UKC

Wicamoi gives some pretty sensible guidelines for the touchy <for some> subject of crag swag. Any stories to tell about that lucky nut you found or and epic caused by stuck gear?
My lost and found:
Lost <well abandoned really> sling and crab on the knob/horn thing on belay 1, ash tree slabs, Gimmer. It was the first time we'd even been there and we had it to ourselves, cold and damp but worth the effort. Did gimmer chimney, bracket and slab, ash tree slabs and one of the severe letter routes above. By the top it was drizzling and not far off dark, the 1st abb was no problem, the boulder/chain one. back on the ledge I'd read there was an abb at the astrix end, unless there is tat on it, it can be missed esp in fading light and never even seeing the astrix wall before. I found a good anchor and proceeded down ash tree slabs, we thought that was the abb off. Both down in one, no drama but the nice for climbing slab angle is a nightmare for pulling ropes and yes, we got em stuck fast. We should have walked away there and then, but no, we reasoned that we'd enough rope to get to first pitch then when both were there we'd have enough rope to protect the climb up to where the knot was jammed. This worked out fine with Dave down climbing, still protected, back to me. I'd spyed up the horn/spike already for the abb off and being heavier, dave went down first, the anchor was backed up at this point. My turn and I stripped the belay and gingerly weighted the abb. Changing positions like this I saw the spike wasn't really as good as it looked but being committed now I got down as smooth and as fast as I dared. I shit myself looking up at a poorly placed sling on a 'roll offable' spike. Cold, wet, tired, a long way to walk in the dark and pushed too close to the edge. All for the sake of a pair of ropes, stupid. Whoever found that sling and screw were welcome to them, I wouldn't dare asking.
Found - 1 Red CLOG screwy - Skye. The first time I'd done the ridge. Just old enough to be of use but old enough to be of interest. It was my lead after dave had lead the TD gap. Wet, tired and with floppy shoes I threw myself at it and found it thrutchy but secure if you jammed stuff in that corner crack, anything, arms, leg, feet...
Gear was good, couple of slung chocks then it gets a bit bare, and you know you have that wild traverse move up ahead, Then you see it, a perfect slung chock right where you want it. eye-eye, I see gear I thinks, yep, a screwgate that look reasonably recent. I'm having that I say as I clip it. Still got it, don't take it out but it's one of those little keepsakes. It must have really clagged in the day it was left. It was obvious that the leader got to the traverse right and preferred to be lowered off than make the move, prob in the wet. Fair play to him for making the call, I hope they completed the ridge via the wonderful Collies ledge. I'll prob never do the Kings chimney again, always opting for Collies but I'm glad I did it and have something to remember it by.


http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=575820&v=1#x7650620

In reply to wilkie14c:
Lost:
once got a No 1 rigid Friend stuck on Nabisco Wall - b*stard wouldn't come out!

Found:
A full set of rocks in a prickly bush on Mallorca
A set of 12 q-ds, figure of eight and belay plate in the Callanques, (on the approach to a cliff in a scruffy, old, wet canvas bag - I gave it a tap with my toe as I stepped over it and thought - 'interesting'.
Brand new (still had the lable on) Friend 1/2 Higgar Tor.
Screwgates, belay plate, descender, slings, Sicily
A 45m 11mm rope at Stoney.
Mobile phone in Nissedal - rang 'home' and returned to its owner.

Most of these were years ago - long before UKC's Lost n Found!

On a similar tack Sherri had found loads of money over the years - don't know how she does it!


Chris

In reply to wilkie14c:

I found a SLR camera at a crag in the Peak, many years ago, got the film inside developed (some younger readers will have to research this term I know)and posted a photo up in the Foundry with a note asking 'anyone know this person in the picture etc?'. The owner and I never met but eventually someone recognised the photo, he got his camera via me depositing it at the reception desk and the next time I went indoor climbing, a bottle of wine was waiting for me to say thank you. Shouldn't we all treat each other like this?

In reply to wilkie14c:

Found.
A few odds & ends over the years

Lost
Probably half my rack of gear which I'd taken off my harness, clipped to a sling and left at the bottom of Great Slab at Froggatt. Some mates had a rope on it & asked if I wanted to try it so I ditched the weight from my harness and did the route; when I got to the top, nobody else was going to climb it so I climbed over the top, chucked the rope down stripped the belay & scrambled down. Unfortunately my sack was out of sight of the starting point & I forgot about the gear. It was the last route of the day and we packed up & went home, there was enough in my sack not to notice anything unusual so I didn't discover the loss until I unpacked next morning. Contacted the police in case it was handed in & put notices in the lost & found section of the climbing mags (no tinterweb back then).
Didn't get anything back

Then in 2007 on Sardinia, I left a camera on a rock at Cala Fiuli, didn’t realise until I got back to the car park where somebody had pinned a note to a post saying “to the dude in a funny hat, you left your camera, if you want it back be in The Roadhouse bar tonight.” I went along to the bar, wearing my hat (it was a perfectly reasonable denim beanie) so he’d recognise me. I waited for ages but nobody showed up. When I got home I registered on UKC so I could post on lost & found, hence the stupid profile name; but nobody came forward.

You guys are out there!!!!

In reply to wilkie14c:

Aiguille rouge arolla 2 days after a storm.
Climbing first pinaccle.
The place was like a climbers Christmas tree. A sewn sling, screw gate and sometime a nut or friend placed neatly every 50m. Often next to a perfect spike. I would have chopped a metre off the rope! Italian gear.
Presumably someone with a few Lamborghinis retreating rapidly from the storm.
Supplied a penniless student with his first decent rack.

In reply to wilkie14c:
I've got lost/ found story!

Where do I start? I left a purple Zero G nut on Ordinary Route at Idwal Slabs a couple of weeks ago.

Politely asked for it's return on UKC and got lambasted by a bunch of militant crag swaggers!

Jeeze!

In reply to wilkie14c:

Found. A couple of slings, a nut, and a cam. All posted on here, but no-one ever came forward.

Lost? Not much really, but the circumstances (as I've said before on here) make my blood boil.

A friend fell off, dislocated shoulder, tore a hunk of flesh out of his arm (blood everywhere) and clobbered his head hard enough (wearing a helmet) to knock himself out.

A couple of hundred quids-worth of cams was nicked whilst I was busy helping carrying him to a helicopter. It's not like the c*nt who nicked them could have missed the fact that a rescue helicopter was parked less than 100 yards away and there were a few guys manhandling a casualty on a stretcher up a crag to said whirlygig. Helicopters are LOUD!

I've got - as people know - views on the crag swag ethic. My general view being that if you didn't pay for it its not yours. However swiping gear when the owner is involved in a rescue appears to me to be particularly low.

In reply to wilkie14c:

Found - loads of stuff, some of it quite good.

Lost - a fair bit of stuff, nothing too heart-breaking.

Equilibrium maintained, so I'm pretty philosophical about lost kit. I do tend to see requests for single small pieces (nuts, krabs, slings) to be returned as bleating, and adverts for same pieces being found as strangely sanctimonious.

