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thats a great idea moonbeam.
its not that this is the first time its happend. and whats the shitter is you cant talk to anyone that spends time with a drill or on projects and them not have had their stuff taken. just nonsense.

the gear you take off routes that have been requipped has been donated by the community, everyone should be pissed.

i dont really care if the people that know better ever come out, just stop the bullshit. if you see someone out at the crag taking some stuff that is obviously not booty, talk to them and see whats up they may just not know.

I hate to hear this comment that was said by a "Guide". I think that this comment comes a lot from people (with bad attitudes) teaching other newer climbers.

As for me and my fellow guides, any gear we retrieve, anywhere, is always posted and sent back to the person who left it. In exchange for the shipping of course. I have a huge box that has never been claimed.

I always tell my clients to lower off if they get into trouble, call me, and I will get their gear back for them.

Hope this helps repair the "Guides" image.

I am going to start a new trend in 2k10 - going to start stripping all the hangers and anchors from old routes, and then recycling the gear to use on new routes! It is the green thing to do, and, really, how many more times do I need to climb sunshine?

Seriously though, if I have to start locking fixed gear to the wall, I would rather just stop installing it in the first place. Or, maybe we do need a couple more secret crags where I could leave my rack hanging on the wall for a few weeks without worrying about someone stealing it. Not climbers, of course. Probably those damn hikers or atv people. Climbers just don't steal stuff from other climbers, they are way to cool for that.

heacocis wrote:

michaelarmand wrote:Perhaps an experiment? Try using screw links instead of biners to attach equipment to hangers. This would make it obvious to a gumby or other moron that the gear is not abandoned. And if it still gets taken then we are dealing with a calculating thief.....

Unless I misunderstand you, most of what we are talking about here is exactly equipment being attached by quicklinks (what you are calling screwlinks, I assume). For example, on one of my routes I included four quicklinks (two off of each bolt hanger) at the anchor, and they were taken along with my project draws I left on the route.

Gotcha, we are dealing with wrench weilding thief. Who the hell wants to steal quicklinks?

lena_chita wrote:I really do think that it is people who don't know any better taking this stuff, instead of malicious thiefs.

We left the 'biner where it was. But 2 weeks later when I came back, it wasn't there-- so probably someone else thought it was a booty, too...

I honestly think the majority of the problem is that people are not realizing that the quicklinks are for cleaning purposes. Think of how many climbers come through the Red. If even 1% of them did not know any better, that would account for a lot of jacked gear.

Unfortunately, there are the bad eggs and there are the ignorant. We can put our faith in a lot of people, but not all. And for those we can't, loctite that gear.

In response to Lena ... this is why I love cleaning bolts, although they are rare in the Red. Regardless, your friend is right: it's abandoned gear and thus, booty. The question is, how much work/risks do you want to endure to retrieve it?

I always figure that the guy who takes my cleaner booty will take the hard swing into the foliage, and possibly get reamed by the tree. For that to happen to a bitch is worth about treefity

Unfortunately, you only have one choice. Accept your gear is going to get stolen eventualy. No matter what, the ignorant bad eggs are going to show up and take what can be taken. Sucks but that is a fact.

The idea of plastic ties is by far the best.



One additional idea, if one is so inclined, is to go to a garden store and get one of those weather-resistant tags and loop it through the plastic tie. You could write a note like 'project draws/cleaning draws, please do not remove'

That way, you can at least force the dilemma, i.e., force the climber to make a conscious and deliberate effort to take gear they know is not booty. The climber would have to steal it, thus removing any doubt whether they are a thief.

Of course, that might not be a ton of consolation for the time, effort, and money going in to it...

plastic ties is a good idea. practical, cheap, and effective (at least effective for the folks who steal out of ignorance, which are probably the majority)