Stolen Hangboard @ Waimea

Greetings,

Recently I left a hangboard up at Waimea attached to the back of the e-ticket ladder for the Winter season. I intended to use it to warm up so that I can get on projects in the middle of winter without wasting daylight. I thought others would appreciate the ability to do the same, so I left it up when I left Waimea last time (Nov 18th).

Today I went up there and was pretty disappointed to see that it was not attached to the ladder or anywhere to be found.

I have my doubts that someone was deeply offended by the ethics of a fixed hangboard, there are various stick clips left around the bases of routes, there is a ladder to a ledge, there are hundreds of fixed draws there.

It is not abandoned property, I left it to help support and facilitate climbing for a community I love. I worked hard to make that hangboard, I thought it's best use would be for everyone.

I'm hoping that it gets returned to me or to the ladder where I left it.

If you're deeply offended that I left a hangboard at Waimea, let me know here.

Eli

Not the place to put up a hangboard... agree it should have been removed and was a dumb idea to leave it there.

Damn...same thing happened to me when I left my stationary bike at the Lamarck Lakes TH to help me warm up the legs prior to attempting the Evolution traverse IAD. Left for two weeks and it was gone when I got back, assholes...

awsome example of how twisted the rulze of climbing are and how slanted they are to the people who climb hard.  Eli and his buddies actually thought this was a good idea because everything in that area is hard and heck we allready cheat like crazy and it is completly accepted. Had this same thing happened at Jimmy cliff the outrage would have run far and deep.

PS hope you get your board back.   just think its funny how the climbing rulze work ;)

I hope you get your hangboard back, but I do not think that it was smart or proper to leave it out.  You should hike it in and out with you.  Although your intentions were good, many climbers (myself included) would see that as unnecessary.  Given, at Rumney, there isn't a huge attempt at climbing etiquette, but every little bit can help.  I hope you see your board and send the proj.  

Edit: Also, I don't think that the area matters.  It would be pulled this down if it was on orange crush, bonsai, waimea, or any crag really

Booty.

The same thing happened to me when I installed a vending machine in the Uberfall at the Gunks. I thought it might be nice to be able to purchase hot chocolate during the colder months but apparently my efforts to improve the crag were not appreciated.

SethG wrote:

The same thing happened to me when I installed a vending machine in the Uberfall at the Gunks. I thought it might be nice to be able to purchase hot chocolate during the colder months but apparently my efforts to improve the crag were not appreciated.

There’s a big shitter there so why not? The hangboard’s like half the size of a toilet. Hang the board on the toilet! Besides the Trapps are basically an outdoor trad gym these days.

 Back in my day we walked uphill both ways to the gym in five feet of snow to use the hangboard then we climbed 5.16 by headlamp.

 Hope you get your board back and it stays hung up!

Rumney is a junkshow, true, and I hope you get it back - but I wouldn't be surprised if someone thought it had been forgotten - because really, who the heck leaves a hangboard installed at the crag? If you were to reinstall, try a sharpie note on it explaining why it's there, yada yada. Stick clips and permadraws are the acceptable norm there, something new and weird like an entire frikken hangboard....yeah, I'm not shocked that it walked away.  I do think with a note and your # it would stick around.

Bummer man, I had the pleasure of climbing in Rumney and hope that the area can be respected to keep its access open for years to come. I get what you were doing and see that there was no mal intention but perhaps a smaller board you can pack is in order? I am sure the turd who jacked your shit will reap the benefits and crush the knar now and has you to thank. I think I am in that boat of conflict in that I love fixed draws but also follow the LNT methodology. so basically I am a hypocrite! hopefully your board turns up.   

I guess I look at waimea a lot less like a pristine piece of backcountry beauty, and a lot more like a dedicated training ground for people who want to improve their climbing and push their sport game. To me it is in a totally different league than bonsai or orange crush, which are somehow separated in my mind by routes that are seemingly more onsight friendly and start at the ground. Also there are warm-ups at those cliffs.

What mostly separates the crags and the ethics of them is the ladder and the lack of warm-up routes. For those that don't know or haven't been but have still voiced their opinions: There is a wooden ladder to a ledge where 5-7 classic routes start, even though you can climb an 11+ corner to the same ledge. The cliff is almost more white than grey from chalk. There is a bolt every 5 feet, most draws are fixed. The routes are hard and require many more burns to understand the nuances of the moves than other routes of similar grades at other crags. I've been up there and seen upwards of 3 stick clips lying around under the caves. For a while one had it's own place hanging on a fixed biner of "the fly" (a two bolt 14d) that said "waimea stick clip". At this crag there is a face height jug that is covered in chalk leading to nowhere, because people hang on the jug to warm up. Basically this is the epitome of what a sport crag is (to me anyway).

In that sense, I don't see a problem with strapping a piece of wood to another piece of wood that is already fixed there to facilitate more climbing. 

I'm not saying I'm right, this obviously an opinion.

I appreciate those that hope I get my board back, I hope I get it back too.

Well said and yes that wall is hard AF!! 

