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lets talk about lost gear,... now also booty found


Rich

25-Feb-2004
8:35:45 PM

yeh if i find it i'll keep it, but if someone says they lost it then i'll ante except of course if its a cam and i haven't fully read the note ;)
i once gave the lead to someone on french revolution at werribee and they found sitting on top of the climb two nice new cams and with quickdraws connected.. damn i wish i had have led that one!
i don't however usually grab gear (screwies) off raps.. i'll prob use them!


Ben

25-Feb-2004
8:37:15 PM

I can definately understand the joy of finding BOOTY, have spent some time trying to get others pieces free and have left some behind before.

I must say that I do appreciate people being a little reasonable about it and certainly was made to feel very thankful when a couple who climbed a climb after I had recently at bundaleer went out of their way to wander down to where we were later climbing to ask us if the fairly shiney cam they had found on the walk off was ours. It was and seems to have unclipped itself from my harness on the scramble off (not reclipped on properly at the end of the climb I guess, stuck in clothing or something).

Their kindness was much appreciated, especially given it was a fairly new shiney cam. Maybe they just didn't want it as it was an HB quad cam that people seem to have a love hate relationship with :)


tmarsh

25-Feb-2004
9:04:52 PM

Booty is a gift from the climbing gods in most circumstances. Martin has mentioned one scenario when it's not - working a route. There's another - accidents. If someone has a catastrophe on a route and bails, then it's just plain wrong to benefit from their misery.

I was at Bundaleer years ago and we saw a rope and a stack of gear left behind on Scarab. The rope was *fixed*. That wasn't something that someone 'forgot'. There was clearly something bad that had happened. We cleaned the route and then put up ads in all the climbing gyms.

What goes around comes around. When a friend of mine, who was on the same trip, had a monster fall at Buffalo and had to sacrifice gear in the rescue, another party rapped the route, cleaned all the gear down to the last sling and popped it inside his tent vestibule.

Opportunism is all very well, but don't profit from other people's pain.

Cheers,
Tim

Robin

25-Feb-2004
10:20:27 PM

Ah, I love my booty. I have a rack full of old wires, a few cams and even carabiners that are booty. I will spend hours desperately trying to retreive fixed gear even when it's not worth retreiving.

But if someone was to say 'that's my cam', I'd give it back to them. I don't believe anyone intentionally leaves gear behind. Be it an accident, inexperience, bad luck or whatever I think that no one intentially leaves gear behind. If it's there for the taking, take it. But if the righful owner comes forward I would give it back.

p.s. I still have the chalk bag (somewhere) that was left out at the Cowbaws after the fires 12 months ago.

Robin


Rupert

25-Feb-2004
10:59:18 PM

I've found heaps of wires, cams, hexes, rope, chalk bags, hats, even a gri gri.

Mind you I've tipped an entire chalkbag full of bolt plates down a crack in the you yangs, left many slings behind in the rain instead of doing dodgy downclimbs, dropped half my wires from the fourth pitch, left my new fleece behind on a rock, lost a pair of shoes and watched the only waterbottle we had fall the entire way down the Watchtower face on a 40 degree day -(Wear a helmet people! ). It all kind of balances out :)

On 25/02/2004 tmarsh wrote:

> We cleaned the route and then put up ads in all the climbing gyms.
I have put up adds several times for cams now and never heard anything. Now I don't bother.


tmarsh

25-Feb-2004
11:13:24 PM

>On 25/02/2004 tmarsh wrote:
>
>> We cleaned the route and then put up ads in all the climbing gyms.
>I have put up adds several times for cams now and never heard anything.
>Now I don't bother.

No-one responded to this ad either. Still, I believe it was the right thing to do. You've gotta understand it was *so* spooky seeing all this stuff abandoned like this. We were checking the rock for bloodstains by the time we finished. a biner or two is one thing, but this was a rope and half a rack!

tim


Rupert

26-Feb-2004
12:19:33 AM

yep fair call - that would have been a little disturbing.


GG

26-Feb-2004
9:17:08 AM

So eveyone is happy to trust second hand gear?


nmonteith

26-Feb-2004
9:17:21 AM

Last weekend i bootied a museum piece - a Royal Robbin's branded Salewa oval snap link biner which was stamped with a rating in pounds!


