Booty Rules!

John Husky wrote: I sure hope that I don't have some black hearted 5.13 spraying internet hard case mop up the crag with me.

You ain't got much to worry about, most them are about 5'7" and a buck-twenty.

Ethical question. If on a multi-pitch climb, booty is spotted, but unable to be reached by a climber A. Climber B swaps leads and retrieves said booty. Who has claim to the booty? In this case, booty in question was difficult to remove, hence the reason it was left as future booty. Is this an all or none situation for the climbers or is there some shared ownership?

Climber A gets first claim, if climber A can't retrieve it than climber B gets the opportunity. The climber that retrieves wins.

jellybean wrote:Climber A gets first claim, if climber A can't retrieve it than climber B gets the opportunity. The climber that retrieves wins.

Climber A could visually see the booty, but ran out of rope to retrieve it. Climber B retrieved booty on the next pitch.

Climber A would still get the booty.

I keep lumping everyone in this thread into two categories:

1: Those who have left gear and returned (1 hour or 1 year later) to find it gone or never returned "booty is bad!"

2: Those who have ever found a piece of gear they were able to remove and reuse "booty is fine!"

Willing to bet most in the second group never made ANY effort to contact or find the owner, and have found a great way to justify their actions in an amorphous, subjective thread such as this. I'm guilty of this. At the end of the day, if you just thought "oh sweet a free piece!" without ANY thought as to how much it sucks to leave your own piece, you're probably a shitty person.

Willing to bet most in the first group never found their gear or even made much of an effort to go back and find it, and are reveling in the chance to scapegoat or at least back up your butt-hurtness at losing a $55 dollar cam. I'm guilty of this too. At the end of the day, if you just thought "my piece was stolen" rather than "I left that piece on a popular route for 2 weeks" then you have the wrong idea.

Be a good person. Post a thread here or a post-it-note in your local gym or climbing shop. If no one gets back to you, it's yours. If they do, its theirs. Done. Plain. Simple. Karma at net zero.

Maybe we're all just shitty people. Climbers suck right? all we need to do is read (and analyze) Mountain Project forum threads to provide the evidence.

Climber A can yell down to climber B "hey ma'am, if you can get that cam unstuck, would you mind leaving it at my pack at the base/ at the trailhead sign/ calling me at xxx-xxx-xxxx?"

What then? How is that any different than if that communication is not able to be verbally made?

Even if you ask everyone you run into on the descent or at the parking lot "hey, did you leave a purple c4 on pitch 5 of Epinephrine?" and the answer is a resounding no.... you STILL MADE AN EFFORT. Karma = net zero. Saying "all booty is good" is just a glorified way to justify walking past the dude complaining about his lost purple c4 on pitch 5 of epinephrine without saying anything about the fact that it's in your pack.

I've lost gear, and found gear, but definitely have come out behind in the booty game. I've never asked or expected to get gear back thats been left on a climb. So no. Your dichotomy is false.

Agreed that dividing this into a dichotomy is oversimplifying, and lumping most people into one category when they actually fit in both. What are your thoughts to my second post though? is the guy walking by with the cam in his pack without saying anything in the right, because he found the piece "fair and square?"

Nah, I think if its easy you should return gear. I think that the threshold for returning gear is probably somewhere between the parking lot and across town. If I find gear i don't feel like I have an obligation to post online or ship it (though I usually do).

On the flip side if someone spends 20 minutes cleaning my cam, he's welcome to keep it. The fact that he retrieved has nothing to do with the fact i abandoned it.

Booty story: one spring a few years ago I found a kid's helmet with little Shrek felt ears glued to the top of it. No one claimed it. Fast forward 4 months. I come down from the north ridge of Stuart and get a ride from the trailhead back to town from a nice group of Seattle climbers. We stop to have breakfast at a diner, and one of them starts talking about climbing with his son and how fun it is, but that his son was sad when he lost his helmet earlier in the year. He really liked it because he had glued some felt ears on top of it. Everyone's jaw dropped when I said that I have that helmet.

How I play the game is if someone leaves a cam, draw or biner behind, it's mine if I get to it. I will return it if the owner knows I have it and s/he specifically asks for it, but otherwise I am keeping it. On the other hand, if someone leaves several anchors to bail all the way down a trad climb and I find that stuff, or someone drops or forgets their rack and I find it, I would return it if asked, and I would ask around the crag for the owner. Everyone is a noob at some point and to lose an entire rack because of one mistake sucks. However, losing one biner because you couldent send the proj is the cost of doing business.

Extracting stuck gear takes thought, patience and persistence. Patience most of all. I like to think whatever I am able to extract is just reward for figuring out the puzzle. These days however, I get even more enjoyment in giving the gear back to its rightful owner. Stoppers not so much. If I'm climbing with a partner who is in the process of putting a rack together, then any bootied stopper goes to them. But cams are definitely worth the postage to send back to the original owner, if known.

One time I found $10 in my office. So I sent an email out saying I found money if anyone lost money. After a week no one replied, so I kept the money.

I propose we replace all the stupid rules with one rule to rule them all.

I found a 20 dollar bill yesterday on the trail about 100' from the parking lot which was empty. Luckily I had an empty growler in the car and was only 2 minutes from the local brewery. That beer tasted great!

I would like to see some reference to these "whiners". Usually on MP we see people notifying the community about some left gear and asking nicely for it return. Usually offering beers or money.

I'm of the opinion that climbers should actively perpetuate a culture where we care about each other and take steps to help one another.

IMHO, the only rule is, if I can return booty, I do so. If I have no way to know who it belongs to, no way to return it, then it becomes booty. Otherwise, my actions taken are those of self investment instead of compassion and care of others.

It is a rather simple fact that most people would appreciate their gear being returned, regardless of circumstance.

Whiners

mountainproject.com/v/left-…

mountainproject.com/v/yello…

Probably there's more. On my first epic, I had to leave 4ft sling and few binders, didn't even cross my mind to ask for it back, I was so happy we made it to the ground safe that it felt like a befitting offering to weather gods.

Fehim Hasecic wrote:Whiners mountainproject.com/v/left-… mountainproject.com/v/yello… Probably there's more. On my first epic, I had to leave 4ft sling and few binders, didn't even cross my mind to ask for it back, I was so happy we made it to the ground safe that it felt like a befitting offering to weather gods.

The first one made me LOL...that's just sad