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Tit for tat - is it "abandoned" gear |
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19-Jan-2010 11:07:15 AM
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Setting the scene here for some wider climber thoughts on a funny little episode last weekend:
You're walking along the top of a crag 130m up and notice a nice long tape sling and a pretty locking biner off a fat healthy pine at the top of a number of well known and popular routes, looks like a bit of tat for an abseil. There are pairs of climbers on two different routes below, but you don't call out to ask if they know anything about the tat so you're not sure why it's there.
Do you......
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19-Jan-2010 11:13:12 AM
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Would you mind adding 'Pretend it's a fixed anchor and use it anyway'
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19-Jan-2010 11:15:26 AM
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should be up there now as another option if i've worked this correctly!
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19-Jan-2010 11:27:09 AM
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If people were being honest choice 1 and 5 would get a lot of votes.
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19-Jan-2010 11:27:27 AM
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At least your poll options generally sound better than this one...
>"I would have preferred to cut it free whilst he was using it, then keep the rope for myself."
There is obviously a story behind;
>Tit for tat - is it
~> so what was the outcome?
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19-Jan-2010 11:37:11 AM
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How about going home and realising you are a douche bag for removing someone elses gear when there was a chance they were in earshot?
or
How much it hurt when the person I stole from beat me?
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19-Jan-2010 11:38:37 AM
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Despite being a keen booty collector I would hesitate to remove gear if there are other climbers at the crag. I would call down and enquire if the gear belonged to the parties below. I would use it to rap down (if I wanted to rap down) or claim it as booty if I wasn't intending to use it and nobody at the crag claimed it.
I'm a bit puzzled by the '130m' crag scenario. Which crag are you refering to?
also I do believe in booty karma; what comes around goes around.
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19-Jan-2010 11:47:01 AM
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Ahh yes, the story behind it...
My climbing partner and I decided to get some mileage (about 500m as quickly as possible) as practice for an upcoming alpine trip and, as I'd not abseiled from anything but fixed anchors before, I was looking forward to setting up and trusting some tape sling.
We topped out a couple of times on different routes, on the third route we simuled I came up and discovered the sling/biner had gone. We just replaced it with another one and figured if it kept going missing the lizards were getting up to speed on booty!
I left a note at camp, a friendly one at that without assumption on why it may have gone 'missing', then had our gear returned to us the next day with accusations of abandoning the gear. Now I'm happy to accept this person may have felt guilty or annoyed that gear had been left but it was the manner in which the accusations were made and no attempt on their behalf to understand or listen to why the tat was there. Nevermind, it wasn't worth the energy (and I didn't have much anyway)!
While I'm on this soap box, next time a group of people rock up at the Pines at 2am in the morning with high beams on, slamming car doors and yelling continuously "it's not flat anywhere" about three metres away from our tents I'll be jumping out of my tent and chasing them with said tat/biner in hand swinging like a nun-chuck tee hee!
Epic reply over now :) hope this gave some of you some entertainment!
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19-Jan-2010 11:48:33 AM
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On 19/01/2010 mikepatt wrote:
>I'm a bit puzzled by the '130m' crag scenario. Which crag are you refering
>to?
That go me too. Can you walk off the top of this crag or is rapping off the only option?
If rapping is the only option, there must another couple of rap anchors further down the cliff.
I would generally be willing to do a fair bit of walking rather than rap 130m off the top of a crag.
Depending on all this extra info , I would probably take it all and then post a thread on Chockstone saying " On the weekend I found a long sling and a screw gate carabiner, around a tree, at the top of Hypothetical Direct at Imaginary Crag. If you can name the brand of screw gate and the color and approximate length of the sling and the species of tree, I will send it back to you, if you pay the postage."
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19-Jan-2010 11:49:24 AM
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On 19/01/2010 mikepatt wrote:
>I'm a bit puzzled by the '130m' crag scenario. Which crag are you refering
>to?
>
>also I do believe in booty karma; what comes around goes around.
hey mikepatt it was the pinnacle at araps - i just guessed 130m coz some of the routes we did were about that. yes, karma, mmm.
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19-Jan-2010 11:51:53 AM
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yes, we could've walked off or walked across and gone off the right watchtower face to abseil but the idea was to get the 500 done as quickly as possible - i'm open to receiving comments of 'just go to the real mountains' but i'm getting there ;)
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19-Jan-2010 11:58:48 AM
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miss crag if you were on the pinnicles you were in an area of easy routes.
now I like easy routes.
but more often than not easy routes are climbed by novices. Novices leave gear behind like no one else. Therefore novices are often booty masters unless they are bootylicious then simey gives them some.
Your trainning idea is sound but i think aim for the ton.
