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jstan
climber
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Since we cannot know who left something then everything must always be left. Are we happy with that?
In that case we don't agree with Jesse's work to flush the sh#t out at the bivys on el Cap. That's a worst case but so be it. Worst cases are where arguments, like this one, always end up.
I do have a question for Jim.
Suppose the person had refused to give you the gear you claimed was yours. If you had assaulted that person, since it was only a claim that it was your gear, you would have been charged with assault and battery in another person's residence. Even were your legal defense ultimately successful, your legal fees would have far exceeded the value of your gear. From simply practical considerations, would you not agree your action was ill-advised?
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surfstar
climber
Santa Barbara, CA
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What about perma-draws?
;)
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MisterE
Social climber
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This is a situation of a known person with known fixed ropes meant to be removed
This begs the question that there is such a disconnect of the community that the perps are unaware of the above statement.
I understand the disappointment of trying to do the right thing and the time involved, only to find one has been jammed.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
bouldering
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I would assume there are still valley locals (like textbook localism). No matter how big the cred/ celebrity of somebody from Oakland or elsewhere, it still doesn't amount to nothing in Yosemite.
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jstan
climber
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Stzzo:
Abandonment dates to old English law and it phrases the question this way. Property can be assumed to have been abandoned if one can see that that was the "intention." An engine or a washing machine beside the road is an easy example. Beyond that I can say only that the amount of money expended over what is to be done with the remains of the Titanic has probably exceeded the original cost of building the Titanic.
That is why I phrased my approach in terms of abandoned climbing gear posing a denial of the rights possessed by the aggrieved party. How the aggrieved party establishes its right is up to them. They owe no debt to the party leaving the gear. None.
Personally I think treating everything as booty is ill-advised from a number of standpoints. Would you lead on a rope you found lying at the bottom of a cliff?
I wouldn't, but what any one person chooses is not a good basis for resolving a communal problem.
We have a good illustration of this right here in this thread.
I will go on.
All too often we respond out of our reptile brains to minor problems. Steve's ropes are not the functional equivalent of facing an enraged grizzly while holding only a pen knife. Sometimes I have trouble understanding why mature and very intelligent people sink this low - so regularly.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Steve, sorry to hear about your ropes - in context of existing community mores, it seems reasonably clear that they weren't out of place. It must have been a shock. Knowing such things sometimes happen isn't the same as having them happen. And the issue of equipment, of practical value to the owner if not of any great monetary value, being taken is separate from whether it ought to have been there to begin with. The latter question being somewhat but not entirely abstract.
It's maybe a bit like parking your car in a risky area, coming back, and finding it broken into. You get mad at the thief, and a bit mad at yourself, too, for knowing better but doing it anyway.
If you turn it the other way, whoever removed the ropes surely knew that they weren't abandoned, that no one had appointed them as fixed stuff police, and that someone was depending on them being there. They weren't ratty old lines to Heart Ledge, and Steve had been quite public about his plans. No excuses for doing it.
The Rules
Property left unattended in Yosemite for longer than 24 hours is considered abandoned and may be impounded. However, the National Park Service recognizes that there are circumstances when it is impractical for climbers to return to fixed ropes within 24 hours. In such cases we ask that you leave ropes and equipment in place only as long as you are actively using the lines.
• Fixing ropes to get a head start: if you decide to fix ropes part way up a route before beginning your ascent, do so only immediately before beginning your climb and remove them once you commit to the route.
• Fixing ropes to "work" a route: If you plan to return to a route regularly, leave your ropes in place only when you are actively working the route. (This does not include taking a week off to rest.)
• Established fixed ropes: Ropes like those sometimes found below Heart Ledges on El Capitan are not maintained or condoned by the National Park Service.
• Mini Traxion Lines: Same rules apply; If you fix a line for training, remove it the same day. As a courtesy, do not leave ropes or gear on popular routes that might be an eyesore or an inconvenience to other climbers.
The Reasons
Stashed gear, food, water, and fixed ropes in particular, take away from the sense of risk and adventure that climbers and other Wilderness travelers expect to experience. Most of Yosemite's climbing areas are in designated wilderness and must remain "without permanent improvements or human habitation… with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable."
