What are YOU climbing on?

In rock climbing circles, upmost importance is given to the suitability of gear and anchor quality. On a face, a human life depends on a finite set of resources to keep it safely suspended above the ground. If a piece of hardware fails, someone could take a fall and get injured or killed.

There is also a code of etiquette involving the usage of permanent hardware that emphasizes minimizing wear and tear in order to keep the hardware intact, thus keeping it safe to climb on and to reduce the amount of maintenance and damage to the rock needed to keep it functional. Below are some examples of hardware that has been worn out or was just plain unsafe to start with. If you want know what a "questionable" piece of hardware is, these are textbook examples (click on an image to get a higher resolution image).

These 3 anchors were on a route called Glass Coffin near the Enchanted Tower.
Notice that to top anchor is worn so far through that someone put a quick-link through it to transfer the wear.

This carabineer is from an anchor on a route called Babies at the Enchanted Tower, on a rock face called Frog Prince wall. It's been well loved, as you can see, and it has large globs of epoxy stuck to it. You can't see it in the picture, but the gate has a lovely grinding sensation.

This accessory cord and webbing were left at the top of seperate routes at Red Rocks. The users did not possess a rap-ring, and instead ran the rope directly through the cord and the webbing, resulting in a dangerous amount of wear. The cord has frayed through to the core, and the webbing has been cut and melted by the friction of the rope running through it. Also note the webbing has been in the sun so long that it is now grey, instead of the purple seen in the background.

These anchors came from Argus at El Petrero Chico, Mexico. This damage (twisting and denting) is not from climbing, but from flood damage. It should be noted that any force that is capable of doing this much damage to hanger is going to do some damage to the bolt. (see below)

This is the head of the bolt holding in one of the anchors above. The other bolt was removed with the climbers bare hands.

This lovely beiner was found on Little caterpillar at Box Canyon NM. Note the locking mechanism formed out of epoxy. The upper right and bottom two photos were taken by Brian Aillaud

This beiner was at the top of a route out in the Guads. It was accompanied by another that was completely warn through.

Another worn beiner from the Box Canyon Area

These are very very very old hangars, made out of bent sheet metal. The one in the upper row was held in by a large roofing nail, that was easily extracted with bare hands.