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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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As Jon Beck pointed out, there are found hat stories, too.
Kelly Laakso and I were returning atop Swan Slab after climbing The Commitment when I spied a brown checked knit flat hat that might have been equally at home on a golf course as on the head of a hiker or climber. Expandable, too.
It fit well, was warm and light and easily stowable and even kept my ears warm if I wished it.
That was in 1986 or so; I managed to hang on to it until about ten years ago when the void came and snatched it.
And I don't think I missed it for quite a while.
Easy come and so it goes.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Fritz...I had the same exact helmet when I took it off to lead the fat man chimney on the column direct . I clipped it to my rack only to have it go careening back down the chimney . Looking back I should have left it .
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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I was sixteen, spring break, San Felipe, Baja. My friends' family had a twenty year lease on a plot of land outside of town. I brought $8 for the week, and spent $3 on this monstrous and ridiculous sombrero. Like extend-your-arms-all-the-way-to-reach-the-brim sombrero. We spent lazy days building sand fortresses against the inexorable tides that would swallow them; we wandered the town, I locked eyes and fell in love with a beautiful girl working for her mom in a food stand; she took me to a dance out in an open field, with speakers playing off a flat bed truck and plywood sheets spread out for the dance floor. It was all pretty innocent, but absolutely the pinnacle of existence for a pre-sexual adolescent. This is supposed to be about the hat....
So one morning, the wind had kicked up, and to my horror I discovered that the sombrero had blown away! We didn't see when it actually flew off... it could have been anywhere by then. My friends and I ran down the beach, don't know how long, looking around, but about a half mile or a mile away, we found it lazily arcing and listing along the sand, at the persistent prodding of the wind. Glorious! I kept that hat for years, it adorned my college walls, and I probably carried it with me into adulthood along with my plastic goose lamp. I don't know what became of it- probably was convinced to purge it in the early years of marital cohabitation.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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In a similar vein, after I made the FSA of the Bell Tower a gust picked up one of my rap gloves and blew it into the gap between the columns.
I looked down and, I swear, that glove repeatedly waved goodby to me.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Here's a pic not of a lost hat, but of the aftermath:
Cereal box improvisation:
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Tried to do a solo ski traverse in the Cascades. Got hit by a mondo blizzrd. An avy stole one of my poles. Thought it had made off with my skis, too. That woulda been bad. Finally found them after an hour or two. What a bitch skiing out 15 miles with one pole and a big ass pack!
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skywalker1
Trad climber
co
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Glad it didn't steal you!!!
S...
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