Wilderness, and climbing in particular, is not intended to be convenient or easy (ironically that's why many are drawn to it). Please do your part to maintain Yosemite's wildness. In 2011 volunteers and rangers removed over four thousand feet of trash rope from Yosemite's walls, not including a few thousand feet of junk rope from the Heart Ledge rappels by conscientious climbers.
http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/fixedropes.htm
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
SLO, Ca
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And even if you are all uptight about some park service regs, who actually strips ropes off and then says nothing?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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I believe the "24 hours = abandoned" definition is mostly useful so that people (with public interest in mind) can remove stuff which has clearly been there for months/weeks without having to do extensive checking. Usually stuff like bleached/trashed ropes.
I don't think the 24 hour definition should be used to define abandonment in general.
Several times I've dropped 1-2 ropes from below Sickle Ledge, so that we were not taking 4 ropes all the way up the Nose. We planned to pick them up after topping out. But usually they were taken. Adding a note to the ropes with a pickup date and contact info might help. Nowadays I use a note but just use my worst old ropes and figure they will most likely be taken anyway. It was frustrating, though, because I figured people should use a "4 days = abandoned" definition for ropes (with no notes) on the ground below Sickle, to give people a chance to top out and then retrieve. We could have also left our extra ropes fixed instead of dropping them, to make it harder for people to take them. But that adds to congestion on an already crowded set of anchors. Probably best is to drop ropes there with a note to help clue people in.
All summer Roger and I had fixed ropes up for days and weeks at a time, for bolt replacement. Mostly in places with little traffic, and always with signs stating it was a rebolting project. I wouldn't like it if people felt they were free for the taking after 24 hours. In the past when we have fixed in areas with more traffic, including 2 ropes where Steve's were fixed (when Roger replaced the bolts on Rock Neurotic), in addition to the signs Roger tried to do the work very fast so that the ropes were down quickly. Last year one fixed line was forgotten in a miscommunication and was up until December, yikes. A friend asked me about it and I took it down immediately, but that was embarrassing.
When we did Horse Chute some years back, there were 2 ropes fixed on Dihedral Wall, but nobody showed up on the 2 days we also fixed and went up, so I dropped them to the ground. Only later did I think of the concept of people fixing one weekend, going back to work, and returning 5 days later to go up? A note would have stopped me from dropping those ropes.
In general, defining abandoned fixed ropes can be a big gray area. An extreme example would be Father Time - Mikey had ropes up there for most of 2 summers. 24 hours would be way too short there. The ropes were not at much risk for being taken, though, because very few people go up there.
Trying to put myself in Steve's shoes, I would feel frustrated for these reasons:
 I could have easily left a note on the ropes but didn't; probably thought I would be back sooner, or that a note was not needed.
out some decent/safe static lines
wondering why some (anon?) people think the WoS confession seems to brand him as a "permanent bad guy" instead of an "errant youth". Steve is really a good guy and it speaks greatly to his honesty and good spirit in helping the WoS climbers heal up and stop feeling persecuted. He volunteered the confession; did not have to do that and I don't think he feared being outed. [Edit: graniteclimber, maybe I missed the "outing" in those long WoS threads, but even if it was a prompted confession, it's still a good thing]. Many of us (me included) have done things we regretted in the past and citing "karma" is pretty insensitive and ironic.
imagine driving up solo to the Valley with just jumars, but now needing to lead 3 pitches to reach the 1 rope that is stranded up higher! So a wasted trip that was meant to clean up the wall. And probably he could have easily done those pitches if he had just brought some gear and a rope.
Steve, I have many retired lead lines that you can have if you are short of ropes for fixing for future stuff. And Roger may have some stiff 11mm statics that he is retiring which still have lots of use left in them. Maybe not as nice as the ones you had, though.
[Edit to add:]
Steve had been quite public about his plans. Public as in a few posts on the supertopo forum, yes, but not everybody who walks along the base of El Cap would have seen those posts and know whose ropes those were, not to mention if/when he'd be coming back. The solution to this uncertainty about abandonment is to leave a dated note, and refresh it if plans change.
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Anastasia
climber
InLOVEwithAris.
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Ahhh!
Leave the poor guy alone and answer the question... Did you or did you not see the ropes when you were walking at the base of El Cap? Oh wait, many of you have not gotten off the couch for months, but still have shiest to say.
Shut Up!
