UKC

I was at the Rainbow yesterday to do Pull My Daisy but scouted the line of Poetry Pink for the future- to my eye there seemed to be a lot of bolts in it compared to what the guide suggested. Oddly there were also 2 places where there were two bolts placed right next to each other, ie 4 inches between them.

Am I looking at the wrong line? Or just missing something? Info appreciated

In reply to spidermonkey09:

Used to be two low down next to each other(?), then one high up that was a grip clip. You had to make a ballancy mantle to get to it while your belayer was poised to start running.

Has this been retro bolted?

In reply to spidermonkey09:

Wondered about those myself last year - oddest bit of bolting I've ever seen, there just seems no point unless you were thinking of portaledging!

In reply to PaulTanton:

My guide description is 'committing mantel at the break at 8m to clip the bolt', which is accurate. But there is at least one more double set of bolts on the line and the runout the guide mentions before the ripple doesn't seem to exist.

I don't want to scaremonger but it defintely didn't look E5 full of bolts!

In reply to spidermonkey09:

There were two bolts, do you mean there are now 4, i.e. two pairs or there are more than two points which have bolts? The run out between the first and second was never enormous

In reply to Tyler:

I remember two bolts low down (I think). Then you made the run up the slab to an awkward move to clip the next bolt. It wasnt a long way but you could hit the ground if it went a bit wrong. That's as much as I can remember about it.

In reply to spidermonkey09:

I think there were 3 points on the slab below the ripple with bolts in and each one had 2 bolts together sort of like a lower off

In reply to Tyler:

Trouble is I stupidly didn't take a photo and am now confused in my own memory! The gist of what I'm saying is there seemed to be more bolts in the route than the guide suggested, and there were also 'sets' of bolts at a number of places, not just on PP which just seemed pointless. To my memory there were two sets of two bolts on PP, both above the break and below the ripple but I might be wrong! Il see if my friend remembers anything more!

Basically was just wondering how many it was supposed to have. The bottom half looked like a (runout) clip up rather than an E5 to me, but it was my first time there so I might be talking nonsense. Think we need a photo..

In reply to spidermonkey09:

From memory, it should only have 2. That was about 20 years ago though so that may be a little hazy.....

In reply to spidermonkey09:

It was always borderline E4/5. An old guide had it in as E5 with text that said "low in the grade". When the next guide came out they dropped the grade to E4 but left the text in, that's the point at which my young self decided to try it having done a few slate E3s and Iwas therefore confident I had a puncher's chance on a "soft" E4! What resulted was my longest and most terrifying fall ever from the top groove, stripping all gear above the second bolt except for one Rock 2 which pulled but held

In reply to Tyler:

Jeepers. I thought the top groove was a second pitch via a bolt belay at the top of the slab?

As I recall there were twin bolts low down, a single bolt above the mantelshelf, the crux protected presumably by some sort of wires, then a bit of a run out to the belay. I gave the groove a miss. So it could be said there were five bolts in a 2-1-2 formation.

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

There's a belay on the prow and there is a bolted E3 up one arête and Bungle's arête up the other one, the groove should really be the easy option.

In reply to Tyler:

Now I'm really psyched to get on it!

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

I'm not confusing the belay on the prow with the bolts in the route, theres definitely more than that now...can't believe I remember this little considering it was yesterday but I reckon the bolts to the prow now go 1-2-2-2, with the last two being the prow belay. Either way I definitely still want to do the route!

In reply to spidermonkey09:

The line of bolts with bolts placed about 4 inches apart is 'The Very Big and The Very Small',the old bolts were replaced (like for like)last year or possibly 2012 when I was trying the route *.

The old bolt hangers are araldited in so I couldn't take them out with a shortish spanner. Definitely needs tidying up if anyone has a longer spanner.

* Got close before my back got bad, managed it with just one fall on a shunted rope. Keen to get back on it later this year.

In reply to Sl@te Head:
Thanks Ian LJ for letting everyone know how you got on on your The Very Big and Very Small attempts, it's good to know.

* me,me,me ))

In reply to Bloggs198:



Yawn

In reply to Bloggs198:



Rude.

Mick

In reply to Sl@te Head:

Ah that makes sense, the old mistake of not actually looking at the guidebook properly...

Good luck when you get back on it!