Pinnacles 2/10-11/02 - Chris Sheldon Desperado Chute-Out rebolting On Saturday, I drove down with Chris. It was cold when we arrived, so we did Tiburcio's Ambush (5.2) with our packs, so we could replace the lower rappel anchor which is left of Bad Man Mezzanine. We replaced one bolt and put chains on both bolts, so it is now possible to clip a hanger instead of the old slings. Chris broke off the 3rd bolt with his bare hands, by tugging on the sling! We walked over to Desperado Chute-Out, where the old 1/4" bolts had been reported by a Pinnacles regular as being horrifying. The first bolt was hangerless and bent over, as it had been when I last did the rote in 1990. It took me awhile to boulder the moves to the second bolt, which had been recently replaced. Part of my problem was that for awhile I placed a Friend in a big pocket; eventually I realized I needed to use the pocket for the moves, so I took it out. I got the draw in, but then grabbed it, as I had gotten tired of taking so much time. The rest of the pitch is only 5.5, so it went quickly, as I noted the dreaded homemade aluminum hangers. The belay had a nice new bolt and the first bolt on the 2nd pitch was new as well (Bob Walton had placed it a few years ago). Chris aided the start, too, and soon was up and hauled up his bolting gear. Unfortunately the rough Pinnacles rock cut lots of frays into his new rope in the process. The next pitch went easily for me, and I gardened the crack to place good gear to back up the belay bolt by the small tree. Chris got off route on the final traverse, but made it. He fixed my rope on the second pitch, while I rapped straight down his rope to work on the first pitch. I pulled the first hangerless 1/4" bolt easily. The hole had a fracture, so I placed the new bolt below and right of the big pocket, in good rock, where it won't interfere with using the pocket. The moves can now be easily aided as well. The second bolt had been recently replaced by someone, although the old 1/4" next to it was still there, so I crowbarred it out easily. I left the 3rd bolt, since it was a good 3/8" Star-Dryvin (not a high enough priority). I pulled the 4th bolt (1/4" Rawldrive), deepened the hole and put in a new bolt. I pulled the 5th (1/4" Rawldrive), but the rock was fractured, so I put the new one about 9" to the right. I noticed an old broken bolt just 8" to the left as well. At this point, the sun was setting. Chris replaced the second bolt on the 2nd pitch, and had most of the hole for the 3rd bolt when he had to stop to attempt to get down before the 6pm closing time. I tried to get his attention, to tell him to just fix my rope to the anchors, but he couldn't hear me, so he pulled the gear and set up a rappel off a biner on the anchor bolt (and he put the rope around the tree as well). By the time we were on the ground, it was 5:45, so I knew we would be late and risking the $100 fine. I left all my gear at the base, since I would be returning on Sunday. Chris packed his out. My car was the only one left in the parking lot at 6:20. We drove out, but the gate was open, and we were lucky not to be cited. On Sunday, I went back by myself. I couldn't leave Palo Alto until 10:20, because Skyler had a friend sleeping over, and Nancy was off to a swim meet and did not want Renata to babysit them. I arrived at the Pinnacles at noon. I aided on the first 2 bolts and strolled up the 5.5 to fix at the highest good bolts. I was trying out my GriGri for self-belay, but my rope was too stiff/thick, so I just used figure-eight loops instead on this easy ground. I jumarred up with the bolt gear and replaced the final bolt (1/4") on the first pitch. It broke off, so I drilled a new hole. On the second pitch, I first finished removing the 3rd bolt at the belay anchor. Its nut had stripped off when Chris had worked on it, so I hammered it back and forth to break off the part that was sticking out. I removed the lap link from the right hand anchor bolt, because it was on a Leeper hanger and did not leave enough room to clip the hanger. I removed the sling and rap ring as well; it did not look like a good place to rappel from, because the path back to the base is diagonal; if you go straight down, you could end up down a big blank wall in dangerous territory. I led the second pitch quickly, placing a big stopper to back up the belay bolt by the tree. (I had brought the stopper from my booty collection for this purpose, knowing the size from Saturday). I finished Chris' hole at the 3rd bolt and slapped in a bolt. The nut on the old 3rd bolt stripped off when I pried hard on it, as did my replacement nut. So I beat it back and forth to remove it like the belay bolt. At the 3rd bolt, I placed a TCU in a loose flake nearby and tensioned the rope to the right and left with my Jumars so I wouldn't take a big fall if I had trouble prying out the bolt. It turns out the bolt was a 1/4" machine bolt in a 3/8" steel sleeve, so it unscrewed easily. I took off the hanger and tried to torque on the bolt to get the sleeve out, but the bolt was too small and just broke off in the sleeve. At this point, it was getting late, so I checked my watch. 4:30. I figured 15 minutes to place the bolt and 15 minutes to rap off would put me at the base at 5pm with plenty of time to walk out with my heavy pack. The bolting when fairly quickly. I climbed up to clean my biners from the top anchors and downclimbed back to the last bolt. One rap from here, leaving the anchor sling I had cleaned. Then a rap from the last bolt on the first pitch, using a tripled rope to retrieve the sling. Another tripled rope rap from the 5th bolt to the ground. Now the watch said 5:35, and I realized I couldn't make it out by 6pm. Somehow I had burned an extra 35 minutes. I guess it was the time to clean the anchor and the 2 tripled raps. I drank some much needed water, dumped the rest of the water, and laced up my boots for the heavy hike out. I used the direct trail down to save time, although I knew I couldn't beat the 6pm closing. 6:15pm at the parking lot. On the drive out, I passed the ranger who was returning from the gate, so I figured he locked it and I was right. It was a nice surprise to see Dennis Erik Strom and James McConachie waiting just past the gate. They had done the Waterchute route, nearly to the top before they had to go down due to lack of time. I had seen them above the bolt ladder headwall when I hiked in, although I thought it was just someone on the Son of Dawn Wall at that time. The ranger returned and wrote me a $100 ticket. I couldn't really complain, as I had been late 3 times in the past 9 days! I felt embarrased just showing my face at the West Side this day, knowing I had already been late twice, but I thought I could get out on time for once.