I also don't understand why so many folk apparently don't carry tat.

In reply to Jamie B:

Same here - although I'm up on friends I think 3-1.

In reply to wilkie14c:

Found - full Rack on a sling. Pre Interweb days. Despite advertising in 2 local new routes books, and in High, and Climber and Hillwalker, was never Claimed. Sundry Other items, returned where Possible.

Lost - sticht plate, couple of nuts on Belay Second forgot to Take out, a guidebook. All items returned

Dont recognise crag swag. In Nearly 30 years, first Heard of it on here. Might be a regional thing as mentioned in Other thread.

In reply to wilkie14c:

Back in the last century I topped out on Dandle Buttress in Longsleddale only to find a complete rack including several cams just lying on the ground. I informed the local police and later received a call saying that the owner had claimed them, and how was he going to get them back from me? I lived in Derbyshire then and it turned out that the father of the gear's owner lived about 2 minutes walk from me. Aren't such co-incidences amazing?

In reply to Jamie B:

I do tend to see requests for single small pieces (nuts, krabs, slings) to be returned as bleating, and adverts for same pieces being found as strangely sanctimonious.

I second that. I've probably got half a dozen wires on my rack that other people bought. But I guess if I were an impecunious student with a small but hard earned rack I would grieve over a lost wire and want to get it back. Of course, as postage increases it's less and less worth the cost of re-uniting oneself with lost gear.

One piece of advice I'd give for nothing to any Good Samaritans out there - make sure you get the postage from the loser before you commit. Last time I sent something I'd found back to its owner they never troubled to refund the postage.

In reply to Hat Dude:

Bad luck.
Did you perhaps ask behind the bar at the Roadhouse?

(Either way another one that could have been fixed by photographing your contact details on your card, as has oft been suggested on this forum.)

In reply to wilkie14c:

my friend has a storey about setting up a top rope, when finally topping out all but one piece of gear he had used to build the anchor was gone, I thin he was quite angry.

In reply to Rog Wilko:

Just got my 15 wires back from WC today, my rack has never looked so full!

In reply to wilkie14c:

Younger folk who don't know what "EB" means can skip this one.

Found: 30 years ago when I was a student in London I found a single EB in the middle of Wandsworth Common. Very odd - I have no idea how it got there, as (a) there is definitely no bouldering on Wandsworth Common, and (b) there are not many one-legged climbers.

In reply to Rob Davies:

Hang about!

no, wait, that was a PA on Wimbledon Common

In reply to wilkie14c:

My first attempt at a multi-pitch route was Grooved Arete on Tryfan. I went with someone even less experienced than me (the first of a few mistakes that day). After getting stuck half way up the 5th pitch, as the weather became really wet, we bailed and did 3 abseils down. The first two we wrapped the ropes around boulders and of course got them stuck each time, requiring about 1 hour to recover the first one and 2 hours for the second one. By this time it was dark so we abandoned a sling and a krab for the final abseil.
Pretty awesome epic for my first multipitch, but really should have left 3 slings and 3 krabs - I'd have valued making it to the pub before closing time more than the cost of the gear.

In reply to wilkie14c:

Found a gun on the glacier below the Wetterhorn. Unfortunately there was a dead body attached to it. After we had contacted the appropriate officials we got bored hanging around next to dead body(it had been dead for some years) so wandered up the glacier to practise our frontpointing.
Unfortunately a helicopter came up from the valley , picked up dead body and gun and also our sacs(obviously thinking they were swag). We then had to run all the way down to Grindelwald and ask for our sacs back. Luckily the Swiss police were not following UK climbing ethics and gave them back after we had proved who we were.

In reply to wilkie14c:

Don't know whether there's an accepted protocol for crag swag but how about the following:

Find gear at the bottom of the crag - still climbers around - take it without bothering to ask if it belongs to anyone = theft.

Find gear at the bottom of the crag - no climbers around, or no-one claiming to own the gear when asked - take and keep it with no further action = theft.

As above but report it to police and advertise it on UKC Lost and Found - no responses within a week or so - keep it = no problem.

Find gear stuck on the crag - no other climbers around - manage to get it out - keep it = no problem.

As above, but climbers ahead let you know it's their gear - claim you didn't get it out when asked and keep it = theft.

As above but offer them the gear back - they buy you drinks at the pub - good form all round.

Martin

In reply to wilkie14c:
Lost ,
On an early climb of the year : Britamartis , I lead the first pitch and my mate , Jon , was going to lead the second pitch, on arriving at my belay my mate decides to go across spider wall to the left rather than go up to the right, this meant him getting a little panicky as he struggled across left. with the sun was going down, I watched as he at full stretch reached down to place a cam in a crack below his feet, at this point he was looking for any crack to throw gear at, I couldn't wait to get off this climb, I had been hanging on the belay too long and was feeling cold and numb, anyway , he made it across, we woo wooed in excitement .
my turn , I climb across to the place where he had placed my Metolius mastercam, from the crimp for my right hand, I at full stretch couldn't reach the cam, I tried every way I could, my hands where so cold I couldn't feel the damage I was doing to them as my knuckles ground into the lovely sharp rock leaving blood and a little flesh behind, I yelled in frustration at leaving a nearly new cam but managed to get my rope free, to be honest I was that relieved in getting on with the climb and off the route I thought the Loss of the cam was worth it . By the time we got off the route the sun was down . Took a selfie to see the look in my face , I looked like I had seen a ghost. I never asked for the cam on lost and found as I was a bit embarrassed about losing it and thought by the time anybody gets there, the cam is well and truly crag loot, and anybody retrieving it is welcome to keep it.
I have lost a few bits over the years from cams,rocks to clothes, a base layer left on the roof of my car as I got a quick roadside change I forgot I had put it safe , on the roof, not realising this until I got home,
I don't mind losing stuff if I know where and why I lost it, ( slings cams rocks , left on a retreat or by mistake in the dark as we pack up )it's the bits that disappear without a trace and are only realised missing when far too late that vex me a little.

Found ,
A few bits, nothing exiting, a pair of rock shoes at pothole, did post on here , no one claimed the shoes.
If I find gear in situ I usually leave it in place , unless new ish, or asked by the group who left it, I might remove it and look around for the owner. Etc..

In reply to wilkie14c:

I've got quite a good story.

My mate led a route at Joshua Tree. I seconded it and when I got to the top he said "check the ready made belay out" - 5 brand new cams each with a quickdraw on.
When we got back to the Hidden Valley camp ground we put a note on the board to say we'd found some gear - climbed for another 2 weeks at Josh and no one claimed the gear - Result!!

Fast forward a month or so and we're sitting round the fire in Camp 4 and we get talking about what our plans are, as you do in Yosemite.
So, one of the guys says we fancy The Nose in a Day but we're on the scrounge for some gear - at this point he looks at his mate - and says "Because some shit for brains left half our cams at the top of a route in Joshua Tree 6 weeks ago."

