Since it is popular with beginners, including those leading themselves and beginners being led by beginners, it may be useful for the topo to show use of a traverse line to the natural belay to the right.  Otherwise its a pretty exposed pitch head to get on and off and is frequently slippy.

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Agreed. Topos are more helpful when they show the safer/more thorough way of rigging, rather than the minimalist way. If I don't know the cave (which is when a topo is most relevant), then I'd rather the topo showed a bit too much rather than a bit too little. I do of course carry spare slings & krabs; but the less you can trust the topo, the harder it is to estimate how many spares to take.

For example, in Diccan I ran out of spares despite taking plenty, and began cannibalising my personal kit. The anchors indicated on one of the pitch head traverses are too few, and following the topo exposes the rigger/derigger to nasty falls if they slip. Several more resin anchors are available; I believe the reason they're not marked on the topo is that they are not BCA approved. :

(Plus the first pitch has rub at the main hang on one "ear" of a Y, requiring an extension sling; plus it benefits from an extra natural deviation to stay out the water; plus the final pitch now has a non-BCA 2-resin rebelay that replaces a long deviation...)

Mike Hopley said:

For example, in Diccan I ran out of spares despite taking plenty, and began cannibalising my personal kit. The anchors indicated on one of the pitch head traverses are too few, and following the topo exposes the rigger/derigger to nasty falls if they slip. Several more resin anchors are available; I believe the reason they're not marked on the topo is that they are not BCA approved. :

(Plus the first pitch has rub at the main hang on one "ear" of a Y, requiring an extension sling; plus it benefits from an extra natural deviation to stay out the water; plus the final pitch now has a non-BCA 2-resin rebelay that replaces a long deviation...)

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Diccan Pot is a mess and needs sorting out but there is an enormous amount of work to do in the Dales and there are a lot of things with higher priority than Diccan. Doing a proper job of sorting out Diccan would take a lot of time for relatively little benefit.

Diccan is a very dangerous place which is often underestimated and anybody going down it should be capable of weighing all of the factors involved in doing it safely, of which, deciding how to rig the ropes is a relatively minor one.

SRT caving does require a certain degree of skill and initiative. Topos are only ever a guide and will require some interpretation. If you think a topo can be improved upon then one solution, which I'm sure will be generally welcomed, is to draw a new topo.

Thanks Simon, that's a very reasonable comment; I agree with everything you said. It's especially worth restating that Diccan is a serious undertaking due to the water and cold, even in favourable weather, and should be approached with plenty of respect even by experts.

I was considering drawing some new topos, and your encouragement is welcome. I shall plan to do that next time (so I can make sure I get it right and don't add to the confusion). Sadly my Yorkshire trips are infrequent.

I'm unsure about the appropriate way to publish such things. It would be great if they could be available in a centralised location, i.e. the CNCC website, rather than random trip reports and club websites. I understand this might raise an issue of BCA "endorsing" them, which could lead to frustration. Perhaps it might be possible to compromise, and put them on the CNCC site while also clearly stating that they are "third-party unofficial" (and of course, not replacing the official topo).

Do you think it would help if I distinguished between BCA and non-BCA anchors on the topo? I'm assuming that all BCA-approved anchors are either DMM Eco or IC, so the Collinox et al. are from the bolting fairy?

Let's get away from the notion of an 'official' topo. The CNCC are just a bunch of cavers like you and me. Anybody can draw a topo or write cave descripition and send it to the CNCC webmaster.

The CNCC website is growing and improving all the time and is a centralised source for cave information. If you see a gap in the information on the CNCC website then please do something about it. You are the CNCC and you are the BCA.

All CNCC anchors are DMM or IC except for a small number of BP and PICO anchors which look very similar to DMM. During the period of about ten years when very few anchors were being installed hundreds of other anchors have been installed anonymously. What we do about them is an open question - any suggestions? Should they be on topos? Should they be ripped and and thrown away? The CNCC are not in charge of the caves or cavers, the CNCC are not the bolt police. But some people would have a problem with the CNCC publishing a topo with suspect anchors on it. My personal choice is to rip them out and throw them away but that is my choice and there is no 'official' policy. There are a lot to rip out some of which are hard to get to.

The period that we had no anchors created a problem in that some cavers felt forced to install anchors outside the anchor scheme and now we have a bit of a dilemma with them...

Simon Wilson said:

Let's get away from the notion of an 'official' topo. The CNCC are just a bunch of cavers like you and me. Anybody can draw a topo or write cave descripition and send it to the CNCC webmaster.

The CNCC website is growing and improving all the time and is a centralised source for cave information. If you see a gap in the information on the CNCC website then please do something about it. You are the CNCC and you are the BCA.

