Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

When does abandoned gear become booty? 13-Jun-2002 At 5:26:40 PM Mike

Message

Last weekend we were out at Araps and the Gramps and twice had occasion to see or hear about abandoned gear. The first instance was a couple of abseil set ups left at Summer Day Valley. There was no one at the crag and the car park was all but empty. We left the gear where it lay. The second instance was at Araps where a frantic dude told us he'd left an abseil/belay station, this time involving a considerable amount of gear, a top Mantis overnight. He had returned to claim it around lunchtime the following day. Why he waited so long I'm not sure. Why indeed he left it there in the first place I'm also not sure, since a little rain would hardly make retrieval impossible. Never-the-less, his gear was gone.

Many years ago I did the classic beginner mistake and overcammed a friend on a popular climb. I returned to the base thinking to grab another nut tool and head back up. In the meantime the next party behind ours saw the problem, retrieved the cam, and kept it for themselves. I was a trifle miffed at the time, but figured that was the local ethic and it would teach me for making such a rookie mistake. Certainly I haven't overcammed a unit again. Conversely I've since found numerous abandoned placements, such as fixed nuts, dropped pieces, old hexes fallen into cracks, etc. As I'm sure the vast majority of climbers have. Whether or not you'd trust a booty piece is another issue.

However all of this begs the question: when does abandoned gear become booty?

At what point would you draw the line? An old fixed nut obviously booty if you can be bothered. But what about a couple of shinny new pieces that have be left behind, possibly fallen out of someone's pack? Booty? Post a lost & found notice? Leave it in place? What about bail gear found halfway up a route? Or the aforementioned case of the whole belay station left unattended overnight?