LOST: my patience

The top five posts on the homepage are "FOUND" posts. I think it's great that people are nice enough to post up on MP when they find booty - I'd just take it home and give it to my friends.

But c'mon people, what happened to the days when our gear was among the most important of our possessions? A few years ago, I thought my rack had been stolen. A total of 5 minutes went by before I realised that the gear had not been stolen, and in those 5 minutes I think I threw up once and bashed my head against the wall twice. That bag had my life in it.

Before I leave the crag, I count my gear, search the ground, count my gear again, ask my partner to search the ground, break out my metal detector to make sure there is nothing being left behind. It's a matter of principal really - it's mine, I worked hard to get it, and it's worth more to me than the money it cost. It's my climbing gear.

Are other people not so obsessed? It seems that everyone here is ridiculously obsessed with the act of climbing, so why not give the same attention to the gear we use to climb? It must be, in part, because we live in this society that seems to promote the constant buying of new things instead of cherishing the old things.

Get a job where you can lose your gear and just buy more, MP solution #1

I feel your pain, Ryan, but we now live in a society of consumers and people don't place the some value on gear that you and I do. Don't let it drive you crazy.

I'm obsessed. Booty booty booty booty rockin everywhere. Good karma sent to anyone who leaves booty for me. Ill drink a 6 pack of good beer for ya.

Austin, I'll drink to that! "It's my duty to please that booty "........can't get enough of it.
C'mon people now, smile on your brother.....and post up when you find some booty.

Right on!! whatever happened to pack out what you pack in?? People wonder why there is litter everywhere. if someone accidentally leaves expensive ass gear without realizing it you bet your ass they will leave some sort of trash without realizing it.

Amen guys. How do people leave their fricken SHOES at a crag when they're done climbing? My generation has become extremely complacent when it comes to personal belongings. The "next best thing" is always around the corner, so there is no incentive for many people to have strong personal attachment to their gear.

I think it's sad. It's a rushed-consumerism mentality that will only get worse as time goes on. BUYBUYBUY

Locker wrote:I am 100% on board with this thread! It's like, "WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU FUCKING IDIOTS! DON'T LEAVE YOUR GEAR BEHIND! BEFORE YOU ARE ABOUT TO LEAVE, CHECK TO SEE IF YOU ARE ABOUT TO LEAVE SOMETHING BEHIND" DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously... WHAT THE FUCK?

Chill out bro, it's not that big of a deal

Yea it's ridiculous. FYI, if I find your hat, Oakleys, or a fuckin biner or cam I'm declaring it bootie. If I should one day stumble across a whole rack, or maybe a rope, I will think about returning it.

It's almost like the guys who find these mundane possessions are spraying about how honest they are. This is no place for spraying about your first 5.7 onsight trad climb, and also not place for your "honesty" spraying.

Maybe we can tweak our views on the situation. As more and more ass hats leave their expensive gear behind, us scavengers can swoop in and obtain some bewwwty.

Locker wrote: "Lost: one paperclip. If anyone finds it, please return and I will buy you a beer"

You should only use titanium paper clips

I wholeheartedly agree. All the threads offering beer in exchange for the cam you were unable to retrieve piss me off too. The moment you left that cam where it was, you made an implicit decision. By leaving the cam, you made the judgement call that it was worth $70 dollars to get off the climb sooner, rather than get your cam back. Maybe darkness or a storm was approaching, but regardless of your reasons for leaving the gear, you have no right to expect it back.

Also, saying that you tried your best for over an hour and couldn't get it out is no excuse either. If you have the money to spend hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on climbing gear, then maybe you ought to develop the competence to use the gear properly. That INCLUDES learning how to remove overcammed/stuck pieces.

