clmbr wrote:Vitaliy M. wrote:If person who took the register (from Black Kaweah) is reading, please do your best to return it to where it belongs. It is a long ways in there, and if you do not want to hike all that way you can PM me and I can return it for you. 100% confidential, would not judge you in any way, and would actually respect you a lot for admitting your fault and doing the right thing. And to all others who have any historic registers in possession, please return them, or PM me, and I might return them if I am interested in the peak.
This sounds very naive. If you want them to return it, give them some address (perhaps a Ranger Station) they could anonymously mail it to.
See a mailing address at
http://summitregister.org/contact/index.html "I will accept anonymous (or otherwise) information and/or materials (such as register books, register canisters/boxes/etc.), no questions asked. Any summit registers and/or containers returned to me will be photographed/scanned and returned to the proper summit or sent to the Sierra Club archives in Bancroft Library, as appropriate."
clmbr wrote:Some archives have to be removed because there is not enough capacity in the metal box to keep them in (e.g. Shasta, Rainier, Whitney).
Digitalizing and posting (and indexing) archives on the internet would be a cool approach (e.g. searched by summit, climber name, day).....
I agree.
I was disappointed that the reporter for the Inyo register failed to find the SPS policy on summit registers. As I told him, "... the policy is stated in the MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES, section 11" which is now at
http://angeles.sierraclub.org/sps/mancomprocedures.html#pkregsSPS Management Committee wrote:A register should not be removed, even if full, when less than 40 years old, unless it is seriously weather damaged and in danger of loss. A register may be removed for preservation if it is 40 years old or older and full. Illegible scraps of paper, business cards, etc. may be removed from a register container if, in the judgment of the leader, they have no particular significance. However, if such notes are records of early Sierra Club climbs or SPS climbs, they should be left. Scraps removed should be returned to the SPS Mountain Records Chair. Notebooks with historical significance shall be preserved by copying with a digital camera in place. Another notebook must be left on the peak when the original is removed. Removal should be coordinated with the SPS Mountain Records Chair. Copies thus made will be retained by the SPS Mountain Records Chair.
Brower's idea of preserving registers in Bancroft predates the advent of the digital camera by many decades - IT IS OBSOLETE. It takes only a few minutes on a mountain top to preserve 100% of the information in a register using a digital camera - and this data can be made accessible to everyone on the web.
Holding a genuine old register in your hands, in the wild, on top of a peak, has no comparison to seeing it under restricted access in Bancroft, and you can't sign it there.
IMHO - old registers should never be removed from summits except when "there is not enough capacity in the metal box to keep them in (e.g. Shasta, Rainier, Whitney)" and Muir and Langley and Dana and so on.
I maintain a ( crude and incomplete ) archive of summit register pictures at
http://summitregister.org/mountains/ThumbNails.html, but I WILL NOT POST PICTURES OF "ANCIENT" REGISTERS which are
still on the summit. Those pictures are only on my hard drives. If you should happen upon an old register on an obscure or unnamed peak with signatures from Norman Clyde, etc., - KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. The registers will do just fine without any publicity, as they have for so many years. There was a 'first ascent' register from the 19th century on a Woodworth until just a few years ago when a believer in Brower's philosophy became upset that it had pictures published on the web (unfortunately in the SPS archives
) - so he had it removed and sent to Bancroft.
I don't think the BK register has been removed by Brower's "disciples" - it is more likely to have been chucked off the summit by a lunatic ( as on Tyndall ) or dropped by accident ( as on Middle Pal ) or to be in some private collection ( as are rumored to exist ). It wasn't even bolted down. It might even be hidden up there for later retrieval. I am not expecting to see it again. It will be sorely missed by all.