At this point I nip off to the tent to get the cams, come back and chuck them into the guy's lap. You should've seen his eyes light up.

They went on to do the NIAD and we got a case of beer from them.

E

In reply to wilkie14c:

Not on a crag, but was on a canal boat when I saw a wallet fall from a cyclists hip pocket. Shouted to him but he ignored me and went on. We quickly moored and retrieved the wallet. It contained £700 in cash!! His credit card with his name was also there.

We carried on hoping he would come back. Several hours later we saw a worried looking man walking back along the tow path peering into bushes. We asked him if he was looking for anything, not certain if it was him because he looked a bit different without his helmet and . He said he'd dropped his wallet.

We asked him for his name and what else was in it and he confirmed correctly. So we tossed the wallet ashore to him.

The bugger hardly said thank you, but counted the money there and then in front of us!

We felt quite insulted.

In reply to wilkie14c:

once found a whole rack at foot of White Ghyll, Langdale with a Salford University CC sticker on it, rang the club and told them and they had the neck to ask me to drop it to them in Salford when I was living in York at the time.
took them a couple of months to come for it. Should I have kept quiet ?

In reply to wilkie14c:

Found, nothing spectacular I can think of bar a dozen or so perfectly serviceable nuts that I managed to extricate without too much trouble. Did manage to wiggle a very new Camalot out once but gave it to my very patient mate who held my rope as he had none and I had loads.

Lost: backed off lots of routes so left a fair bit of kit behind. Most notable was a mid sized nut in Cenotaph Corner. I took a 30 footer onto it and it wasn't for coming back out in fact I think it may be the only runner I've ever abandoned. Left a pair of Oakley M frames with an expensive array of lenses on a fence post near Aviemore and my mate dropped my camera down the Penon. I did get it back, all three bits of it.

In reply to Martin Hore:


Depends on the gear I think. 1 nut on its own is surely fair enough? If it's a whole rack obviously a good bit of effort should be employed to aid it's return.

In reply to Trangia:

Never mind, you can rest assured you behaved much better than he did.

In reply to wilkie14c:

I took my young daughter up some route at Stanage and while putting gear on her harness she managed to unclip and drop the belay device. It rattled down the rock and I watched with incredulity as some bloke soloing around below just pocketed it and moved off. 5 minutes later a confrontation ensued!

I did a 6 pitch route at Ailefroide. At the top we found a pair of small rock shoes. We abbed off with them and were met at the base by a bloke who explained that he had watched our progress all day as his girlfriend had taken the shoes off to ab in her approach shoes. Rock shoes were happily returned to owner.

By and large, I treat single items in/ on the rock with no one around as fair game. Over time, I have lost as many as found.

In reply to wilkie14c:

Early 80's,found a couple of porn mags half way up a climb, at top end of Wilton 1.

Are they swag ?

In reply to admackie:


That's really bad. Even worse is Dave MacLeod's whole set-up being nicked from Tower Ridge (while he was stood at base of Echo Wall) and I think a wee rock just being placed on top of the rope to keep it hanging there!

In reply to Enty:






>

Great story!

In reply to wilkie14c:

I don't have any good stories about abandoned and found gear, well, not true ones. But there's an inherent pleasure in these lost and founds that I mentioned in the post you linked to, which exists beyond any drama in the losing or finding.

The found nut: in my rack I have special fondness for a medium stopper that I freed from a crack in Tuolumne. I can't remember which route it was, but I do remember the detail of getting it free, grazing already granite-sore fingers and the ache in my holding on hand.... and a hint of the special dry heat, and the mixed smells of hot skin and pine resin comes to me every time I place this nut in the somewhat different conditions of Scotland. And maybe coming with it is a sense of self from those days, a shedding of layers. It feels good. Just a golden scratched wedge of metal on a slender wire, but somehow charged with meaning. I like that someone had it before me. I like that in a sense I am carrying on where they left off.

And for the abandoned nut: it was one I placed when inadvertently new-routing on Pabbay - we were lost half-way up a 100m sea-cliff with a tremendous Atlantic swell beneath us and even though the climbing wasn't too hard, we were definitely on edge. I placed a number 9 nut at the bottom of a huge flake, gave it a good tug, felt it bite, and moved on with confidence, soon reaching a good belay. When my partner got to the flake he started to remove the nut cheerfully enough from below, chattering away, when suddenly he went silent and the colour drained from his face. He'd sensed the huge flake moving, and no doubt imagined the mortal consequences for him if it had detached. He moved away from the flake as soon as possible without touching the nut again. We eventually made safety on rope-stretch on the next pitch, with just half a friend and a body brace for a belay, so looking back to the flake that held the nut I wasn't too concerned about leaving it behind. It was a good nut: one of the first bits of gear I'd bought, we'd done things together, but I can't say I had a special relationship with it, and another number 9 nut sits on my rack and does just the same job. So I hope someone else has it now. I hope it brings that cliff on Pabbay back to them every time they use it. I hope they feel like they are carrying on where I left off.

I'm back there now, and it feels like music in the memory: the sea's endless energy surging beneath forming a dreamy roaring bass, a cool tugging Hebridean wind providing the middle strings, and the treble screaming of the birds wheeling about with heart-stopping grace.... and somewhere below, so tiny you can hardly catch it, a thin metallic ringing of wind in the wire of a number 9 nut.

In reply to Albert Tatlock:



They most certainly are! makes a change from under a hedge or in a toilet cistern anyway

In reply to Wicamoi:

Funny how we get attached to gear <pun intended!> Although I don't personally. You can see that from every car I've every had, every one has been bog standard with no attempt to personalise it with stickers etc. If I lose a nut, I just replace like for like, If <one the rare occasion> I lose a cam, I replace it like for like but rather more pissed than just a nut! I've 6 or 7 ice screws but I've no idea which ones I've placed, same for pegs. Disposable stuff, that's all it is. I did find a very nice camalot 3.5 <big un anyway> at the top of the off width at Lawrencefield, the corner crack thing on red wall. Obviously lowered off as there was a screw on it too, I'd have just aided the last move myself but there you go. No takers on here either. I found a pair of shoes at witches quarry, safely returned to the owner but not even a thank you let alone refund of postage. That was UKC too but hey ho, hardly world news is it!

In reply to Enty:

Some great stories on this thread now, keep em coming!

Nice tale that Enty, we camped at lost oasis and jumble rocks when we were in Joshua last year, how sharp is that desert rock? And folk bitch about grit rash on here...

In reply to Martin Hore:


I had this once. Some pricks decided to come to Birchen, took a few hundred quids worth of my gear at a busy crag and left with about 6 hours of daylight to go. Was looking for it for hours, it had been round the corner from where we were climbing but they must have thought it was fair game.

Funny enough I made a thread and they had a change of heart of something because they replied said they had my gear. One offered to meet me somewhere to pick it up in London which was obviously a no goer. Weirdly enough they had split the gear up between London and Birmingham. The guy from London said he was unemployed so wanted the cash for postage which I thought fair enough and sent it him, but then a few days later he was moaning "I'm starting a new job so I need this sorted by saturday". Also I was expected to pay his mate in Birmingham postage for the gear he decided to keep.

