I've seen at LLEAST five registers that I suspect were chewed by llamas, or signed by famous llama llovers.

Bob Burd wrote:

graham wrote:I was lead to believe that summit registers only recently started getting swiped with the advent of the internet(s) and only after some evil SPer posted a photo of some beloved mountain celeb’s entry

You must be talking about this one:

Bob, are you refering to the
1. evil SPer photo poster
2. the beloved mountain celeb
3. or both

MoapaPk wrote:The argument (certainly not mine) went like this:

1) fiendish signature stealer "Grinch" doesn't know which peaks have authentic Norman Clyde signatures, so distant peaks are safe;

See, the whole argument falls apart on item (1).
As scum peakbaggers, we'd like to think those mountain registers are somehow worth more than just sentiment, that they can fetch untold riches on EBay or elsewhere, and whoever removes them *must* be doing so because of their value.

But this isn't true at all. I've *never* heard of a register being sold on EBay (go ahead DMT, prove me wrong and be the first with the Fiske register) or elsewhere. There's really no money in it. You'd make more money digging recyclables out of the cans at the TH. Keepsake on your mantle? *None* of your non-climbing friends would care, and your climbing ones would think you're scum(mier). Maybe some are brought off the mountain because the book and container are full and some are sent to a library in Berkeley. Who wants to read them in a library? Most of the entries are pretty darn boring and they aren't going to look any better under a reading lamp.

Where do they go? Notice how most of the time the books AND the container are missing. I laugh when I read entries that start with "I hate finding these things on the mountain..." There are others who hate them a little more and never bother to write in them. Others hate them even more and won't open them. Others hate them even MORE and toss the whole thing in their pack and dispose of it in a garbage can. It isn't just one person and they aren't looking for just old and valuable ones. It only takes a small fraction of the climbers to feel this way, but eventually one will visit your favorite peak. The SoCal ones disappear faster simply because there are more folks visiting them. It may seem evil and uncaring to do this, but I suspect these folks are just as well-meaning as the guy who carries a new one up there.

And there may be a little bit of that in all of us. Maybe they don't really belong there, but we take guilty pleasure in their existence. Me? I hate business cards in registers. I take 'em all back to the TH and toss 'em. But I love finding the cans and jars at the summit. Positively love it.

I think it's amazing people get as worked up over issues like this as they do.

Me ... I can't imagine hating registers so much that I would want to carry out a large awkward shaped 15 pound ammo can 15 miles just to throw it in the garbage.

On the other side, it does seem a shame for the ORIGINAL registers to fade away and become unreadable, and a museum does sound desirable to fix that and preserve mountaineering history. But in the end, it's just a piece of paper and I can care less about proving to other people I was at the top of something. Especially since I'm sure not making history with my weenie climbs

I almost always sign in when one's there, but it doesn't break my heart to not find one either. The experience of the climb and maybe the few pics I snap on the way are much more precious to me.

Bob Burd wrote: Me? I hate business cards in registers. I take 'em all back to the TH and toss 'em.

Do you ever stop to read the business cards? Quite a few are clearly fabricated, and are pokes at people who leave (or remove) business cards.

MoapaPk wrote:

Bob Burd wrote: Me? I hate business cards in registers. I take 'em all back to the TH and toss 'em.

Do you ever stop to read the business cards? Quite a few are clearly fabricated, and are pokes at people who leave (or remove) business cards.

I have business card stock and a laser printer .. and now an evil idea

Bob Burd wrote:

MoapaPk wrote:
But I love finding the cans and jars at the summit. Positively love it.

Obviously, to think anything but the oldest registers are worth anything more than sentiment is inflating one's importance quite a bit. But sentiment is worth something. I love getting up to a peak I've been at before and being able to find my old, or some friend's old, entry in the register. It provides some nostalgia and reflection that I for one think is a good thing. Removing those registers before they are completely full or crowding the can eliminates this possibility.

