Beauty and the Beast

Pince sans rire is an absolutely stunning black tuffa that catches your eye from across the valley. However, the route was bolted using expansion bolts, and being steep and popular leads to excessive vibration on decent that results in loose nuts.

Putting up the slings I discovered, rather unpleasantly considering the spacious bolting, that the nut on the seventh bolt was loose. A fall above the seventh bolt which could happen considering the pumpy nature of the route, in which the nut, hanger and sling came off could easily result in the climber cratering on the slab below, around the third bolt. A rather unappealing notion.

The solution, tighten the bolt by hand, as I didn't have a wrench with me, and don't let go. Unfortunately, loose nuts were so common in Rodellar that I took to automatically clipping the sling, testing and tightening the bolt by hand and then clipping the rope. I'll definitely have a wrench on my harness the next time I go to Rodellar but it would be nice to see more glue in bolts.

Shawn Boye, motivated after hand tightening a nut, sending Pince sans rire 7b+ second go, Rodellar, Spain.

1/800s, f/2.8, ISO 400, 200 mm Photo Linda Sandgren © 2011 Tielma Productions