Why isn't it theft to take something you don't own? Seems really clear to me.

The Sierra Club does NOT, by the way, promote or encourage the removal of registers to Bancroft, they simply acknowledge that Bancroft has been going around taking them. It isn't what they desire.

SPS Mountain Record Chair wrote:I think that taking pictures, instead of taking away registers, is a great way to preserve the history they bear. Send the pictures to me and/or to the library, and keep the registers on the summit. It seems that putting a summit register away in a vault is like taking Bighorn Sheep out of the mountain wilderness and putting them in a zoo - they will never be the same.

http://summitregister.org/

Again, you're missing a few important points: when they're full/overflowing the container, they need to be removed. Second: technically, they (SC) have as much 'right' to leave anything on the summit as anyone else has to take it, pretty much for whatever reason. The registers cannot belong to a private organization and occupy public land, for example; it's a step above the moral equivalent of my leaving a copy of Whitman on top of some peak; i'm free to leave it (technically littering...) and the next guy is free to take it.

The Sierra registers are a matter of tradition and trust and that's about it. Everything else is a moot point. Nice to have 'em, but we all have (or should have) more important things to worry about

Based on what you just said... there is nothing wrong with me collecting them all and putting them in my house.

mrchad9 wrote:Based on what you just said... there is nothing wrong with me collecting them all and putting them in my house.

I agree completely - there isn't anything legally wrong with your doing that (IMO). Morally wrong - keeping them for (one assumes) private use and enjoyment - would be a different matter. Whatever. Moving on..

mrchad9 wrote:Based on what you just said... there is nothing wrong with me collecting them all and putting them in my house.

I'd like to come over and pour through the names... doesn't that sound fun? ...you a red or white drinker?

Fletch wrote:

mrchad9 wrote:Based on what you just said... there is nothing wrong with me collecting them all and putting them in my house.

I'd like to come over and pour through the names... doesn't that sound fun? ...you a red or white drinker?

Whisky!

Maybe I'll xerox the entries and send that to the Bancroft for safekeeping, then have some peakbagger take the register back to the summit where it belongs.