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Fantastic, I like this attitude. You are doing good work here correcting some lazy preconceptions (mine included) about BCA.

Should they be on topos? Should they be ripped and and thrown away? The CNCC are not in charge of the caves or cavers, the CNCC are not the bolt police.

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My view is that resin anchors are plenty safe enough, and we don't necessarily need to know who installed them. I believe inspection is sufficient.

This view is biased by my own experience of SRT, which has largely involved hanging off spits on expeditions -- and sometimes more questionable anchors! Nevertheless, even expedition spit failure is very rare; I feel we can be confident that "unofficial" resins are fine, provided they look okay.

When considering anchor safety, I feel we should assume good rigging practice where the caver is always protected by at least two anchors. The question then becomes, "could two of these resin anchors fail at the same time?" I think the answer is no (barring exceptional cases like highly corrosive environments, sea cliffs of Thailand, yada yada).

A separate question is what to do about resin anchors in bad locations. For example, on the Diccan traverse I mentioned, one anchor was randomly placed higher than the main traverse and was completely useless. I feel these anchors would ideally be removed, although it's fairly low priority.

I would support putting "unofficial" resins on the topos. I would even support putting the healthier spits on topos, providing it's clear that they are spits and less safe. I feel it's all helpful information. Of course it might not be appropriate/relevant, depending on the state of anchor improvement in a given cave.

There are also places where resin anchors do not abide by the "always 2+ anchors" rule. I would consider it a better use of effort to add anchors here, rather than replacing unofficial resins with official ones. Typically this happens at the start or end of traverses (with no suitable naturals to use), and at the last rebelay before the floor, which should always be bombproof (think about what happens if it fails when someone is ~2 metres off the ground).

???? the above from Mike

My personal preference with anchors on topo's is they should be included but made clear they are not CNCC. However all I generally want to know is the main way of rigging the pitch and for the topo to be accurate. My club has produced our own topos, normally for bolted routes where none exists and we have edited copies of a few CNCC topo's in our library but we never published the latter as we kind of felt like we did not want the blame if we got it wrong. I always thought in general it's the bolter who makes the topo's anyway - publishing edits would be akin to editing someone else's survey.

Mike Hopley said:

My view is that resin anchors are plenty safe enough, and we don't necessarily need to know who installed them. I believe inspection is sufficient.

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Do you mean the routine inspection that the user does? Do you mean some sort of organised inspection? If so, are you going to inspect them and how are you going to do it?

This view is biased by my own experience of SRT, which has largely involved hanging off spits on expeditions -- and sometimes more questionable anchors! Nevertheless, even expedition spit failure is very rare;

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Using Spits on expeditions is a very different thing to using them in the Dales. I don?t know how old you are but some cavers are not aware of how things used to be before the CNCC anchor scheme. The anchor scheme was started after a very serious accident when a Spit failed, there were other similar accidents but not as serious. It was during a time when there was a lot of disagreement about what to do about artificial anchors in caves but nobody thought that continuing to use Spits was acceptable.

I feel we can be confident that "unofficial" resins are fine, provided they look okay.

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You can?t be serious. Have you ever removed one? I have pulled a few out using very little force and some ?unofficial? resin anchors have been pulled out by hand. Then there?s all the Petzl P38s and other assorted dubious ironmongery about the place; what about that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trGz0QD5lOg

I would support putting "unofficial" resins on the topos. I would even support putting the healthier spits on topos, providing it's clear that they are spits and less safe. I feel it's all helpful information. Of course it might not be appropriate/relevant, depending on the state of anchor improvement in a given cave.

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You are free to draw whatever topos you want. I wonder how you are going to decide which are the healthier Spits and which are too sickly to be included on your topo.

Back in the day when we used Spits all the time cavers would often carry a motley collection of bolts which mirrored the state of the Spits. It was quite common to hear cavers describing how they tried a bolt in a Spit which jumped the thread when they tried to tighten it so they would then choose a less worn bolt, screw it in and use it. Maybe that?s a way that you could test for the healthier Spits. You could carry a worn bolt and try it in the Spits to see if it?s possible to tighten it.

Generally what you seem you seem to be advocating is a return to the state of anarchy that existed before the CNCC anchor scheme. It was a state of anarchy in which some people had little regard for safety and no regard whatsoever for cave conservation.

A group I was with popped a spit that was one half of a Y hang on the big pitch in Sell Gill back in the early  90s. There was a sharp pop, an unexpected swing, a crunch, a bruised knee then a more tricky procedure to get off the rope after re-ascent. It was one of the red collared ones that was in vogue back then. Much interest was shown in the removed item by attendees at a Sid Perou film being shown in the community centre that evening.

I think that P hangers were just starting to appear around that time ?

