Climbing bolts are only as good as the ROCKS you put them in
The Bolting Bible
The Book of Rock
“The harder it is, the better it is for your hole.”
Welcome to our free course as our way of contributing to the bolting community. It's nice to understand what you are clipping and trusting with your life, even if you never plan on installing or removing bolts. Also, if someone is going to spend their time and money to bolt something, I assume, they probably want to do it as good as possible. Hopefully the Bolting Bible gives you the tools you need to do a great job. Get it?
Our courses are A-Z content in blog format, glued together with an over arching blog we call a text book. A blog format is easy to read, easy to update, and easy to translate. Be sure to begin at the TEXTBOOK and at the end of each episode we'll point you to the next.
Bolts are only as good as the rock you put them in. Some rock is soft and some rock has more layers than onions. The rock, not the bolt is holding your life, the bolt is just hanging onto the rock. So let’s learn the basics to have a “rock solid” foundation!
General Rock Biology
It is important to understand the KIND of rock you are working with so you know what bolt will be the safest to use. To keep it simple, we will divide rocks into 3 categories. Hard rock, soft rock and layered rock. Rocks are made up of minerals. Minerals are what make, or break, the rocks’ strength. What you need to know about minerals are their hardness and their resistance to weathering. Quartz, a common sand grain in sandstone, and a common crystal in granite, is incredibly hard and resistant to weathering. Feldspar, like quartz, is incredibly hard, but weathers easily and turns into clay. Clay minerals are soft, and also weather easily into other soft clay minerals.
Hard Rock (not the cafe)
Hard Rock would be any rock that is, wait for it, incredibly hard, typically unweathered granite and quartzite sandstone.
Granite is the result of magma having cooled very slowly underground (plutonic rock) allowing the quartz and feldspar crystals (among other minerals not nearly as important) to grow big and tightly against each other, leaving no spaces. Yosemite granite is smooth from glaciers polishing them and Joshua Tree granite is rough because it sees very little water to erode it. But both formed and cooled underground and therefore are very strong. And both haven’t seen the excessive chemical weathering (think acid rain and/or seawater) to have turned the hard feldspar to soft clay.
Quartzite Sandstone is quartz-rich sand, cemented together with quartz cement. So the whole rock is nearly 100% quartz. Quartzites are the typical ridge-formers of sedimentary basins, like the Sandstones at New River Gorge, WV.
Bolts in hard rocks can be installed closer to an edge (within a foot or two). Strength of hard rocks is above 14,500 psi and goes up to 30k and even 50k psi for some.
MECHANICAL BOLTS - Granite or other hard rock is perfect for all kinds of mechanical bolts, just be sure they are stainless steel.
GLUE IN BOLTS - These work just fine in hard rock but there are 2 schools of thought. Glue ins can be frowned upon in granite as it can be considered overkill and replacing them can possibly be more difficult than mechanical bolts. The reason some people choose to use glue ins with fixed eyes is because there are no threads to get screwed up, no one can steal hangers, and the fixed eye allows highliners to thread static rope through rather than needing quick links. Glue ins typically have less visual impact than a standard climbing hanger.
HowNOT2 SWAG
Believe it or not, bolting companies are not lining up to sponsor us; mostly because there is no money in such a niche industry. $1 per episode helps a ton and so does grabbing MERCH if something grabs your eye. Lots of designs and options.
Soft Rock
Soft Rock can be sedimentary or magma based. These are typically non-quartzite sandstones (where the sand-grains, or the cement, or both, are not quartz-rich, and thus prone to weathering and weakening), limestone (calcium carbonate), volcanic rocks, and excessively weathered granites. Just like tall tales, porous rocks with a lot of holes don’t usually hold up!
Sandstone is literally compressed sand, glued together with chemically precipitated cement. The cement and sand grains are made of various minerals, each with different hardness and resistance to weathering. When either the sand or the cement is not quartz, the sandstone tends to be much softer, because the grains/cement may have weathered to clay (or weathered out altogether, leaving pores). To “scientifically” test a rock’s hardness out in the field, hit it with a hammer! If the rock sparks, it's hard rock. If the rock breaks, it’s soft! You are looking for a solid sound and not a hollow thud.
Limestone is calcium carbonate (mineral name: calcite), often from dead marine life, squeezed together to make rock. Calcite is moderately strong, but it weathers into CO2 and water (i.e. nothing) when it reacts with acid rain. Think sinkholes and caves. So its structure tends has a lot of microscopic holes in it which makes it weaker.
Volcanic rock is from lava, so it cooled rapidly on the surface, not allowing the crystals to grow big and interlock. Also, lava tends to have lots of gasses dissolved in it, so as it cools it tends to be porous from the gas bubbles getting trapped. Small crystals and pores make volcanic rocks weaker than a slow cooling (unweathered) granite. Rhyolites and basalts, and volcanic ash “Tuffs” are typical volcanic rock names. We tested bolts in terrible volcanic rock in this EPISODE
Bolts installed in soft rock need to be placed further back from edges in the most solid part you can find. It’s also quite unsafe to put pressure on bolts installed in soft rock when they get wet, like after a rainstorm. Cyclic loading mechanical bolts in sandstone compromises placement integrity. In Moab, Utah, it’s highly recommended to let the rock dry out thoroughly before highlining on those bolts. In Zion National Park, you are not supposed to climb on that soft sandstone for 2 days or it will compromise the rock and gear placements. Soft rock strength (dry) can be as low as 500 PSI and up to 7,000 PSI.
○ MECHANICAL BOLTS - The softer the rock, the less force these will hold. Wedge bolts
are not recommended because the engagement contact point is quite small which can
compromise the placement in soft rock. Some sleeve bolts are ok because there is
more contact area (like 5 piece Power bolts - STAINLESS).
○ GLUE IN BOLTS - This is where glue shines. Glue gets into all the rock pores
therefore can pull on the entire rock surrounding the bolt stud rather than all the