Rich

26-Feb-2004
10:17:47 AM

On 26/02/2004 Gareth wrote:
>So eveyone is happy to trust second hand gear?

yeh most stuff. unless its a biner and it looks pretty bad, then it just puts u off and you won't use it anyway.

climberer

26-Feb-2004
11:04:51 AM

I heard about some people who found a BRAND-NEW ROPE at a crag recently. They hung onto it for the day in case the owners came back, but they never did. Weird. They have few qualms about hanging onto it permanently, because they suspect that it belonged to some charming young men who were piffing down huge rocks from the top of the crag - completely irresponsible behaviour, not to mention dangerous. Karma?


Richard

26-Feb-2004
1:09:46 PM

The conundrum no one has raised here - prehaps surprisingly - is what happens if you find some gear on a climb, then when you get to the top, find the owners waiting for it. I say you should give it back - maybe every one else agrees? Does it make a difference if it was stuck, ot just left behind?

My partner once left a hex behind on the last pitch of lamplighter - she just climbed to far before trying to take it out - and no longer had the reach to remove it. So we waited for the next group, and asked them to retrive it. Since we could commincate with them, they probably never considered it booty, but maybe if the situation was a bit different - say we left it behind on the middle pitch and they didn't know the owner was nearby, they might want to keep it?

What;s the ethic here? It was our "choice" to leave it. But they would not know that in every situation - hence the test of "choice" can't allways be used to decide if gear left behind is booty or not.

Cheers


Rich

26-Feb-2004
1:17:57 PM

you'd look like a bit of an asshole if you tried to keep it! "ahh what no. 3 cam?"
i can't imagine anyone would claim rights on it if the climbers waited for it.. of course in that instance you probably wouldn't spend an hour trying to retrieve it though..


Rupert

26-Feb-2004
1:44:14 PM

I've been on the other end of this story once before - where I was asked to try to get out a cam for a party who was climbing the same climb, but a pitch or two above us. I got it out, told them I got it out for them, and we agreed to meet and give it back at the top of the cliff. Waited around, looked everywhere, charged down to the carpark but never saw them again. Wierd. I now own a number 2 Camalot.

earwig

26-Feb-2004
1:48:31 PM

I've picked up gear and lost gear on climbs. When I find gear I rack it up with mine for safekeeping until the rightful owner comes along and asks for it - which doesn't happen unless they are nearby. If I leave gear and know someone is climbing up behind me I'd expect to get it back if they free it. The only reason I've left it in place is so they can finish their climb before I rap down to it, climb up to it, whatever. It isn't booty until I've turned my back on it and walked away.

AndyCJ

26-Feb-2004
2:09:04 PM

Does seem that it's about concience alright. It's just what YOU are prepared to live with when it comes to BOOTY.

Some would take gear outright, others would leave project/fixed gear.
Some would try to find the owners, some would not.
Some would offer it's return if they knew who's it was, and some wouldn't accept it back.

Fair enough. Booty, is indeed booty.... whenever the individual decides it's booty.

Also - I agree with what you were saying earlier Neil about the single s/gate on the bolt. It made it safer for Marion to get off (in the wet) but it did not make that single bolt a rap point.


alrob

26-Feb-2004
6:27:06 PM

cam, draw, screwgate, 2 biners and 3 slings in a setup on top of omega block at camels. looks like an abandoned rap, or a forgotten top rope setup. booty?

i'm still willing to hand it back to the owners if they speak up.......if....

earwig

27-Feb-2004
2:06:09 PM

Not mine, but i did leave a number 6 nut in Spiegels Overhang, back in '97. Might head up that way this weekend to see if it's still there.


vwills

27-Feb-2004
2:33:21 PM

For all the booty hunters, we, well I, dropped a bolt plate off a middle pitch of Hotel Califonia a couple of months ago. I'm sure its still at the base of the route, disappeared into bush about 10 metres out from the wall, Grid Ref ....
But seriously a friend of mine seems attracted to great booty finds, several sets of cams, a Goretex bivy bag, expensive trekking poles are just some of his recent acquisitions, all seemingly legitimate. Its amazing what people leave behind but the same phenomenon happens on public transport, unclaimed mail etc, so unless you find out someone is looking for stuff, it is pretty much yours I reckon.


alrob

27-Feb-2004
6:09:26 PM

oh, we can't forget that bit of booty finger tape i found at sentinal cave australia day weekend. is it yours neil? i can send it back to you if you like, i think its still in good nick.....

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