Central Arizona Bolt Replacement Program

The Pond has 84 total sport routes and is the closest local sport area to the Phoenix valley. Most of the routes were bolted top down with a handful bolted on lead.

Most of these routes were developed in the mid 1990’s with plated steel wedge and 5-piece bolts that are not going to hold up to the increased traffic on these routes. Most of the anchors are either chains or cold shunts, while some of the hangers are the old SMC hangers. There are currently no glue-in bolts in this area and everything that we have previously removed in the areas surrounding the Pond have been rusty and worn-out. We have found very loose bolts and anchors within the last 2 years, and therefore, we believe the entire area needs to be replaced due to increased route traffic.

This project will entail the removal of 170 anchor bolts, which we will replace with new glue-in bolts, quick links, and mussy hooks. We will also remove 550 route bolts and hangers, and replace them with Stainless Steel glue-in wave bolts.

Volunteer training will be provided through additional training courses. This project will be a bolt for bolt replacement project and we expect to maintain an 80% rate for 1 to 1 extraction and replacement. We always use the same bolt hole whenever possible. Some conditions exist where it is not possible to use the same hole. In these cases, we will relocate the new bolt and hole as close as we safely can to the existing bolt and patch/camouflage the old hole.