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Ricardo Cabeza
climber
the land of puppies and waterfalls and rainbows
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Topic Author's Original Post - Dec 24, 2009 - 02:33pm PT
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The lost hoodie at Wagonwheel had me rembering my own experiences leaving gear behind.
I was out at Pyramid lake, on the West shore, up near the smoking pyramids a few years back.
We went out to escape the winter weather and get a little bouldering in.
We pull up to a tufa formation and walk to the top. Much herbal relief ensues.
If you've been to this particular formation, you know the roof on the left side that makes for a fun hand traverse about 15' up. You also know that the tufa is really sharp (duh) and brittle (duh).
Well, I pumped out playing on the roof and we decided to re-up the buzz.
Out comes a substance that rhymes with crash.
Twenty minutes later, we are puddles of our former selves and decide to head back to Pig Rock and then Truckee.
Fast forward one week. I get ready to go bouldering and find that my shoes, chalkbag, and crashpad are missing.
I tear the house apart for an hour or so before it clicks.
An hour later, a buddy who I bribed with a six pack and I are racing east into the desert.
No kidding, a week later my pad is open below the roof traverse with my aces and chalkbag sitting EXACTLY where I left them!!
Has anyone else left gear in a totally obvious place and re-found it?
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FeelioBabar
Trad climber
One drink ahead of my past.
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Dec 24, 2009 - 02:43pm PT
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Drove away once with the Wife's wallet on top of the car...leaving a very small Utah town.
fast forward an hour....she freaks realizing it's gone...we drive back an hour....search all over the rest stop. nuthin...as I expected.
make out way back to the on ramp...not stoked...then I start laughing super hard.
She gets mad..."what's so funny?"
I point to the wallet....sitting on the center line of the on ramp....2 hours after it fell there.
amazing.
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Raafie
Trad climber
Portland, OR
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Dec 24, 2009 - 02:43pm PT
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I left a pair of brand-new hiking boots at the trailhead at the end of a weekend hike while in the scouts. It was a Sunday afternoon. The next Thursday while getting ready for our most important week-long summer hike, I realized I must have left my boots at the trailhead. Was shocked to find, after racing back out there almost an hour away, there were my boots (and socks) sitting right on the bench where I'd left them. Relief!
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brat
climber
El Portal
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Dec 24, 2009 - 02:48pm PT
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My watch sat at the base of Manure Pile for 2 weeks, and was right where I'd left it when I finally went back looking.
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nutjob
Trad climber
Berkeley, CA
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Dec 24, 2009 - 03:02pm PT
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Left a few long rope sections, #1 #3 #5 Camalot, and assorted nuts and biners on a climb. Came back a year later and got it all back!
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Dec 24, 2009 - 03:03pm PT
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The first time I was on the North Buttress of Middle Cathedral, my partner dropped a couple of my prized wired Rocks way up there (around p11). They disappeared into the void below. A couple of years later, we were walking up to the base of the North Face Apron, when I spotted some booty uncovered by recent rains. I found 2 of my wired Rocks there. The cables were a bit rusted, but they cleaned up nice with a wire brush and the nuts went back on my rack.
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Dec 24, 2009 - 03:20pm PT
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I took a daisy fall, 3/4s of the the way up leaning tower. The fall snaps the cable on a micro nut, so I clean it and toss the now useless scrap over my shoulder. Two days later I'm hauling my sh#t down past the base and walla - there it is sitting pretty perfect on a boulder. Took it home and still use it to start conversations and impress people.
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Weenis
Trad climber
Tel Aviv
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Dec 24, 2009 - 03:33pm PT
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October, 1978, me and a friend are doing Moby dick Center. I lead the pitch and as my partner follows I hear something rattling down the crack. Well that was his stash box that fell out of his shirt pocket.
Spring of 1979 and I'm back there with another friend. I lead up to where it's inch and a half and there is some debris in the crack so I warn him and start tossing it. Out comes the stash box and the couple of grams of hash.
Huh?
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Jingy
Social climber
Flatland, Ca
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Dec 24, 2009 - 03:56pm PT
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Whahahaha!!!
These stories (if anywhere near true) are gems, indeed!
LOL
Ricardo has the best replacement word: .. "that rhymes with crash Crash"... priceless!!!
Nutjob has the longest timespan : full year?
And weenis wins (so far) for best receovery of substance...!!! Kick a$$!!!
(I think I might tell that story at somepoint... cause its a good one!!)
Too bad I have no memory... I may have lost plenty in my climbing life, but due to faulty wiring, don't recall ever realizing the loss.
Cheers to all!!!
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ec
climber
ca
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Dec 24, 2009 - 04:32pm PT
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'left a once treasured red GPIW t-shirt on a rock next to the road at a bouldering area in plain view of the passing cars. Came back a week later and it was still right where I had left it...
I lost this cool extra large p38-type can opener at The Needles. Something like five years (and many trips to the same spot) later I'm standing there and it is there at my feet...
Did the last ascent of WPOD for the year with my then girlfriend long ago. She couldn't remove a couple of Stoppers from one of the belays. I said f*k it and left them. 'Came back in the spring and they were back on the rack!
Took this guy from the 'neighborhood' on the 'S' Crack at The Needles and he lost one of his brand-new Converse All Stars when the laces untied. He had a painful descent with an EB on one foot. A year or so later, a climbing buddy of mine pulls this shoe out of a pile in his garage, telling me how he just managed to pull through the squeeze chimney crux to see this shoe sitting in front of him on the next stance eye-level with him, as if on display. I delivered the shoe, only to find he had tossed the mate...
 ec
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Fritz
Trad climber
Hagerman, ID
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Dec 24, 2009 - 04:43pm PT
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Late Sept 1972, 3 of us have lunch in a restaurant in Cranbrook BC, then drive hours north to the turnoff into the Bugaboos.
