Ive got a question about traverses. Ive looked through the ACT bible and understand what they are saying but I was wondering about some personal preferences, everything in ACT is so Grand Prix Cars and Swiss Watches style rigging I wanted to know what people here in the states think. Weve got a river passage with 33-35F water, four sumps that you ascend over and rappel back down, and strong currents. Instead of full on swims and feet so numb they are like wood, I was looking to rig a traverse. All stainless 3/8 bolts and hangers and mallions.
How many feet would you think is acceptable between backed up anchors, or vise versa how many single bolts between double bolts. Nice rock.
How tight should the traverse line be? Should I need a ascender to get up to the next bolt past the mid point? Or should it be nice and taut like piano wire?
This is 20-30 feet above the river and we don't see any signs of flooding in the old overflow passages, since there are still old 70s innertubes laying about. And we will be bolting into the many leads up high and have no place below to belay from. Treading water and belaying sounds like a horrible idea. Thought we could use the bolts for the traverse as the starting off points for our bolt climbs. Like a hanging belay. Which of course would be one of the backed up bolts.
Any ideas or recommendations?
This is the Steele Traverse, I think he channeled a goat and danced across. We would rather not bolt from the bottom of the rope behind Kat down to the river passage and instead begin traversing from near here.