RobinGriffiths said:

I think that P hangers were just starting to appear around that time ?

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On 29/02/1992 I was in a party that made the first use of freshly installed resin anchors on the Dollytubs route down Alum Pot - we turned up after a leisurely breakfast and too much shopping in Inglesport to find we had timed our trip to perfection as we read the tags on the anchors saying something like 'do not use before 12 noon on 29/02'.

RobinGriffiths said:

A group I was with popped a spit that was one half of a Y hang on the big pitch in Sell Gill back in the early  90s. There was a sharp pop, an unexpected swing, a crunch, a bruised knee then a more tricky procedure to get off the rope after re-ascent. It was one of the red collared ones that was in vogue back then. Much interest was shown in the removed item by attendees at a Sid Perou film being shown in the community centre that evening.

I think that P hangers were just starting to appear around that time ?

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Thank you for adding that. I've heard of a few incidents like that. Younger cavers take note.

Simon's dead right about the attitudes around that time.

Dave Elliott and his 'red bolts' were an early attempt to rationalise bolt rash, and I well remember the shitstorm THAT generated.
The present system is a vast improvement.

Putting in spits with a hammer was a pain in the arse, anyway....

I am not suitably qualified, experienced or skilled enough to be placing bolts anywhere (the only time I tried I was placing a spit and I sheared the end of the driving tool).  However is there anything us "non-tecky" cavers can do to assist; note loose bolts etc on the CNCC site? Add our names to a list of willing kit donkeys for bolting trips? Chip in for some new IC anchors?

droid said:

Simon's dead right about the attitudes around that time.

Dave Elliott and his 'red bolts' were an early attempt to rationalise bolt rash, and I well remember the shitstorm THAT generated.
The present system is a vast improvement.

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I had several lengthy discussions with Dave at the time and tried to disuade him from installing more Spits. I said that a much better anchor would be found. He admitted that Spits were not good but insisted that if he and his team didn't install them then Spits would continue to be installed badly. It was a few years later that resin anchors started to be used. Dave was one of the first installers of resin anchors and has possibly installed more than anybody.

MJenkinson said:

I am not suitably qualified, experienced or skilled enough to be placing bolts anywhere (the only time I tried I was placing a spit and I sheared the end of the driving tool).  However is there anything us "non-tecky" cavers can do to assist; note loose bolts etc on the CNCC site? Add our names to a list of willing kit donkeys for bolting trips? Chip in for some new IC anchors?

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We're working on getting all the ducks in a row. There is a lot happening to build up the infrastructure at the moment. This year the CNCC agreed to pay for a batch of anchors to be made and we now have a supply of anchors.

To echo what Simon has said, a way of recruiting the help of cavers across our region to monitor and systematically gather data on the condition of all resin anchors is currently being developed. This will hopefully be launched next year.

Until then, there is a function to report unsatisfactory anchors on our website in the fixed aids section:

https://cncc.org.uk/caving/report/anchor.php

Please use this if you spot an anchor that causes concern (rotation, egress from the hole, fracturing of the rock etc). Likewise, there is also some critical safety information regarding the use of anchors, and which ones are and are not CNCC approved on our website:

https://cncc.org.uk/fixed-aids/participation-statement.php
https://cncc.org.uk/fixed-aids/safety.php

Furthermore, the CNCC has recently purchased about 600 new IC anchors (which have been received in just the last few weeks), and has appointed Simon as our anchor coordinator. For the full story:

https://cncc.org.uk/news/new-cncc-anchor-scheme-2017

This puts us in a really strong position to continue to support anchor installations and replacements for the immediate future, which is really exciting. We'll be reporting more details in due course (including how you can help us) so keep an eye on our news page, here on UKCaving, or follow us on Facebook.

Matt Ewles
Secretary, Council of Northern Caving Clubs

This puts us in a really strong position to continue to support anchor installations and replacements for the immediate future, which is really exciting. We'll be reporting more details in due course (including how you can help us) so keep an eye on our news page, here on UKCaving, or follow us on Facebook.

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That's all sounding great, thank you Matt. 

Simon Wilson said:

Do you mean the routine inspection that the user does?

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Yes.

Using Spits on expeditions is a very different thing to using them in the Dales.

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I recognise that, hence my careful phrasing! To spell out the argument I was making:

[list type=decimal]
[*]Resin anchors are much more reliable than spits
[*]Even spits have proven to be very reliable in the context of less high-traffic caves (e.g. expeditions)
[*]Therefore resin anchors are reliable enough that even the unofficial ones are safe, due to the enormous safety margin
[/list]

This argument is not bulletproof. It's main flaw is that it compares the reliability of properly placed spits and resins, and then draws a conclusion about improperly placed resins.

