So I received an email from Ian Lloyd-Jones saying he had removed a ‘dangerous flake’ from Plastic Soldiers on the Skyline Buttress. Unfortunately he damaged the first 5 bolts of the routes in the process. He has since gone away with work so until he comes back or someone goes up there to replace them I would give the route a wide birth.
So avoid that route until it is sorted out, see the fixed gear report for the latest information. Although I doubt it will be sorted anytime soon.
Before you ask why I am not going up there with the drill, I have some work coming up and more importantly have arranged to do stuff like climb and surf for myself with some friend over the next few days. So I don’t have the time to drop everything and do it in the immediate future.
You’d also be amazed at how many people come up to me in the street and tell me ‘You need to replace this bolt’. It can kind of sound like they are putting me on the spot, like it is my personal responsibility to climbers to do the work now. I think I spent 12 days up the quarries in March/April replacing some lower off and replacing the odd bolt here and there.
A full list the work we have done and what needs doing can be found on this link on Bolt on the Slate.
So yes I do volunteer my time to replace bolts, I do it when I am not working, in my own time and on under my own terms.
I have trained up a few people in replacing bolts and I am more than willing to train more people up IF they are going to get involved with actually sorting out the lower offs in the quarries and replacing any dodgy bolts.