Bolting in Zion Sandstone

We are headed to Zion to climb a route that is not traveled often. Put up in the early 90's. I am planing on taking a bolting kit to beef up and or replace anchor bolts. Any body have any experience with Fixe 3/8 double wedge bolts in sandstone? I am not opposed to using baby angles as I have clipped lots of ones that seam bomber in sandstone.. Just seams like a stainless steal bolt is a better idea if the double wedge would would work.. And much easier to drill a single size hole then try and wallow out a 3/8 1/2 hole for an angle..

I think drilled angles are not a good idea - if you are going to go to that kind of trouble, a glue in is a much better and longer lasting idea.

Wedges, even the double wedges, are not something I would ever consider placing in desert sandstone. Stainless powers bolts are expensive, but that is the route I would go if not using glue ins.

Thanks for the Info.. I would love to use glue in's but I don't have the time for them to dry.. I think I will take a bag of 1/2-4 fixe stainless powers bolts.

Just to be clear, Powers makes the sleeve bolts - not Fixe. Fixe redistributes them - are you talking about this bolt? fixehardware.com/shop/bolts…

Yes that's the bolt.
Thanks for the info!

Do not use the double wedge. That thing is a gimmick IMO. Wedge bolts are supposed to be used only in hard rock, but Fixe added a second expansion cone to try to give it more purchase in soft rock. The problem is your still left with a bolt that uses a technology designed only for hard rock. Furthermore, the upper cone is only an inch or so from the surface of the rock, which is dangerously shallow to be applying a load in such soft rock.

The best option for soft rock like that would be a glue in bolt. You said you dont have time, although there are epoxy hybrids that cure in only 30 minutes (e.g. ITW A7). The downside, among other things, to the A7 epoxy is you need to be really streamlined and fast with placing glue ins or the tip will gel up before you finish the route, and placing glue ins has a bit of a steep learning curve at first.

Otherwise, standard 1/2" x 4" Power Bolts work great.

I do ASCA replacements in Zion. I will give you glue and glue in bolts for this route. I have been using Climb tech wave bolts which use 45min cure glue.

Wedge bolts are bad in a lot of rock types, where they were once considered ideal. I would not even consider wedge bolts for Zion. I would not use them on limestone ether.

All Expansion bolts should be Stainless Powers bolts with a Stainless hanger, no smaller than 1/2in by 3.75in. I have hangers but no bolts right now.

Expansion bolts are fine in Zion as long as they are 1/2 by 3.75 and are not taking repeated whippers or being loaded in a stupid way. EG offset short chains to rap.

PM me and we can work out getting you the goods.

edited to remove contention

crimper. different glue, different bolts.

Powers AC100+gold cures in 45 mins

I revise my statement on rapping. I have never done this as it did not sit right with me. I now see that it is erroneous

But 45 mins is not a long time to wait for bolt to dry if you doing the work as you go up and then chopping the old crap on the way down. that's how I have been doing it.

I am happy to join if I can to help with the bolting.

Fair play. Just out of interest Rob, what do u think of red head A7 vs powers glue?

CrimperE6 wrote:Dont rap after 10mins! u might die.

There are different types of glue ins that have different requirements, in the case of the wave bolts, they have an interference fit which makes it so that you can rap on them without any glue and they will still hold, so in this case, yeah, 10 minutes is plenty of time.