I was very grateful at first but I must have been a bit short with him when arranging the return so he responded:

"You are absolutely rude. I'm in a good mind to give the shoes away and return your money. don't forget that I had the kindness to notify you that we had found your kit.

I have had enough of your attitude and lack of gratitude."

The other one pleaded that I let him keep 2 pairs of my smelly shoes for the school he worked for.

Christ. Keep gear in sight fellas, its not worth the aggravation.

In reply to wilkie14c:

A few stories

Found a nice, useful DMM number 3 in the Lakes on Gimmer, dropped it down the morning slabs in the gorge

Found a zero G nut on our rack, neither me nor my partner can figure out from whence it came

Me and a mate found a single La sportive Muira at the Cromlech boulders! Wasn't claimed on UKC and was no use to us.

Finally the gift that keeps on giving. We cleaned two rocks and a draw out of the East face of Tryfan after a busy Saturday. One of the rocks turned out to be a wild country one involved in the recall so we got a shiny new rock and quickdraw out of it.

In reply to sheelba:
>One of the rocks turned out to be a wild country one involved in the recall so we got a shiny new rock and quickdraw out of it.

that's fair enough but I bet out there somewhere is a tight arsehole who's spit his 10 rocks and sent them all back individually so he gets 10 QD's! people are so tight when it comes to gear huh? I know its money and it costs but if its that important and vital they really should take more care!

In reply to wilkie14c:

Found: Met up with a random bloke off UKC to climb in Langdale. We agreed to use his rack, and my ropes, but it transpired at the bottom of Middlefell buttress that his rack only contained 6 quickdraws. Anyway, by the time we reached Gimmer the weather looked crap and, taking the limited rack into account, we opted for B route. It started raining soon after we set off, and it was only the fact that there was a howling Westerly that meant that the line stayed dry enough to get established on it. By the time we reached Amen corner, we were beginning to question the wisdom of continuing, but David manned up and had a crack at it, despite admitting later that his previous hardest route was some Severe at Stanage. After some damp flailing, David beat a tactical retreat and I had a look at it, and when I eventually clawed my way to the top I was overjoyed to find a pre-placed number 4 friend with a quickdraw still attached. The gear gods of Gimmer smiled upon us that day.

In reply to wilkie14c:

There's a few but the most ridiculous is my DMM "Bugette" small light "spare" belay device.
I had labelled it with name and phone number.

It fell out of the back of my car once when I was shopping at the local Go Outdoors. I received a phone call later that evening from a nice chap called Dave who said he'd seen it in the car park and handed it in at the shop. He didn't know what it was.

Popped into the shop the next day, a few staff members knew about it but it wasn't where they thought it would be (under one of the tills). They told me to try coming back in a couple of days in case it had been put into safer keeping.

This went on for about a month (!) and it didn't show up. My speculative visits were getting quite uneconomical on time alone, if I put myself on an hourly rate and consider the cost of a Bugette

Eventually someone remembered that someone ELSE had gone in and claimed it the day after I'd first dropped it. They were very apologetic but it was hardly their fault (would have been nice if they could have bunged me a freebie, though )

Which means that somebody who was shopping there that "fateful" evening saw it handed in and thought "I'll have that", went home, and returned the next day reasoning that they would be the first claimant, on a bit of safety-critical gear whose history they didn't know and which was worth about £9.

In reply to crossdressingrodney:

Did he think it was a sport route?
(I know "contained" doesn't mean the same as "consisted of", and that there was probably some trad gear on there! I just misread it initially that's all. Incidentally I once managed to set off on some poor easy route at Horseshoe with not enough QDs, genius eh, but luckily I had three small cams, as you do at Horseshoe, and was able to improvise with them...)

In reply to Wicamoi:

nice one....beautifully evocative. Thanks

In reply to Martin Hore:

Sound about right. One important factor you missed is time. If I see some gear and can't decide if its abandoned, lost, or left, I leave it be if its nowhere near dusk (I'm mainly talking about stuff left on the ground here, rather than single zero G nuts in routes). As Mr wolfo points out, good Samaritans who think they're doing the decent thing lifting gear that has simply been put down for later retrieval, are a pain in the ass. So if it's not nearly dark, leave it the f*ck alone, they might well come back.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I did wonder when I typed that if it was ambiguous. And if I had to lay a pound on which pedant on the forums might question it, well, I'd be a pound richer

In reply to wilkie14c:

Gearing up on the second day of a Snowdonia climbing trip - pulled my pink Anasazis out of my sack to find they'd shrunk. Further investigation found a second pair in the sack, exactly my size.

The only possible explanation is that on the previous day, someone had placed the smaller shoes next to our bags while we were several pitches up (it was somewhere in The Pass) and I'd packed them in error at the end of the day - but we'd seen no-one else all day, there were no walk-in shoes or any other sacks / gear left at the foot of the crag. A complete mystery. If they'd been thrown off the crag by someone walking down in trainers, there's no chance they'd have landed so neatly and precisely next to our gear.

This inadvertent swag resulted in my first ever UKC post (lost & found). There was no response. The shoes were eventually donated to a needy climber with feet smaller than me. But the mystery remains unsolved. Unless anyone knows better...

In reply to crossdressingrodney:

Pedant alert!! It's the position of the word "only" which is critical to the precise meaning . Switch "only" and "contained" and the ambiguity disappears.

In reply to wilkie14c:

I half-expected at least one response to my 'found' stories saying "I wondered where that went"!


Chris

In reply to phantom whistler:

Reminds me of an occasion a few years ago at Birchen (nb singular) Edge when I'd left a nearly new pair of Camp 4 approach shoes next to my sac. I did notice another couple of pairs lying nearby. It rained, and all the other gear had gone apart from my sac and a pair of Camp 4s which I donned and went home, where I discovered that my nearly new shoes had transformed themselves into a distinctly scruffy pair with two holes in the uppers. Now, was that a genuine error, or a bit of dodgy opportunism?
Since then, in my replacement pair I've changed to some non-standard laces and written large letter Rs on the footbeds (not R in one and L in the other). It might work.

In reply to wilkie14c:

I think about 1975, my mate and me met at Stoney, both with our full packs of gear (mine was a Cyclops Roc I recall).
We used his gear on Aurora, but when we got down, my sack was gone. Two ropes, full rack (though I had no Friends in those days). There was a police station at Stoney then, so I reported the theft. They said crag theft was pretty rampant in the Peak at that time.

About 6 months later, got a call from Bakewell police inviting me down to the police station to see if my gear was amongst some they had recovered. They showed me to a room, absolutely full of gear. Dozens of ropes, hundreds of nuts and hexes, dozens of duvets, sleeping bags, waterproofs. They asked me if this was a normal amount for a climber, as the guilty party was claiming, so I told them what would be normal. They said OK, have a look see if your gear is here. It was. (I was very tempted to upgrade my stuff, but resisted).

