GUNKS- NEAR TRAPPs- LOST/(BASICALLY STOLEN GEAR):

On Thursday night 8/18/11 I was at the Nears replacing the webbing on some really rotten anchors. I rappelled in from above and had to build an intermediate anchor. It was in a shallow left-facing corner about 50 feet left from Gelsa's last pitch in an lichen covered/dirty area that sees very little, if any traffic (2nd pitch of bogeyman). I had to beef it up quite a bit to feel safe- it was in a weird spot with poor options for placements. It rained really furiously and I had to bail. Came back today Saturday 8/20/11 (it violently stormed on Friday 8/19 too) and someone had taken my gear. The List: .5 camalot, yellow #2 metolius mastercam, tiny purple BD nut, 4 metolius mini biners, 2 double length metolius slings, and two BD positron lockers. Someone had to go on a mission to intentionally take my anchor- it is not in a common area. Also, they seem perhaps not too experienced because they left one nut that I pulled out by hand- no nut tool required. This gear was not abandoned! Please get my gear back to me.

Sorry bheller, but your gear was abandoned.

You left easily removable gear in the rock without a note announcing your intentions to return the next day to retrieve it. Bummer that someone got to it before you and if I'd taken it I'd give it back but your insinuation that your gear was "basically stolen" is melodramatic and ridiculous at best.

What makes you think you have the right to leave your shit strewn about a cliff for as long as you feel is appropriate and that others should just know that you plan on returning to it? How would one know that you hadn't left it there weeks, months, etc. ago?

And fer crissakes why did you leave that much gear behind to bail from?! TWO cams, a nut, TWO DBL slings, FOUR mini beaners and TWO LOCKERS? Who are you to be calling anyone inexperienced when you leave a noob bail anchor like this behind?

johnL wrote:Yarp, I fucked your mom.

Nice John. Way classy. My mother was raped and murdered 2 1/2 years ago. No worries though. I know it's just the internet and you had no idea.

Admins... Gonna do anything about this?

1) melodramatic plea
2) dickhead internet response
3) ad hominem attack
4) call for modvention on basis of unproven internet claim

Just trying to keep it all straight...

edit: Damnit! More responses. You all are going to have to keep your own tally, ok?

Glad you know my climbing history and know that I have never had to bail. That gave me a good laugh.

You don't have to give a shit about my opinion but the fact remains that if you leave gear in the rock with no explanation then you are abandoning it. It would be nice if he could get it back but to expect that someone would happen upon that much gear and just leave it is just plain ridiculous...regardless of what you have to say about my dead mothers sex life or about my penis.

BTW...wasn't calling for the admins to do anything based on my "claim". I'm pretty sure that telling someone you fucked their mother, regardless of whether or not she was raped and murdered, would be considered by most to be an inappropriate comment.

If I saw that gear I would have bootied it. If someone told me the story I'd return it. If someone accused me of stealing it I would tell them to F off.

Yarp wrote:BTW...wasn't calling for the admins to do anything based on my "claim". I'm pretty sure that telling someone you fucked their mother, regardless of whether or not she was raped and murdered, would be considered by most to be an inappropriate comment.

Man, I'm not even going to try and sort out what may or may not be going on in your head. Mark it zero!

Timmamok wrote:If I saw that gear I would have bootied it. If someone told me the story I'd return it. If someone accused me of stealing it I would tell them to F off.

That is why you live in Colorado, stick your own side of the woods!

Yarp, WTF? Heller was replacing webbing, doing all of us a service. IT started raining and he bailed on his bomber anchor! What's your deal? Help the guy get his gear back for fuck sake and quit being a douche!

Jarred Peterholf wrote: Yarp, WTF? ...What's your deal?

Why are you all so bent out of shape about this? Dude left his shit on the wall and someone bootied it. Sucks fer sure but the insinuation that someone stole it is simply ridiculous. I don't know ANYONE that would have left that much gear plugged into the wall if they came across it on a climb. I'd give it back as well unless the owner of the gear was being a self righteous douche and accusing me of stealing it. I too would tell them to lick a dick and I'd sell the gear on MP and donate the profits cause god knows I don't need the gear.

BH, you need to face the reality that your gear was abandoned and removed, not stolen. No one can read the mind or divine the intentions of someone who leaves stuff on the cliff. Anything up there is abandoned gear and anyone who sees it is fully entitled to remove it.

Before the internet, that would be the end of the story. Now that there are ways of reaching at least a segment of the climbing community, there is some hope that whoever properly and appropriately cleaned up that stuff will be decent enough to return it to you.

