UKC

I was out climbing in the peak district today. I have not climbed much in the area. My partner and I went out with the intention of doing a few routes and to get practice in setting-up a couple of retrievable abseils.

As I was setting one up a pair climbing on the route next to us topped-out and we had a brief conversation , where we told the guy I was setting up abseil anchors , my partner and I would abseil down , do another route then retrieve the gear .

After we had done our second route and went to get the gear it had gone. I called down the route to see if anyone had taken it , thinking it had been abandoned and had no reply.

When we got back down I approached the guy we had spoken to and asked if he had seen our gear ? He went to his ruck sack and got the stuff out, telling me he thought it had been left behind.

Maybe it was a misunderstanding or just bad etiquette

I feel vexed by this.

I leave gear, kit at the bottom and top of the crag on the understanding that other climbers will respect your belongings.

When I have been out climbing when someone has left a nut in their second could not get out, I retrieved it and gave it back to them.I consider that good manners.

In reply to mrgleb:

I would guess the chap didn't think it was a good place to abseil, so made his point by taking your gear down for you.

The chap sounds like a massive cock for taking your gear if it was obvious what it was there for.

It is common practice to walk down when cragging, to abseil down ties up the route that someone else could be using. Perhaps this was the issue?

In reply to ablackett:

I would usually walk off , but just wanted to get a bit of practice in for multi-pitch route abseil retreats.If I was in someones way then I would take that on board and learned a lesson , but hey give me my gear back !

In reply to mrgleb:
Sounds well out of order from what you describe....he was robbing your gear.

In reply to mrgleb:

If i understand you correctly

you climbed a route and left your gear in preventing anyone else getting on it
you rapped
you went and climbed a second route
you then returned to get your gear from first route

i would be miffed if i walked up to a route and found i couldn't get on it because gear had been left in the route while the owner was climbing a different route.
i think, if i have understood you correctly, that you have not acted in a very thoughtful manner and you should really have thanked them for clearing up your error
if they were intent on theft they would have told you they did not have your gear

In reply to mrgleb:

Sounds like this guy basically tried to rob you... Too many climbers are too keen to obtain 'crag swag'.

It would indeed be bad etiquette to leave gear in a route while you climb another, but leaving an anchor set up at the top is not a terrible crime (although personally I would have taken it down before starting another route) and I assume you collected your lead gear on the way down?

In reply to mrgleb:

In reply to Jim Walton:

From your post it sounds like you left your gear at the top of the crag and someone walked off with it, despite knowing who it belonged to. Doesn't exactly sound like the most honest approach to me if I'm honest.

You have every right to feel aggrieved. If I found a well set up anchor system at the top of a route I'd just climbed I'd probably set up a belay off it-not rob it! Not sure if that counts as bad etiquette on my part, but I'd say thanks and happily chat to the owner if they came to retrieve it whilst my second was still climbing!

Mike.

In reply to mrgleb:

From that description, I would have almost certainly got the police involved. Stolen, pure and simple

In reply to Conan:

or possibly a kind individual helpfully collecting abandoned/lost gear in order to return to the OP via the miracle of the internet

it's not normal practice to leave gear on the crag on routes or rap stations

In reply to John Kelly:



Generalising, yes. But the OP had a conversation explaining why the gear was there and explaining they'd be back to collect it. Yet the person involved took it anyway.

Indefensible.

In reply to Otis:

i think you are being hasty calling the chap a thief on the strength of the OP statement, it was a 'brief conversation' so it may not have been totally clear

had i seen someone leave gear and walk off at a popular crag i would have wanted to take some action to ensure the gear got back to the owner, that might of included collecting it to a place of safety

while there have been some famous exceptions(generally regretted later)i find climbers to be a very honest bunch - you hear a lot about crag swag but crag swag was unavoidable when, pre internet, there was no hope of returning kit

IMO the gear shouldn't have been left in the way described by the OP

In reply to mrgleb:

The gear I left was a couple of hexes , slings and screw gates.There was no other gear left on the route as my second had cleaned it. Plus there was nobody else on the route after we had finished it. You could not see our belay from the bottom of the crag, so if another team climbed it they would find a belay at the top that they could have used, I have no problem with that.I guess in the future I will just have to find some remote crag if I want to get some practice in belay , anchor and abseil set-up.It was not my intention to hog routes and cause bad feeling.