In reply to Rog Wilko:

Oh yes, you're right. I knew it read badly, but I just couldn't think straight enough to improve it last night.

In reply to Rog Wilko:


The ambiguity remains!

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I'm not sure but I think perhaps most of the ambiguity has gone. Perhaps to some extent ambiguity is in the eye of the reader!

In reply to wilkie14c:

Over the 40+ years I've been climbing, I've abandoned/retrieved the usual amount of small stuff, and probably come out about evens. The most memorable find was one from donkey's years ago - Friends had just come on the market, and long before Interweb lost & found forums.

I was doing a Saturday job in a climbing shop and a guy came in asking for one of those new-fangled nut key thingies. On his way out with it he said "Mind you, it's a bit late now, I left a Friend halfway up the first pitch of Yo-Yo in the 'Coe last weekend".

Next weekend we were in the Glencoe anyway, and on the Saturday morning the weather was utterly minging. Nobody was getting out of the tents at all, and there was nothing to be done. Except ... I thought maybe I'll nip up to Aonach Dubh and see if that Friend's still there. Waded my way up there in full waterproofs, to the bottom of YoYo and could see a bit of brightly coloured sling about 70 feet up. I aid soloed my way up the waterfall that was the first pitch until I got to what was indeed a nice new (well it had only been in Glencoe rain for a fortnight!) Friend 1 and sat on a nut to see if it would come out. Took about 20 mins, and no nut key needed. It was worth way more than any of the gear I had with me, but that wasn't the point - I wasn't about to abandon anything or I'd have lost the game! A bit of searching and I found a spike I could safely ab off with my rack intact.

Squelched my way back down to the Clachaig and was so chuffed I even bought a round! And if it's up to Alex bloody Salmond after next year I won't even be Scottish in spite of such exemplary behaviour!

Cheers
Andy

In reply to wilkie14c:

Lost: 4 large nuts (3 Kong / Zero-G and one C.A.M.P. Pro Nut) at the top of Birchen, Dec 8 2008 which was a rather cold day, there were patches of ice on Powder Monkey Parade which made for an interesting lead. Left them behind in a fit of fannying around unclipping things pointlessly. Easily done. They were all labelled with name and phone number and email address and I searched Lost and Found on here and posted there. No joy. (though when I went shopping to replace them, by chance Cotswolds had a full set of 11 Zero-G nuts for £36 which I happily bought, so I KIND OF profited by this loss!)
Couple of small wires on other occasions which just would not come out after 25 minutes of effort. Someone will have managed, and fair play to them. In those cases I have posted to say where they are and state that they are fair game, and to apologise for sullying the crag.

60m half-rope, a yellow Zero-G one (is there a pattern forming here?!) at Froggatt. It was fairly obvious that one of two uni groups that were that day had picked it up by mistake; luckily I had engaged both groups in conversation so knew which universities to contact. Newcastle confessed and described my rope as "looking like it's seen some action" Of course it took them about 3 months to post the thing back because someone wanted to wait until he was in a holiday job and could abuse his employer's postage.

DMM Renegade harness at Lawrencefield, we all got rained off and I think my harness must have fallen out of my badly packed bag, whilst en route to the car. The only other group present was a uni group, I made enquiries but they didn't seem to have it, nor had it been handed it at Outside in Hathersage. Had to write it off and get a new one.

Found: Camalot 0.75 at Stanage High Neb on a nice sunny day, reasonable amount of climbers around, it was on a neighbouring route and within easy reach, and came straight out. I asked around other climbers in the vicinity, no claims, and I posted on Lost and Found here (against the advice of my mates!). Still no claims. It sees a lot of use.

Faces/Gem small wire just sitting on a rock at the bottom of Tremadog. I didn't post this one on Lost and Found because a) I didn't know for a while what brand it was and b) to ask for a vague description of location etc. would have been meaningless as it was not near any particular route. It has an active life on my rack.

In reply to wilkie14c:
Lost and found various bits of gear over the years, but most memorable are..

FOUND:

Bandoleer with complete rack of gear at the top of Great Wall, Cloggy - handed them into Llanberris Police.
A single Galibier Pueterey boot wedged in Christmas Crack at Stanage - left it there in case it was a memorial.
3 nuts in the top crack of Left Wall - kept them.
A virtually brand new rope fastened to a peg and a sling on The Shroud - left it there in case it was deliberate.
A pair of Clog Vultures at the bottom of Gardyloo Gully - left them propped up against the CIC Hut with a note.
2 brand new slings and krabs on the Luna Bong abseil - kept them.
A North Face tent all packed up in it's sleeve half buried in the bog on the Allt A Mhuilinn - handed it in to Fort William Police.

LOST:

Primus Stove at the top of the 90m corner on the American Direct, Dru.
Sling and about 6 pieces of gear on the second to last belay of North America Wall.
Primus Stove dropped off bivi ledge on Droites North Face (last time I was allowed to be in charge of a primus stove!!!)
My heart to a flaxen haired beauty at the Shawangunks!

In reply to wilkie14c:

Lost: many years ago when I was 16 or 17 I had a near-death experience when my mate fell off seconding the 1st pitch of Great Slab. I was leading on a single 120' rope; I'd put hardly any runners in which is why he took a huge swing; my belay only just held and I was so terrified I laced the pitch down climbing it (can't remember the details to be honest) and left most of my rack on it.

Found: The following week I met a (different) mate in Llanberis. 'You'll never guess how much gear some idiot left on Great Slab!' he said. 'Hand it over' I said. And he did.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I had a problem with a Uni group when climbing at Sennen with a mate and arrived at the top after our last climb (and just after the uni group had departed) to find both our sacs had gone with wallets, car keys and all the gear that wasn't on our harnesses.

Had to scrounge a lift to Lands End Hostel (where we were staying), phone home to get spare car key posted, borrow £20 off the warden to get a bus to Penzance the next day and beg some more money from Barclays, without any ID cancel credit cards and then wait for car key to arrive before we could do anything else.

My friend had a phone call from the uni group (crewe?) 3 days later to say they had our sacs and had traced us through his bank. Fair enough they did a reasonable job of getting the sacs back to us and we were very glad to get them back but it would have saved us a lot of bother if they hadn't just hoovered all the bags from the cliff top when they left.

In reply to mountain.martin:

Yeah that sounds like an ordeal. I understand how it happened but they should have kept their stuff a bit neater and guarded against taking other people's stuff.

In reply to wilkie14c:



Eh? There's a system in place, even if you did it from several different addresses/names you'd still have to pay the postage each time. Wouldn't be a lot gained.

In reply to John_Hat:

That's horrible. Did you ever get any of it back?

In reply to splat2million:



Theres a walk off half way up though isn't there?

In reply to Wicamoi:



......And a nice in situ island of relief for some future pumped and gripped leader to aim for......

In reply to Jonny2vests:


Exactly!

Good samaritans? These were the two biggest dicks I ever dealt with. I wouldn't ever dream of taking someones stuff while the crag is still busy. These guys had split the gear between themselves so I don't think they were interested in leaving it to be found/picked up by the last at the crag.