Eli wrote:

I guess I look at waimea a lot less like a pristine piece of backcountry beauty, and a lot more like a dedicated training ground for people who want to improve their climbing and push their sport game. To me it is in a totally different league than bonsai or orange crush, which are somehow separated in my mind by routes that are seemingly more onsight friendly and start at the ground. Also there are warm-ups at those cliffs.

What mostly separates the crags and the ethics of them is the ladder and the lack of warm-up routes. For those that don't know or haven't been but have still voiced their opinions: There is a wooden ladder to a ledge where 5-7 classic routes start, even though you can climb an 11+ corner to the same ledge. The cliff is almost more white than grey from chalk. There is a bolt every 5 feet, most draws are fixed. The routes are hard and require many more burns to understand the nuances of the moves than other routes of similar grades at other crags. I've been up there and seen upwards of 3 stick clips lying around under the caves. For a while one had it's own place hanging on a fixed biner of "the fly" (a two bolt 14d) that said "waimea stick clip". At this crag there is a face height jug that is covered in chalk leading to nowhere, because people hang on the jug to warm up. Basically this is the epitome of what a sport crag is (to me anyway).

In that sense, I don't see a problem with strapping a piece of wood to another piece of wood that is already fixed there to facilitate more climbing. 

I'm not saying I'm right, this obviously an opinion.

I appreciate those that hope I get my board back, I hope I get it back too.

 

wow... I've taken at least half a decade off of looking at forums because thay tend to attract the trolls. This thread caught my attention cause I'm a Rumney local so I checked it out. Stuff has gotten savage. Eli is a good kid. be nice. 

Okay, see all you forum dwellers in another 5 years haha.

If anyone would like you post a link to the 12-page thread banging on about the Waimea ladder, where the main opponent (who lived nowhere nearby and had never been) backed off (pages and pages in) after seeing a picture of the ladder, that would be much appreciated!

Please refrain from commenting if you're not invested in the community and the crag. As Eli has said, this is a local and crag-specific issue, and if I had the pleasure of living nearby right now, I'd have appreciated it. 

As one of the main developers of Rumney for a while, I am sad Rumney is seen as a "shit show". I know any time you have that many people enjoying an area it is not going to be a pristine wilderness, some facilities need to be built and trails hardened etc. but just because some people have trashed the place doesn't mean  we should just keep lowering our standards. So, does throwing TVs off the top eventually become fine? The ladder is (or was) stained gray and eliminates a big bottleneck to get to a ledge where a bunch of routes start, that otherwise would be approached from a single, very popular 5.12 (or the Fly 14c). That is a lot different than leaving training equipment at the crag (maybe a weight set and  Bowflex machine?) There are plenty of things to hang off of (a ladder rung, perhaps, and you can do jumping jacks to get your body warmed up) Personally, I think more regular attention needs to go into keeping the fixed draws numbers in check and the visual mess less intrusive. I don't see Waimea as just a training gym at all.

I am not wildly offended by the hangboard, but I do see it as one more unfortunate step in the wrong direction. I hope whomever took it down gets it back to you, but lets try to treat the place well and not like a messy bedroom.

While I get the thought of leaving a stationary bike or Bowflex machine at the crag is being satirical, it could be the not-so-far dystopian future of rock climbing.  Rumney is beautiful, but unfortunately I'm one of those folks who subscribes to the "shit show" sentiment that it has become, for a whole list of reasons not worth dredging up here. Who could have known that fixed draws and a ladder would be such a slippery slope? Kudos to all the work you've done there M Sprague, you make a great point about keeping the standards high for ourselves (climbers). 

we should just keep lowering our standards. So, does throwing TVs off the top eventually become fine? 

 Did anyone else read this and think Joe Szot or Bivy? 

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/111115199/warming-up-for-a-route-without-easy-lines-to-climb

Eli, I hope you get your hangboard back, but I am glad that it was taken down. I've regularly seen people use the backside of that ladder as a way to warm up, I don't see why a hangboard would be necessary there.

Use tamper proof screws that cannot be unscrewed. 

"I guess I look at waimea a lot less like a pristine piece of backcountry beauty, and a lot more like a dedicated training ground for people who want to improve their climbing and push their sport game."

That's very honest, Eli, and maybe this is where things went wrong.  In my mind, Waimea is a fantastic surreal place that takes my breath away.  I don't see hardware, or climbs, or notice the ladder... I see nature at its most sculptural.   It's one of the coolest places in New Hampshire.   That being said, I would not care if I saw a hangboard.  It's part of the way we are using the cliff.

My guess is, someone took it not to send you a message, or to "clean things up", but because it was booty.   If it had been the former, it would have been placed back at the parking lot (maybe with a note, but not even necessary at that point), or it would have been posted here on MP to let you know they thought it was uncool.   

The real crime here is that there is no love for goobs. The hard guys and gals get extension ladders (used to be one @ wiamea) fixed draws, stick clips,  hangboards and all  kinds of cool stuff but if I try that stuff on my project I get laughed off the cliff. Heck we did  a climb last fall called Just For Goobs @ marshfield. the bolts were miles apart, it was terrifying  and I did not see a single fixed draw or stick clip handy. Meanwhile just a 100ft left of us the  folks on the High Grade wall had fixed ropes running all the way up the cliff so you could jug and did not even have to climb...