A resin P bolt has been cut off on the traverse on the first pitch of Sell Gill Wet route.
There is some context here that readers may find useful.
From the beginnings of the CNCC resin anchor scheme in the early 1990s, users have been required to undertake a pre-use check. Users are encouraged to report unsatisfactory anchors to the CNCC so that they can be inspected by the installer team. Installers are required to decommission any which they find to be unsafe (for example, if they were worn, damaged or loose). The method of decommissioning is not specified.
As it happens, even loose or damaged anchors can often be very difficult to remove, and the installers were historically not provided with effective means to remove entire anchors. So various methods were trialled and adopted. This included hacksawing them off, melting the resin out with a blowtorch, hamering them flat, drilling the resin and twisting with a long bar. Also recently in Simpson Pot a number of old anchors were chopped off with an angle grinder, as reported previously on this forum.
So it is possible today to find evidence of decommisioned anchors in caves in the Dales.
Once the anchor is decommisioned (removed or rendered unusable), some installers choose to cover cut-off stubs or holes with resin and/or mud in an attempt to beautify the cave. Its fair to say this has advantages and disadvantages. Some anchor remnants are left exposed, and some holes are left open. The CNCC at present does not require this additional work, or dictate to installers how to leave former anchor placements.
Nowadays we have the CNCC anchor puller, meaning the old DMM twin-leg designs can be extracted completely. The modern IC anchor is specifically designed to be pulled out cleanly, with the aim that the hole can be reused. And we have the means to extract spits to re-use te placement.
Re-use of old holes is something that the CNCC is actively investigating at present, which is important for conservation reasons. It's going to becoming more common in coming years, because the 1990s anchors have been in 30+ years and as they age, we are finding a (small) number of them are becoming loose due to the resin technology available/chosen at the time.
As ever, check anchors before use. And please report loose anchors, it really does help. And they are your anchors after all.
Ian
Anchor Coordinator 2025/26
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