I hope you get your gear back, but nothing entitles you to it at this point.

Next time, a single rope rap from the top should make it unnecessary to set up an elaborate intermediate anchor, and starting earlier in the day will make it less likely that you will be forced to leave stuff. For that matter, why is it necessary to access such an anchor from the top at all?

Wow, rgold said the same thing as yarp without coming off as an irredeemable douche in the process. Amazing!

Thanks for your input on this issue Zeke. Do you have an opinion on the actual OP or are you just gonna continue to lob underhanded comments at me? Maybe you don't like my personality and I'm fine with that but could you at least say something mildly witty, sarcastic or intelligent please? If not, at least try to stay on topic. Your idiotic comments are boring. Thanks!

Yarp wrote:Thanks for your input on this issue Zeke. Do you have an opinion on the actual OP or are you just gonna continue to lob underhanded comments at me? Maybe you don't like my personality and I'm fine with that but could you at least say something mildly witty, sarcastic or intelligent please? If not, at least try to stay on topic. Your idiotic comments are boring. Thanks!

Yours are rather boorish as well. Have you ever heard the saying that if you meet three or more assholes in a day, you're probably the asshole? You may want to think about that.

My opinion is the guy has the right to ask for his equipment returned without getting attacked for it. That he mischaracterizes it as thievery is a bit understandable as he is heated and wants his gear back. He was trying to help the crag out, made a poor anchor decision, and now for being a good samaritan he loses his gear. This guy probably doesn't get his gear back in the end anyway, and you think it's cool to lay on the whip strokes like a cracker ass cracker.

Killis Howard wrote:At an area like the gunks, it's tough that bolting restrictions make sure that even the funkiest anchor goes on pins and passive gear or won't stay in place for long.

The overwhelming majority of rap anchors in the Gunks are convenience anchors and aren't, at least under any ordinary definition of trad climbing, even remotely necessary. A major problem is that "public-spirited" climbers, meaning people who feel entitled to mold the environment to their concept of climbing, are quite willing to add unnecessary anchors everywhere.

Tradition in the Gunks has always been that anyone can place conventional anchors and anyone can remove them. The placers already outnumber the removers 100:1; the last thing we need is someone with a Hilti making their idiosyncratic choices permanent.

Sport climbing has taught people that the instant the hard moves are over, there should be a set of chains to lower off from. Trad climbing is supposed to involve actually dealing with the environment as it exists, rather than how you would like it to be for optimal access to the sandwiches in your pack on the ground, and this means that perhaps a small amount of climbing after the end of the hardest part might also be part of the experience.

For example, I'm not sure where exactly the anchor is on the climb that started this discussion, but I don't think it is more than fifty feet from already-existing bolts and chains, not to mention the fact that the top is less than a ropelength away and that there are various lines to the top accessible from the anchor point. If all one can get is funky gear, than it isn't a bolt that is needed, it is simply the willingness of climbers to acknowledge and deal with what nature has provided. It's not as if they have no choice.

Yarp wrote:You don't have to give a shit about my opinion but the fact remains that if you leave gear in the rock with no explanation then you are abandoning it.

That's not a fact; it's all simply your opinion. Lots of people agree with your opinion, lots don't.

The law agrees with me even if you don't

bheller,
This subject would make for a good MP survey (in my opinion). A simple question, "Do you think the gear was booty or stolen?" It won't solve anything or eliminate the name calling but it will be interesting as to what the majority of climbers think.

Yarp wrote:The law agrees with me even if you don't

And what law would that be?

From the version of Black's Law Dictionary sitting within arm's reach:
abandonment, n., 1. The relinquishing of a right or interest with the intention of never again claiming it. . . .

So based on my 10 seconds of research on this (and general knowledge of the meaning of the word "abandonment" in legal and non-legal contexts), I'm dubious. Perhaps there is something in NY law that supports your contention, perhaps not--please clue me in if you can. It's certainly possible I'm wrong on this. If that's the case, it would be helpful to have a bit more than your ipse dixit to establish that, and I'll thank you for your time.

Just hoping someone would see this post and I'd get lucky enough to get my gear back- I wrote "basically stolen" because it certainly wasn't lost- it was just momentarily unsupervised. It wasn't the dark that solidified my decision to come back later- it was forceful rain. It wasn't a "bail" anchor it was a removable and temporary "working" anchor. Yarp- if I were to rig a rap anchor for you at the crag i'd be sure to just use a single bad nut.

the gear was stolen, yarp is a douche, and the Gunks are a backwater.

and that^^^ was a ptftw.