I also maintain my original point, that for some reason people like to write their name or otherwise mark their passage in places of special beauty or solitude or in places that require some kind of special effort (always relative--one person's K2 is another kid's copse of trees in the backyard). Without these registers, this often results in the much more damaging carving of names in the rock (a lot more common in the softer sandstones of the southwest) or the leaving of mementos or building of ridiculous cairns.

I guess I really don't care if summit registers die in libraries, on some dudes mantel, or in the trashcan at the trailhead. I just hope that they get a chance to live as long as possible on the summit before they meet their end.

Careful Pete, you're using up your entire 2009 allotment of SC-bashing in this one thread.

One thing I find particularly nice about finding registers on peaks is knowing when the last party signed in. This is particualry true of peaks that are snowed in during winter and where in May or June I might be the first one to have visited the summit during that year.

After a friend lost her life in the Sierra's a few years ago I began looking for and photographing her signature in register books on the peaks I summitted. I find it comforting to find a signature of a lost friend who enjoyed the same peak before I got there.

Personally I couldn't care less about registers on the popular peaks, although I suppose if you were trying to track down a missing person...

But I do think the registers on the rarely visited summits should be left in place. I was quite disappointed to find that the original register on Castle Rock Spire had been replaced by a copy in 1991, despite perhaps 20 ascents over 40 years by then. A list of names just does not hold the same meaning as the original signatures in their own hand...

I have signed some very short and distinguished lists in very out of the way places but of course mum's the word on who and where...

lefty wrote:One thing I find particularly nice about finding registers on peaks is knowing when the last party signed in. This is particualry true of peaks that are snowed in during winter and where in May or June I might be the first one to have visited the summit during that year.

Now that you mention it, I did get a kick out of doing Langley from Tuttle Creek one May and seeing the previous entry in the register was Peter Croft and his dog Peewee the previous September.

lefty wrote: ...After a friend lost her life in the Sierra's a few years ago I began looking for and photographing her signature in register books on the peaks I summitted. I find it comforting to find a signature of a lost friend who enjoyed the same peak before I got there.

Another more touching aspect I had not considered...

euro approach to summit registers - hard cover, list of routes (see left page), sometimes topos, descriptions of start of raps.....ahhh - how civilized. the fact that the local guidebook dedicates a chapter to rules and ethics of summit register entries might be partially to "blame".


each is housed in a dedicated steel box firmly fixed in place by a steel rod

Dingus Milktoast wrote:

edevart wrote:Hi All,

A recent posting by a fellow SPer got me thinking.... where do summit registers go to die? Or what happens to them when they are all full and there is no more room to store them on the summit? I know that many registers from the Sierras and other prominent CA peaks like Shasta end up at the Bancroft Library at Cal Berkeley. But how about the rest?

Basically, the recent poster pointed out that he took the register home with him once he saw that it was completely filled up, and that he was looking for somebody to send it to.

Personally, I think they all belong at any library that'll take them, and if not that then a local nonprofit or stewardship organization that has long ties to that particular area and that can make them available to the public as necessary. Leaving them in the hands of a single individual for any extended period of time, no matter who it is, just seems wrong to me.

Thoughts?

I agree.

DMT

Zactly, make me a copy so we have business continuity.

If registers are not preserved, then the terrorists have already won.

granite4brains wrote:I think it's amazing people get as worked up over issues like this as they do.

Me ... I can't imagine hating registers so much that I would want to carry out a large awkward shaped 15 pound ammo can 15 miles just to throw it in the garbage.

On the other side, it does seem a shame for the ORIGINAL registers to fade away and become unreadable, and a museum does sound desirable to fix that and preserve mountaineering history. But in the end, it's just a piece of paper and I can care less about proving to other people I was at the top of something. Especially since I'm sure not making history with my weenie climbs

I almost always sign in when one's there, but it doesn't break my heart to not find one either. The experience of the climb and maybe the few pics I snap on the way are much more precious to me.

AMEN