Since you're not likely to hear from Nic, I guess I qualify as the first ascent representative. My vote is for updating the belay bolts, although I'd make this case an exception to the usual rule and also leave the original bottle bolt with the bottle as a piece if history. (If anyone is silly enough to still belay off it, then let Darwin have the final say!) The "new" bolt should be reasonably close to the original to avoid changing the "flavour" of the belay too much. |