But yeah, at 3pm on a summers afternoon is not the time to start lifting peoples stuff. Also, another point if you live 400 miles away from said crag, see if you can find a local who will mind the gear if truly lost, don't go ahead and take it to London or wherever you are from because believe it or not not everyone lives there. A climber can always go climbing nearby again, no problem

In reply to FreshSlate:


Indeed. I am guessing that that is how my rope got taken...someone "in charge" will have delegated a couple of minions to "gather up all our crap".
In my case I was able to live without my rope for a while, but the rucksack story is a bit more awkward (and seems a bit off...I mean it's easy for a minion to assume that a rope sitting amongst the club gear belongs to the club, but surely each individual has their own rucksack and nobody's carrying a whole bag around for anyone... oh well, glad it didn't happen to me )

Epic: Abandoned most of my rack abbing off from quite high on the N.E Spur of the Droites in 1988 after my partner (a random German picked up in the campsite) took a monster factor two fall onto the belay, dislocating his shoulder and knackering an ankle. The sole Camalot 1 which constituted the belay is still a "special", though retired, bit of kit. Anyway, three days and one storm later we made it down to the valley. The German had insisted on hobbling down to the valley despite the offer of the hut custodian to call for a helicopter because he had no insurance. He then insisted on driving one armed back to Germany (arm still dislocated) rather than go to the Chamonix hospital. He had my address and said he would send me a cheque for the value of half the rack. I never heard from hime again and, given that he was certainly very grateful to me for getting him off the mountain, I fear it is more likely that he came to grief on the drive rather than ripped me off. I lost his name and address when the car got broken into and loads of stuff stolen a couple of weeks later, so I've no idea who he was.

Happy ending: A few years ago, I got home from a school trip to the Easteren Cairngorms to discover my binoculars were missing. I replaced them. Two years later on the slopes of Beinn a'Bhuird on a similar trip, one of the kids delightedly picked them up. He kept them - they looked like they'd be fine once dried out.

Muppetry: I discovered when I'd got home that I'd left two shiny camalots in situ in a belay at the top of Rhoscolyn.

In reply to Blue Straggler:



Nah, the rucksack is understandable, there is often club gear kept in various bags and whoever is around will just pick up what is there. Got to make sure that things are separate really, that's mainly down to whoever's in charge. Shit happens, luckily the rucksack stories aren't too common.

In reply to wilkie14c:

This is a great opportunity to 'fess up now:

Three weeks ago (Saturday 4th Jan) , I was climbing at Stanage at the popular end. When walking to the car after some good but damp climbing, I slipped on some grass. Unbeknown to me, my unopened Soreen loaf had fell out of my rucksack. I'm ever so sorry for leaving it there.I didn't know!

I just hope that someone got some use out of that crag swag.

In reply to wilkie14c:

Not mine, but a friend.

Somewhow managed to lose a single boot after a weekend of climbing and walking in the lakes! It took him a few months, but finally mentioned that he'd thrown away the single boot that was left. That weekend we went to shepherds (quite early in the season so not much foliage) when friend goes to relive himself. Lo and behold he comes back with the lost boot, complete with its own ecosystem inside!

How we (I) laughed...

In reply to knighty:
That was you? It was delicious .

In reply to FreshSlate:


Good god no. They all had tags with my name and phone number on as well. Anyone who is going to steal (sorry, frankly that's what it is) cams whilst someone is visibly involved in a rescue a hundred feet away isn't going to try and return them later....

In reply to John_Hat:

People can be stupid. Didn't realise all your gear was tagged up. Fair enough.

In reply to FreshSlate:


You are most welcome. I'm just glad that someone used the calories and that I haven't killed any sheep!

In reply to wilkie14c:

Good thread.

Lost.
I ditched most of a rack in 18 abseils with an injured mate. Can't remember the route - it was 1987 - but on some fairly straightforward Alpine effort. He'd been hit by a rock and we teamed up with another group for the descent. Just one of those things really.

Lost and found.
I had a Troll Mk VI harness witht he fabric-tube gear loops. We'd gone throught he tunnels in Verdon gorge and were on La Demande. I'd clipped my walk-in bots to the harness. On the upper chimney the gear loops ripped and half a rack and my boots went down ?8 pitches to the talus. The next day we went to scrub-bash to find it. We found the boots, and almost half a rack... the funny thing was almost all the gear was different!

Found.
Found almost a full rack on Cathedral Peak in Toulumne. We were first up that day for sure and almost every belay had new-looking kit in it... but no intermediate runners, so I guess someone had abbed rather than scrambling down the rather unpleasant IVth grade. We asked around at the campsite and back in the valley, but no takers. So, if anyone wants their rack back, please give year and description...

In reply to wilkie14c:

My virginity on Froggatt Edge.....could someone return it ?

In reply to wilkie14c:

Lost: Friend

Left Matt in the carpark by mistake, never saw him again.

In reply to FreshSlate:

I found Matt. You can have him back if you buy me a pint.

In reply to FreshSlate:



Yeah, they just sound like chancers.

In reply to wilkie14c:

Found - An unnecessarily complicated anchor system above Africa route at Sennen. It comprised three Friends, five screwgates and two slings, all brand new. It was pre UKC, I asked around in the Old Success that night and again at the cliff next morning, there were no claimers and my conscience was clear.

Lost - I loaned one of a pair of a matching ropes to a pal who was off to Skye. He phoned me on return and rambled on for about half an hour before admitting to having lost the rope. He had apparantly dropped another pals set of nuts and abbed down alone to try and find them. What creased me up was his explanation that "I can't understand losing your rope, I was tied to it at the time" !

Neither lost or found - I set of from the North East with my son for a day's climbing at Shepherds in the Lakes. We arrived early and were able to park in the farm. I had put all of our gear by the front door and my son had loaded the car. When we parked up at the farm there were no ropes. My son sheepishly admitted that he had left them in his bedroom. He slept in the loft and to this day he can not explain why he carried them from the front door up two flights of stairs for no reason. We had a quick if tense trip to Keswick where I bought a new rope. Because I didn't have one I chose a 60m full weight single, it has never been used since. There were of course no parking spaces left at Shepherds when we got back .

In reply to wilkie14c:

I guess I've been pretty lucky finding gear with booty far out weighing losses. My best find was in 1992 on the Grande Jorasses. Starting up the Walker Spur, my partner found a stuff sack containing down booties, a neoprene face mask and other items. The bag had the name "Jeff" written on the outside and this was just the start of the treasure trail.

A storm forced us to retreat from above the 75m corner and we decide to ab straight down, a decision influenced by some gear hanging below. This turned out to be a Lafuma rucksack attached to an equalised anchor of a peg, a nut and a size 2 Friend. Peg seemed sound so the nut and Friend were added to our rack. Every 165 feet we came across text book anchors so the gear piled up. A large grey bag contained an A5 double portalege which I dutifully added to our booty. Later came a stuff sack containing a brand new Chouinard rope and a load of energy drinks, food and two bandoleers of gear hanging from a spike.