Don't bother speaking up unless you have an answer to his simple question. Everything else is just plain "word garbage."
At least Ship is still climbing, and he fessed up to a past mistake... Let the guy work the scene so he can find his ropes. As for the past, he was honest, got forgiven from the person that matters and that is that!
Damn fools, bunch of wankers talking sh#t while I bet most have done their share of pooping up their lives, never had the balls to clean it up like Steve.
All this is making me irritated.
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splitter
Trad climber
Cali Hodad, surfing the galactic plane
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graniteclimber,
IMHO, there is nothing more apt to bring upon oneself ill (bad karma, or whatever you wish to call it) than being unforgiving. Particularly after someone has expressed sorrow for their actions and asked for forgiveness, not only personally, but publicly. That is about as humble and deserving of forgiveness as it can get. To drag that person back through the mud again and again, over something that has already been resolved, serves absolutely no purpose. It is a sinister attempt to impinge the healing process and disrupt their peace of mind, etc!
Why?
Obviously you feel as though he shouldn't be, or shouldn't have been forgiven. The fact is, he was, the moment he confessed and asked for it, regardless of whether you or anyone else, for that matter, forgave him!
So dood, I suggest you consider your own life, because there may very well come a day when you also ask for and desire forgiveness for something. And it could very well be right here on this very same forum!
edit: I haven't read all the posts, just the first page. So if you have already apologized to Steve, then please disregard this!
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division
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Steve is really a good guy and it speaks greatly to his honesty and good spirit in helping the WoS climbers heal up and stop feeling persecuted. He volunteered the confession; did not have to do that and I don't think he feared being outed.
Clint, he was outed here on Supertopo about a month before he publicly apologized.
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Anastasia
climber
InLOVEwithAris.
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Outed... Seriously? Since when did that stop anyone from continuing lying? I've outed out others and they still claim bleached white virgin innocence, that they are actually the real victims. When someone wants to stay bad, they just twist reality. The darker the person is, the more twisted things can get.
Nope, his confession shows great character. A person that deserves his peace.
Now I am done ranting. I have better things to do.
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Da_Dweeb
climber
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Anyone else notice posts disappearing?
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raymond phule
climber
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I remember several threads where other climbers complained about his fixed lines on other routes. One possibility is that someone got tired of his fixed lines and took them down.
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Da_Dweeb
climber
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PTPP clarified:
Nope. The entire "karma" and "what goes around comes around" argument is invalid.
It was invalidated when Steve faced up to what he regreetted doing and apologized to Mark and Richard, and asked them to forgive him. It was further invalidated when Mark and Richard did indeed forgive Steve. The case has been closed.
Forgiveness is freedom from burden, and all involved in the WoS sh|tting episode are accordingly freed.
Quoted for truth. Where did I put my pony cannon...
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Powder
Trad climber
SF Bay Area
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People can be really mean, or jerks , or ***Os :[
Hope you get your ropes back!
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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You are as real as they come.
I'm with Pete on this one. Steve, I remain impressed with and humbled by your present character. To compare incidents decades removed is ridiculous. Different people involved! We are different (and better) than we were decades ago. So, no comparison between then and now should be attempted.
I totally understand the mental trauma involved in "working up to" your apology, and I reject the idea that because it took time it is somehow "forced" or invalid. So, I'd like to go on record in this context to again say flatly that the WoS thing is past, over, and done. You and I are right, Steve. And, just as you and I recently talked on the phone, I am honored, seriously, to know you now as a friend. If that's "mushy," then so be it. Few people have the courage you have displayed as a CLIMBER in every sense of that term.
Hopefully whoever took your ropes will quickly realize how indefensible that act was and contact you soon with at least a small fraction of the decency you recently displayed to Mark and I. It's not just the loss of the gear; it's the sense of being violated. The takers need to make that right. And I'm sure you would respond with grace.
IF the people that took your ropes are on the Taco, I sure hope they get the message that we are a community and need to act like one! We all screw up at times, and we sometimes step on each other's toes. But we're all trying to be CLIMBERS, with all the nuances of meaning packed into that word. Hopefully the takers will rejoin the CLIMBING community by making this thing right.
I wish you ALL the best, Steve!
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Captain...or Skully
climber
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I agree with Craggy. Sorry to see that someone's decided to f*#k with you, Steve. That sucks.
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