Before starting up the road, we move around some gear and I can’t find my 35mm camera. Then I remember! The last time I saw it was during lunch in Cranbrook.
It is a very important possession to me, and the only camera on the trip. We drive out a few miles, find a phone booth and manage to locate the restaurants number. They had the camera.
We drove 150 miles back to Cranbrook, thanked everyone, and drove back to the Bugaboo road: arriving at the roadhead well after dark.
I found this incident noted in my 1972 climbing journal last week. Otherwise, I had forgotten and suppressed the memory of being: "such a dumbass."
Two good things came of forgetting the camera.
1 The very muddy road had frozen over by the time we drove up it, which probably saved us major grief.
2. Going in at night saved us having to deal with the many logging trucks using the road. (I have had way too many close calls with log trucks.)
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
Sprocketville
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Dec 24, 2009 - 04:55pm PT
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a hash pipe fell out of my pants on a trail somewhere in the Aquarian Valley.
2 months later i am hiking on the secret trail and low and behold,
fast forward to a gleeful specimen hunkered down in the brush with residuals
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Dec 24, 2009 - 06:12pm PT
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Here's one (second hand) that's hard to believe, but knowing the people I'm sure its true. Girl is hiking in Arizona. Her beloved big white malamute dog is either lost or stolen. They spend two extra days in area hoping dog will return, but no luck. They finally begrudgingly leave the area to finish their 3 month road trip. A week later they are driving up the coast of California and she suddenly gets this urge to stop for a walk on the beach. While she's walking her dog comes galloping up and jumps on her. The people with the dog have some BS story and say its their dog but the affection belies their words. Kind of a few awkward moments then they leave, leaving the dog with its rightful owner. Mysterious things happen in this world.
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OlympicMtnBoy
climber
Seattle
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Dec 24, 2009 - 07:33pm PT
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I once found a brand new big Petzl locking biner on the top of a nearby sport route clipped to the end of a chain, was my favorite biner for a year or so for various reasons till I thought I lost it in the snow on a remote ice climb. FOUR YEARS later I help my parents move our old recliner over to the neighbors. He calls up the next day and has my biner that fell out of the recliner working. Go figure. :-)
No competition to some of these other stories though.
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Scared Silly
Trad climber
UT
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Dec 24, 2009 - 08:22pm PT
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One fall, doing an aid pitch on the Fin in Little Cottonwood Canyon. I can not what happened other than I dropped a 0 Camalot, it was airborne for 300 feet and then dropped into the scrub oak and leaves. Kind of a bummer cause it was new. Two days latter I went up the gully at the bottom of the route and did some climbs. On the way down I bush whacked into the drop zone. Thought there might be a chance of finding it. Sure enough, found it on the ground down the leaves. Stuck it back on my rack.
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spot
Boulder climber
Atascadero,Ca
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Dec 24, 2009 - 08:26pm PT
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Not climbing related - but about five years ago I was vacationing in Maui with the family, went into the surf for awhile and noticed I lost my watch. Pissed, I got out of the water and found it washed up on the beach. I put it back on and proceeded to lose it again (think I would have learned - velcro pos watchband), never to recover it.
Later that afternoon, my wife goes through her beach bag and found a watch that wasn't ours, a women's watch that we guessed a passer-by found, assumed it was hers and tossed it in the bag - bonus! It was better than the watch I lost.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Dec 25, 2009 - 02:29am PT
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Rapping Sons of Yesterday via Super Slide I found a cam on a ledge. Was excited a bit until I realized it was mine.
Bootied some other gear off a climb once or twice only to find my own markings on it!
WTF!
Peace
Karl
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squatch
Boulder climber
santa cruz, CA
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Dec 25, 2009 - 03:02am PT
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last month me and a couple of buddies did the Tower in a day. two of us are at the hanging belay at the top of the sixth pitch waiting for our friend to finish the seventh. after many minutes of lame harness hanging i decide to make a 'daisy seat'. after settling in my friend says "hey something fell, was that your wallet?" (yeah who brings there frickin wallet in there back pocket on a wall)
so the next day we hike up the base and proceed to booty all kinds of other stuff, but no wallet, until i see my green credit card smiling at me and my friend spots the wallet a couple feet away.
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Lone Quail
Trad climber
Littleton, Colorado
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Dec 25, 2009 - 08:44am PT
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My rack was short by one #0.3 Camalot when I sorted gear at camp one evening. The next day I returned to the base of the climbs I had recently been on, but didn't find the piece. About a year later I repeated one of the routes and to my surprise found the wayward piece under a small bush. By that time though I had already bought a new one for my rack.
Also, two months after loosing a guide book I hiked back into the area specifically to search for it. I found it on the ground between two widely separated climbs. Apparently it had fallen out of an open pack pocket. The book is a bit trashed from exposure to the elements, but my personal notes are still there.
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mongrel
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Dec 25, 2009 - 10:42am PT
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Man, some people are up early on Christmas morning! Hope you're going skiing.
Funniest incident of wayward gear I've experienced was losing my New Hampshire guidebook in the horrendous puckerbrush on top of Cannon Mtn after doing the Direct Direct (for the second time in a week, what a fantastic route). Some many months, or maybe a year or more later, I'm at a party or something, people are introducing themselves, and someone says, hey, I know your name, I have your guidebook! And back it comes to me. It's those kinds of events that are good to keep always in mind, we all owe some kind of favor to some unknown person, keep the good karma circulating around.
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