I take the prospect of leaving gear (even a single nut or carabiner) very seriously. To me, leaving a stuck cam is equivalent to leaving $70 in cash at the crag because I'm going to go home and replace it. I have gone to great lengths to retrieve gear that many people would have left, and I have only ever left 2 pieces of gear. The first was a nut, that my second fell 15 feet onto (the pitch was traversing). We rapped by it, but I stupidly forgot to bring a rock with me to bang on the nut tool. I made the decision that it was not worth $8 to ascend the rope ~75 ft back to the ledge in order to get a rock.

The second piece of gear I left was a blue TCU placed in an ice filled horizontal crack on the Grand Teton. That cam saved my life and arrested the nastiest fall I've ever taken. After I fell, even though I was hurt, my instinct was to send my partner up to retrieve the cam. He suggested we leave it, and I agreed. It was a sacrifice to the climbing gods, who allowed us to make it off the mountain alive and without further injury. To even ask for that cam back would be bad karma. The climbing gods would not look kindly on it.

I return prescription sunglasses. Your stuck cam is gone though.

I pride myself on piracy

Leave yer gear, and I'll take ye booty

and your shit-hot belay bitch

Thanks Mom.

Locker wrote:To be totally honest. If I find your weed, it's MINE! and if you see me smoking it, don't even fucking think of asking me for a hit! Just keep walking...

'Das cooooooooold Locker. Real cold.

Locker wrote:To be totally honest. If I find your weed, it's MINE! and if you see me smoking it, don't even fucking think of asking me for a hit! Just keep walking...

Oh Locker,

you ARE going to give me a pull off of that lost and found bag!

people make mistakes. to sit here and call them idiots for leaving gear behind is pretty lame. unless you have never forgotten anything in your life because after seeing some of these posts I don't think any of you all have lost a hair off your head....ever.

yeah there are a lot of posts in the lost forum but imagine if there was a forum for "I climbed today and didn't lose anything" it would probably be a 500 to 1 ratio.

Ryan Williams wrote:The top five posts on the homepage are "FOUND" posts. I think it's great that people are nice enough to post up on MP when they find booty - I'd just take it home and give it to my friends. But c'mon people, what happened to the days where our gear was among the most important of our possessions? A few years ago, I thought my rack had been stolen. A total of 5 minutes went by before I realised that the gear had not been stolen, and in those 5 minutes I think I threw up once and bashed my head against the wall twice. That bag had my life in it. Before I leave the crag, I count my gear, search the ground, count my gear again, ask my partner to search the ground, break out my metal detector to make sure there is nothing being left behind. It's a matter of principal really - it's mine, I worked hard to get it, and it's worth more to me than the money it cost. It's my climbing gear. Are other people not so obsessed? It seems that everyone here is ridiculously obsessed with the act of climbing, so why not give the same attention to the gear we use to climb? It must be, in part, because we live in this society that seems to promote the constant buying of new things instead of cherishing the old things.

You don't think its possible that perhaps this is due to more people climbing as well as the advent of the internet?

In the 90s there were way less people climbing, so less gear being lost, as well as no internet forums to post on. I am sure people were just as forgetful then you just heard about it less.

Its the same as people saying there are more accidents "these days". Of course there are, there are also more people climbing.

It's a pretty big "so what?" from me too. Yeah, those 5 seconds I'll never get back in the time bank from scanning those subject lines really detracts from the quality session I was going to spend pissing off on the rest of this drivel. Right.

Okay, to be honest, my peeve is the "for sale" posts. Maybe we should put those junk advertisements and all the gear begging posts into a section that doesn't hit the front page altogether. Then we could really maximize our time making generic posts and bitching about the various incarnations of that post cockroach Ellenor.

Derrick W. said: "The moment you left that cam where it was, you made an implicit decision."

i would take it a step further and say that it is actually an explicit decision, not implicit to bail on left gear. also, i once found out that i had great reserves of patience that i didnt know existed within me when there was the prospect of losing a cam. i took my time and got that sucker out. had i not been able to retrieve it i would have considered it lost and belonging to whomever was able to jimmy it out.