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19-Jan-2010 12:06:27 PM
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Ahh, fair point widewetandslippery yes they were easy routes, and a good opportunity to practice lots of smaller things that ultimately speed up a longer day e.g abseiling efficiently but safely, bit of simul/solo on easier ground, getting a bit of a rhythm happening (no dodgy simey comments please!)
We'd both considered leaving a note with the tat so people would leave it/know what we were up to but then figured meh, as if we'd need to do that!
Definitely up for 1000m next time >:)
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19-Jan-2010 12:47:42 PM
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Seppos use these. At $3 Australian they a better option than losing a nice screwgate crab.
Very handy for alpine rock routes too.
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19-Jan-2010 12:59:02 PM
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Hello. I'm the other half of Miss Crag's climbing partnership.
Just to add to the story, we were actually camped next to said busted bootyhound and it appeared on Sunday morning that she 'abandoned' her tent. We were considering bootying this gear as we were angry that she'd left it in the Pines without anyone looking after it. It's just irresponsible!
Also Miss Crag: 1000m? You're on mate!
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19-Jan-2010 1:10:23 PM
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On 19/01/2010 wallwombat wrote:
>Seppos use these. Much better than losing a nice screwgate crab.
>
>http://www.backcountrygear.com/catalog/climbdetail.cfm/SMC175
Um... when canyoning, we frequently put rope through a sling, and sometimes, nay -
frequently!, (after inspection), we do not back it up with a sling of our own to be left
behind. Then we pull down the unladen rope after abseiling. Saves the heartache of
having something metal that you bought pilfered, dunnit?
A maillon may be more versatile/multi-use, should you retreive it.
Said 'seppo' ring thing was supplied to me to carry on a commercial alpine trek last year
in NZ, so as to self-belay when downclimbing with rope in hand on steep bits of track. I
found no use for it, but seemed like a good idea for the inexperienced.
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19-Jan-2010 1:29:32 PM
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thanks the link - i like getting toys from backcountry because of the UPS tracking... mmmmmm UPS tracking - look a parcel via honalulu!
yessum, in the real deal we'd put rope through sling and say goodbye so it can live out its days in the winds on some lofty mountainside, though as we were going off the same gear multiple times and were always going to retrieve it we figured we may as well make it a comfortable day for the tape sling and pop the rope through the biner. it's ALL about the comfort of the tape sling ay ;)
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19-Jan-2010 1:44:16 PM
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On 19/01/2010 miss crag wrote:
>We'd both considered leaving a note with the tat so people would leave it/know what we were up to but then figured meh, as if we'd need to do that!
I have sometimes left a note attached to gear unattended before. The thoughts have still occurred to me that well meaning tourists might still misinterpret the message and cause inconvenience by retrieving said gear! Most times all is OK, but I occasionally read of gear going missing (like the recent incident at base of Tiger Wall), and adopt the attitude of 'best to be prepared to lose it'...
This brings to mind an incident I thought funny that happened on the Nth Wall of Buffalo a few years back.
I retreated off a route under heat wave conditions and in the process met a couple of blokes just starting out on an adjacent route, who invited me to join them. I accepted their offer but was bemused by their confidence in completing the route they chose under those conditions, ... even with the addition of a third member and additional water to speed things up.
Later the conditions got the better of them/us and we all bailed off their route. While ascending the Sth side I looked back and commented about a fixed rope on the upper pitches near their line, that I had not noticed before due to the overhangs that block the view from the base of the climb. I thought it may have been a person scouting a route, or a photog or something, but they said "yeah, that's ours, and we figured we could bail up the climb if we needed to, if we ran out of water."
They underestimated two (at least), things. The amount and size of the overhangs, and the wind taking the rope tail off their chosen line.
~> Trying to snag a rope tail 5m out from the cliff face (assumes they could see it to start with due being off-line!), would have proved an interesting exercise while dehydrated with darkness coming on...
I guess the moral in this is to beware of the false confidence that reliance on such temporarily left gear can inspire.
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20-Jan-2010 1:23:06 PM
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I had a similar experience at dec crag a few years ago. We were top roping Little Thor when a heavy rain shower came through. I pulled the rope (so it didn't get soaked) and we jumped in the car for shelter. When the rain didn't stop for 20 mins we went back to the pines for a warm brew. I returned less than an hour later and all my gear was gone!
No note was put up at the toilet block and it took a lot of running around to chase the people down. They were obliging enough but I would have thought gear that was obviously left on purpose would have warranted a note at the toilet block.
Thoughts?
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20-Jan-2010 1:52:48 PM
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On 20/01/2010 Climboholic wrote:
>I would have thought gear that was obviously left on purpose would have warranted a note at the toilet block.
>Thoughts?
... climbers have to be careful about reading at the dunny.
>obviously left on purpose
What is obvious to some, isn't to others?
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