Somewhere I have a great photo of me on the glacier below the Walker with all the booty which included, Camalots, Friends, pegs, Birdbeaks, copperheads, nuts etc. The portaledge bag was inscribed "Jeff Lowe, Boulder, Colorado" and apparently the previous winter Jeff and Catherine Destiville had been attempting a new line. Ironically Jeff had been in the climbing press advocating climbers to clear up the mess they had left on mountains. We were glad to help Jeff out with this noble cause and felt we had cleaned up on the mountain big time.

Actually, I did try to contact Jeff and wrote to him explaining how we had cleaned up after him and jokingly I asked if he still had some of the bits of the portaledge that were missing. Needless to say I never heard back from him.

In reply to wilkie14c:
Lost:
several nuts and slings after baling out of something on the Buachaille after going off route. Frustratingly, we'd managed to get onto easy ground and scramble down most of it, with just one final abseil needed right at the very end.

A very long sling abandoned when baling out of something in the Northern Corries in poor snow conditions. Replaced with an even longer one!

An entire bunch of wires my partner dropped into the sea from Dream of White Horses.

Also a random assortment of wires, nut keys and other bits of kit. Most recently when my partner strayed off the Micah Finish at Tremadog onto the Plum, using my rack

Found:
A brand-new spliced rope sling on Little Tryfan

A day's beachcombing at the foot of Ben Nevis North Face once resulted in a treasure trove of rock pegs, warthogs, rusty krabs, a deadman and a single leather boot (without a foot - we looked), all presumably debris from winter epics deposited there when the snow thawed.

Also a random assortment of wires, nut keys and other bits of kit.

I take a philosophical view of crag swag - what goes around comes around. I do find I have a peculiar attachment to scavenged gear, and if I lose stuff that's just part of the game. I think it's usually obvious from the context in which it's found whether crag swag rules apply or something is simply forgotten.

With my partners we have an unwritten rule that anything contributed to bailing out the team is a shared cost, while losses attributable to individual muppetry are borne by the perpetrator. Of course, due to my many years' experience it is usually the case that failure to remove a nut I've placed must be my second's fault, whereas if I fail to remove a nut it must be because the leader placed it badly

In reply to Howard J:







Of course, due to my many years' experience it is usually the case that failure to remove a nut I've placed must be my second's fault, whereas if I fail to remove a nut it must be because the leader placed it badly

If when leading I find a bit of in situ gear I usually clip it without telling my second. That way they almost always retrieve it, whereas if you announce it as not being your own they rarely make enough effort.

In reply to Howard J:

Its alarming the number of tales of gear going walkies from a busy crag in daylight. I bet there is a ready made market here for a little safe bag that can be clipped to the back of ones harness where you can put car keys, phone and money/debit card. As many do, I just leave all of this stuff in the top pocket of the rucksack which is tempting fate. I always manage room on my person for baccy & lighter though, perhaps my priorities are totally wrong!

In reply to Howard J:


I suspect that, since the leashless revolution, scavenging along the foot of popular winter crags in the spring might be a particularly profitable investment of effort. But does not using idiot loops/springer thingys, constitute sufficient muppetry to invoke swag rules?

In reply to wilkie14c:
When I first took my wife climbing in West Penwith, she was was very surprised at how trusting (she called it naive) climbers were, including me, as each time I would make out to set off leaving the sacks behind with everything in the top pocket. That might be because her nearest parallel was going off for a surf, leaving her car and hidden keys in a car park by a beach. Theft was rife, apparently.

I never had anything taken from my left stuff by a crag, but I did have my car broken into at Bosi car park, while I was doing Autumn Flakes.

In reply to mbh:

Soon after I started climbing I climbed Gimmer Chimney with a French woman who was not used to climbing on trad gear and left one of my hexes behind. The next spring I joined my local mountaineering club, and the first time I went out with them I teamed up with an older climber. I said to him, 'The cord on your hex is the same as the cord on mine'. He replied, 'I found it on Gimmer Chimney'. He insisted on returning it to me despite my protestations.

In reply to abseil:


Bouldering Matt?

In reply to John2:

Not really related, except as another example of the politeness one so often finds in people, but when I was a young, and I looked even younger, grad student at Sussex University, I was once queuing for the very nice cheese rolls that they served in the tea room. The queue was quite long, and I was at the back. An elderly, august and terribly senior Professor (the chess player Jonathan Mestel's dad, in fact) pushed in in front of me, clearly without having seen me. When, shortly, he did, he was insistent, despite my protestations, that I move in front of him. "It's a matter of principle", I distinctly remember him saying, over 25 years later.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Undoubtedly. If you're going to go leashless and not use springy thingies the consequences are obvious, and you've only yourself to blame. Crag swag rules apply, although given the cost of axes I think you can be forgiven for asking for their return if found. Expect a good ribbing if you do.

In reply to wilkie14c, my chalkbag has pockets which will take a phone, wallet, car-keys etc. Of course if you drop your chalk-bag...

In reply to Howard J:

If anyone happens to be in the bergschrund below the Croz with time on their hands, would they mind having a look for my Chacal; I think that's where it will have ended up (in 1985) and I really need it back. (Was using leashes then, but clearly hadn't quite grasped the basics.)

In reply to wilkie14c:

Lost a brand new nut and QD on my 1st lead at the dewerstone, dropped it as my 2nd passed it over, never to be seen again.

Then on a diff I found a nut on a sling-draw in a very obvious place so assumed it had be welded into the rock but I poked it and it slid out. No one about so I claimed it.

In reply to Blue Straggler:


Roll Matt?

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Yeah he's the lad I used to go bouldering with, how did you know?

In reply to Howard J:



Yes, something like an old school deep chalk bag but with the bottom half separate and a secure zipper so you can put your stuff in. Come on someone, Alpkit?

In reply to ChrisBrooke:

Matt finish. Beer Matt.

In reply to wilkie14c:

I've just been browsing this thread. I love the idea of a chalk bag with a secure zippered pocket! I will mention your idea to our Product Guys! Perhaps they can work it in with the new custom mutant mats the factory have been creating this week.

Ashleigh
Alpkit Team

In reply to wilkie14c:

It is not exactly crag swag , as I don't climb serious stuff . But I have lost and found a few items over the years.
Lost :
Sunglasses . I leave a trail of sunglasses wherever I go in the mountains , usually cheap ones thankfully .

Found : Dozens of walking pole baskets and rubber tips . Considerable length of climbing rope from the kinder downfall area . Leki walking pole from Ben nevis summit . A few gloves .....

In reply to alpash:

At the wall I always find myself wishing my otherwise excellent rope bag (DMM) had a small pocket for car keys and other small, easily lost items. Do you do rope bags?

In reply to EarlyBird:

chalk bags come with zippered pockets. Mine holds a petzl elite, roll of finger tape, Keys, lighter, few cigs, and Mobile Phone at a push.