In reply to John Kelly:

Going from the OPs description, I'm assuming that the other party were aware of their intention to collect the gear later. On this basis the other party is a thief. Pure and simple. However, I fully appreciate that we're heading into semantics here and only the other party can know what info they gained from the 'brief' conversation.

We'll have to agree to disagree whether it's acceptable to temporarily leave gear at the top of a crag though. If it's not inconveniencing anyone then I personally see no problem whatsoever.

Cheers,

Mike.

In reply to mrgleb:

i misunderstood your earlier post
rap gear left at the top would in no way interfere with others
still feel it's not wise to leave gear

In reply to Otis:

I think it's clear now from the additional info that access to the route was not impeded - i was wrong
Personally would not leave gear except in extremis
I would not be happy making the assumption you suggest about the motives of others but as you say we can agree to differ

cheers
John

In reply to Otis:



Agreed. Indefensible to the degree that he had stuffed it in his ruck sack, and then went on to deny that he knew who it belonged to. Knob.

Over the years I have seen the old standards being eroded. We are climbers, we have standards, let's uphold them and educate the newcomers (and that knob that tried to rob you).

In reply to mrgleb:

Point of Note.

He did not Rap, and he was not Rapping. He was abseiling.

Unless he was in the States, or some such place, where Rapping is what they do. In the UK we Abseil.

In reply to Removed User:

Were do you get 'denied knowing who it belongs to' I thought the chap you accused felt it had been left because the OP had wandered off to do a different route
It maybe that mischief was intended but there are loads of posts on here were individuals pick up lost or abandoned gear and subsequently return it via the web. In all case's they have to at some stage taken possession of the lost kit, would that also count as a theft?

In reply to mrgleb:

At a more pragmatic level, it's the Peak District, and a Bank Holiday weekend.
You were probably seen to be 'hogging' routes or belay points.
He was making a point, but also being a knob.
You are new to the sport, possibly, but the other guy was being rather antagonistic (intentionally),
I would have behaved differently if I was the other character.
Any input Jon Stewart, Offwidth please?

In reply to John Kelly:

You are absolutely right.

In reply to Removed User:




Rap French
Ab German
Maybe slither for uk

In reply to Removed User:

Ouch

In reply to John Kelly:

I'm living in Germany right now and have for the last three years. Everyone I climb with says Rappel. Are they humouring me!

In reply to Removed User:

Probably

In reply to Removed User:

No, rappel is the French verb to slow down so it was adopted for abseiling and picked up by many Europeans. In the USA it's lets do some awesome radical rappin' duuuuude!

In reply to mrgleb:

Sounds like your conversation wasn't particularly clear or the guy was nicking your gear. I'm not sure its anything to do with etiquette particularly.

In reply to John Kelly:

[...]



This was at one time referred to as 'roping down' for reasons lost in the mists of time it has been replaced by 'abseil' in the UK

In reply to 999thAndy:



It still is. Just in German. ab = down, seil = rope

In reply to Removed User:

Quite right. Lets get back to traditional climbing values.
Shoplifting in Chamonix! Nails in boots!

And while I'm at it, another thing. Morbid obesity. When did the obese become morbid? Fat people are supposed to be jolly!

In reply to mrgleb:

I was going to start an obnoxious thread about climbing etiquette (or lack of) the other day but I shall just add my frustrations about climbers that have no manners to this thread...

Im not incredibly experienced in climbing and bouldering yet and when I was clearly working a problem or two in a confined space two other (more experienced) guys were doing a circuit, came up and just started climbing where I obviously was, they took a good 15 mins or more, and practically pretended I didn't exist...really disheartens me when there seems to be no communication, or acknowledgement of my existence.