of Practice, which can be found in the front of the CC guidebook and on the noticeboard at the Harrisons car park.

Cheers,
Rob Dyer
BMC Access & Conservation Officer (English Regions)

In reply to Rob Dyer, BMC: bump

In reply to Rob Dyer, BMC:
I've noticed there is some small amount movement in many of the bolts at harrisons, I don't know if this is a problem or not, I always reason they are backed up and are large deepset bolts in the rock so probably fine.

To set up the ropes properly so they don't rub against the rock it's fairly normal to have to lead above the biner the rope is passing through (sometimes by a few meters! but normally on easy ground), so it's fairly obvious that forces greater than those that could be expected by a typical top rope set up could be generated on southern sandstone.

In reply to Rob Dyer, BMC: I had to chase a few kids away from Stone Farm when I saw them messing about with the bolts a couple of months ago, they had a metal bar with them and looked like they were trying to pull the bolt out!!!

Might have been something similar

In reply to caseyfather: Thanks for that guys - any additional info anyone else might have would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Rob