In reply to wilkie14c:

I have the pink Wild country chalk bag with a pocket. I used to use it to hold my phone; now it holds plasters, a BMC card (possibly expired), various climbing wall memberships and a lighter (should I want to melt the ends of tat). It is not very big though, and a slightly awkward shape.

In reply to Choss:

Your local wall sounds a lot more serious than mine!

In reply to alpash:

Great stuff! I'll happily product test it for you as long as the pocket is bigenough for fags and iphone <candy crush on belays>

Seriously though, big enough for keys, bank card/money, headtorch maybe, few jelly babys, phone

In reply to andrewmcleod:

I've owned a few chalk bags with pockets but they are either too small to be of practical use or the fastening isn't secure enough. Something like an old skool troll chalk bag, top half for chalk, bottom half for the stuff I mentioned, zippered with a velcro flap over the zipper for extra security.

In reply to EarlyBird:

We are currently designing a lot of climbing soft goods at the moment and a rope bag is in the pipeline. So keep checking back on the Alpkit website and hopefully the design will be complete and ready for purchase soon!

Cheers,
Ashleigh - Alpkit Team

In reply to wilkie14c:

Lost; Taking on a nice multi pitch route at Echo Valley, Spain, as a larger group. People were already a few pitches up when the last trio started their ascent. While mantling a very large outcrop/boulder the lead (also exped leader) took a fall. This pulled the No.3 Friend, dislodging the boulder (the size of a car) and led to a 20m fall onto a ledge. Badly hurt with a broken leg, dislocations and fractured clavicle the rest of the group had to make hast (safely) down the face while a rescue operation ensued, leaving gear in the cliff as they came down.

The injured individual is now ok and stayed the rest of the trip in a wheelchair.

A couple of days on we told our story to another expedition at sierra de toix, who had climbed echo the day before. Not only had they seen the bare rock and damage to the road (when the boulder hit it, it resembled an IED crater). They had subsequently climbed the route finding gear as they went considering themselves very fortunate!

On hearing our story they returned the gear to us and completed our racks once again. 1x nut key still missing though. Thankyou to the people that helped out that day and the other group for returning our kit.


Callum

In reply to wilkie14c:
Lost:
A party of 3 of us had got to the stance above P2 of Stoat's Crack, Pavey Ark. A very pleasant climb it was turning out to be. I'd led up to below a tricky move on P3 and suddenly it starts peeing it down. Couldn't carry on as everything has just become really slick. Sat on a ledge for half an hour waiting for it to stop and then decided to shamefully abb of leaving behind a sling and a screwgate on a good spike. My mate wanted to leave even more gear as back up but I convinced him otherwise by bounce testing the spike. Easy pickings for some lucky person and probably didn't stay there very long as the weather cleared up as we were abbing - typical.

Found:
On the Knights Move pitch of Grooved Arete, Tryfan. We'd let a couple go ahead as they had to get back to pick up their kid. The second had abandoned a stuck hex on wire. She shouted down that we could keep it if we could get it out. I got up to this gear, just above the crux, had a quick fiddle with it and it popped out easily. Suddenly realising I was a bit run out, I but it back where it came from and clipped it. Shortly afterwards it started snowing and I got off route, causing us some moments umming and ahhing before finishing the route when the snow abated. I keep it in my rack but feel a little guilty pang about how easily it came out after she'd spent 10 minutes with no joy.

In reply to wilkie14c:

Lost: Lots of bits and bobs. The memorable ones were a rack of nuts dropped from near the top of the Penon d'Ifac, thankfully mostly recoverable... after we finished the route without them and a lot of other kit we'd forgotten or dropped along the way. A yellow half rope missed under (or maybe hanging from) FBD as we ran to escape a cloud burst. An old Friend 2, probably dropped at Burbage. A small green 3CU in the roof of a seacave on the IoM, it put up a hell of a fight before I abandoned it. It subsequently ripped a big chunk of a mate's finger off when his aid gear blew while he was trying to salvage it!

Found: Lots of krabs, slings, quickdraws and quite a few nuts. My best find, not climbing related was a very big, very gaudy pink gold mechanical watch that I nearly ran over in a ferry carpark. Probably worth a couple of grand at a guess.

jk

In reply to wilkie14c:

Lost:
Various odd nuts, two belay plates and (not really "lost" as such) various tat - All part of normal attrition imho.

A thermarest - no idea where this went
A duvet jacket - ditto
A gri-gri - accidentally left at the Rockface (RIP) as the staff were as usual in a tearing hurry to kick everyone out. The two very used crabs and manky old belay plate it was clipped to were subsequently recovered from where they had been hidden at the bottom of the lost property box in a locked cupboard.

Lost and subsequently recovered:
Copy of Peak Grit East, accidentally left at Stanage - it had my name in it and the chap who picked it up got in touch through here.

A sling and crab left on a disused railway viaduct in rural Warwickshire - picked up by someone who knew me and given back in a pub in cenral Brum a few weeks later.

Found:
Various odd nuts and tat.

A washing-up brush, rammed into a crack at the top of Wrinkle where it appeared to have been used as a belay. (Not sure why, as I really don't see how you could run out of gear on the last pitch!) Had the owner's phone number on it, made contact as regards the brush but never quite dared ask about the belay.

A small cam, stuck in a route at Froggatt - took ages to get out, advertised it on here but never claimed. Still got it.

Another cam, "stuck" in a route at the Roaches - took me under a minute (having small hands really helps sometimes) to get out after the owner gave up when it started pouring with rain. Caught up with the owner in the tea rooms and gave it back, got bought cheesecake.

A polo shirt, filthy and floating in a muddy puddle - took it home and washed it and it turned out to be my size and in good nick. I have been known to wear it to work.

Neither lost nor found, but a lovely example:
Had just bought new rock shoes, so rocked up at the crag with two pairs. Got talking to the woman struggling to get started seconding the next route along in walking boots as she'd forgotten her stickies. Lent her my old pair.
Got back to the bottom some time later ... to discover my shoes very neatly propped up against my rucksac with a mars bar tucked into one of them as a thank-you. :

In reply to wilkie14c:

Years ago we were leaving the Plantation Car Park at dusk. My eye was drawn to something shiny on the ground near the car - it looked like a funny washer - like an olive you put in a pipe join. I put it on the car seat, and sometime during the journey home it musdt have fallen onto the floor and rolled under the seat. About a year later, maybe longer, my head gasket blew up, and when clearing the car out, I found the 'washer' again. Upon looking more closely, and in daylight, it turned out to have an inscription on it - Jeez, it was a ring, maybe a wedding ring!

I phone Hathersage Police Station got the address of the person who had registered it lost all that time ago. I had a few nervous moments - what if they'd split up in the meantime and I was just going to open old wounds, or cause an argument which had been forgotten about. Anyhow, I sent it off with massive apologies for its very tardy return, and a few weeks later received a quick-draw and a note of thanks.

If you're reading this, I still feel bad about having it rolling under the car seat all that time - sorry!

Lex