The implicit assumption is that a resin anchor can be determined to be "safe enough" by user inspection (again, assuming multiple anchors are used appropriately). Guidance for user inspection is given in the CNCC rigging guide. Is this assumption false?

You can?t be serious. Have you ever removed one? I have pulled a few out using very little force and some ?unofficial? resin anchors have been pulled out by hand.

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Sorry, "looks okay" was bad phrasing. I meant "passes a user inspection, as detailed in the CNCC guide".

Have you (or anyone else) pulled out resins that passed such an inspection? If so, how much force did it take?

Then there?s all the Petzl P38s and other assorted dubious ironmongery about the place; what about that?

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Let's get rid of them.

Certainly I would have no idea how to inspect such anchors. I'm more confident in spits.

I wonder how you are going to decide which are the healthier Spits and which are too sickly to be included on your topo.

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The same way I've decided whether to trust my life to them in every other cave:

• Is it flush with the rock (not sunken or protruding)?
• Is it perpendicular to the surface (not angled)?
• Do the threads appear in good condition?
• Does a bolt screw in all the way, without excessive force? Does it tighten firmly at the end?
• Is the rock solid (not fractured)?
• Is the spit far enough from other anchors in use, ensuring independence of failure?
• Does the rigging protect against a progressive rip-out, where one anchor failure applies huge force to the previous anchor?

To be clear, I wouldn't be surprised if I couldn't find any good spits in the Dales. So far, I've only looked at a few spits for backing up insufficient resins, and all of those spits have been obviously crap. I even tried one just for fun, where the bolt could not be tightened -- as expected, it popped.

In the UK, I've used spits in Wales and Mendip, which were in much better condition. I assume that's mainly because they haven't seen the same level of traffic.

So I feel I can judge spits all right -- otherwise I wouldn't have used them! But what about resins? My belief has always been that they are fundamentally safer than spits. An essential part of that is the assumption that they can be inspected by the user.

If resins cannot be safely inspected by the user, it would change my attitude towards them. Rather like how your attitude to P38s changed, in fact.

Back in the day when we used Spits all the time cavers would often carry a motley collection of bolts which mirrored the state of the Spits. It was quite common to hear cavers describing how they tried a bolt in a Spit which jumped the thread when they tried to tighten it so they would then choose a less worn bolt, screw it in and use it. Maybe that?s a way that you could test for the healthier Spits. You could carry a worn bolt and try it in the Spits to see if it?s possible to tighten it.

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That sounds like a dreadful state of affairs, and I would absolutely not want to use spits in that condition or with that cavalier  attitude of "the thread's crap, so let's try a different crappy bolt and see if they match". No thanks, I'd rather forget the cave and go have a nice cup of tea.

Generally what you seem you seem to be advocating is a return to the state of anarchy that existed before the CNCC anchor scheme. It was a state of anarchy in which some people had little regard for safety and no regard whatsoever for cave conservation.

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Whut? Huh? No, of course I'm advocating nothing of the sort. I'm Mr Safety, guvnor, truly I am. :ang:

Maybe I should just never use the word "spit" again, as it seems to bring people out in an oddly specific kind of rash.

What we do about them is an open question - any suggestions? Should they be on topos? Should they be ripped and and thrown away?

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Perhaps I'm naive, but I really thought you were asking a question there. An "open" question, even --  the sort of question that might lead to an open discussion. Possibly even one where people can learn from each other without reaching for the pitchforks.

Okay, I admit it, I really am very naive.

Oh, on a hopefully more positive note:

Reading the CNCC bulletin that Matt linked, it appears that the IC anchor has successfully made the transition from "personal project" to commercially manufactured.

It also seems that it's available at a sensible cost: about ?6 per anchor. This is a bit more expensive than some commercial resins (Raumer Superstar), but much cheaper than others (Petzl Collinox). That's not an entirely fair comparison (bulk vs. single), but good enough.

Well done. Some (like me) were sceptical this would happen. I'm glad to be wrong.

Mike Hopley said:

Have you (or anyone else) pulled out resins that passed such an inspection? If so, how much force did it take

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Yes.
Shed loads.
Even with ones that were supposedly wobbly. So many shed loads, indeed, that I'm amazingly reassured by how bomber a pair, or sequence, of resin anchors might be.

NB Purposive vagueness in order to fog up any subsequent attempts at scientific analysis of what is essentially a personal opinion rather than a statement of legal veracity. But put another way, if you've got to chain drill out resin and then use your entire body weight and a long crowbar to flex an anchor that still won't budge and end up pulling it out using a hydraulic ram after yet more resin drilling, and it's supposedly "loose as fcuk", then I'm quite impressed by them, frankly.