Online Article on Artificial Cave Anchors

[Brad Tipton]

This is a very informative piece on cave anchors. These guys put a lot of work into this. Make you think twice about some of these 3/8 inch self drills we dangle off of in TAG.


www.bstorage.com/speleo/Pubs/anchors/Anchors.htm

[Brian Roebuck]

As an engineer I have always wondered about the things we dangle off of in TAG! The article is a good one using sound engineering analysis to tackle the issues. To fully understand all this you really need to have studied engineering mechanics and dynamics as well as know some physics and chemistry for the corrosion parts. The article boils it down for the typical caver though and lets all of us know what the issues are. Expedition cavers that place bolts quickly and efficiently would not likely lubricate them for the long run. The hoards of tourist cavers that come later would be well advised to inspect, maintain, and perhaps replace these temporary bolts in the interest of safety.

[NZcaver]

An interesting article, and mostly still relevant even after 10 years.

I've happily hung off well-placed bolts numerous times, but also seen some shocking installations which beg to be surgically removed and rebolted properly. Glue-in bolts now seem to be the best way to go in most caving situations, unless you're traveling light on expedition and using the old self-drilling ones.

One of the big issues I've noticed with some bolted US caves is the tendency to bolt way back from the edge and just throw the rope over with a pad under it. A better idea might be to bolt where the rope will hang free, so you don't need a pad! Of course that can mean spending more time, effort and bolts.

[Brad Tipton]

nzcaver said:

An interesting article, and mostly still relevant even after 10 years.


One of the big issues I've noticed with some bolted US caves is the tendency to bolt way back from the edge and just throw the rope over with a pad under it. A better idea might be to bolt where the rope will hang free, so you don't need a pad! Of course that can mean spending more time, effort and bolts.

Yeah I agree. What a lot of cavers don't realize is 50 percent of the bolts they are using were the original ones placed during the initial exploration. The explorers who set those anchors likely chose the most easy and convienent placements and probably weren't concerned with long term use as The Dr pointed out.

The heavily visited caves tend to get a makeover at some point and the anchor placements are usually selected with long term use in mind.

[Chad Dubuisson]

I was really glad to read this article. It recommends a movement towards larger stainless steel studs and away from using the Petzl self drills in any situations where a cave will feel heavy future traffic. I personally adopted this philosophy about 4 years ago and have placed good stainless bolts in caves such as Pryor Springs, McBrides & DKSH. These well thought out placements will serve well for the next 25+ years as people explore these caves.

I hope to see a general trend towards this stance as new caves and pits are found & explored, where bolting is deemed necessary.

[Brad Tipton]

verticaver said:

I was really glad to read this article. It recommends a movement towards larger stainless steel studs and away from using the Petzl self drills in any situations where a cave will feel heavy future traffic. I personally adopted this philosophy about 4 years ago and have placed good stainless bolts in caves such as Pryor Springs, McBrides & DKSH. These well thought out placements will serve well for the next 25+ years as people explore these caves.

I hope to see a general trend towards this stance as new caves and pits are found & explored, where bolting is deemed necessary.

Heavily traveled caves certainly deserve these upgrades. Especially considering a lot of these bolts are the originals that were placed during initial exploration in the 1960's and 1970's. Self drill type placements tend to loosen over the years as well.

[Brian Roebuck]

Often recent visitors have been replacing bolts as they tour these caves and post about their work online on various forums and mail lists. I think this is a great idea to let people know the history of what they are about to dangle from. I wonder if cavers or the NSS should adopt a policy for marking, tagging, or removing older bolts etc. It surely would be a much safer conservative approach to maintenance of these important pieces of gear.