bearbnz wrote:I was hiking alone along the base of the South Face of Half Dome and found a rusty old eye bolt. I picked it up, and it appeared to be hand-forged, it still had the hammer marks on it, and it looked pretty crude.
There was a bunch of other debris lying scattered around, cameras, water bottles, pipe wrenches, pipes, and anything else you could drop from the cables route. I was at the spot where a lot of that stuff funnels down from the cables route above.
I thought possibly I had found an original 1865 George Anderson bolt from the very first ascent of Half Dome, but I wasn't sure. George Anderson was a blacksmith, and he took a portable forge up there and made his own hardware on sight. So I put it in my pack, not knowing if I was taking an artifact from the Park, or just picking up a piece of trash.
It sat in my garage in a plastic box for a number of years until one day Ken Yager of the YCA was posting some stuff on ST showing some old climbing gear and other historical climbing stuff. I emailed Ken to ask him about the bolt, and he told me it was highly unlikely that it was an Anderson bolt, the only one he knew about belonged to the Park, and they weren't parting with it, but could I send him a photo? He said he had been looking for one of those for years for the museum exhibit, especially during the Facelift Park clean up that he hosts each year, but had come up empty so far despite searching in the area where I found the bolt.
I sent the photo, and Ken emailed be back immediately saying he was 99% sure that it WAS an Anderson bolt, and could he see it in person? I was to be in the Valley in a few days, and we agreed to meet up. Ken and his kids were at the base of Swan Slab, and he was very excited to see the bolt.
I donated it to the museum collection on the spot. Although it certainly had some value, I didn't feel it should be in a private collection (now that it was aunthenicated), and I was pretty sure the Park Service would frown on me having taken it out of the Park. It has since been traveling around the world with Ken and the rest of the exhibits.
Btw, if you have the chance, go see the collection of climbing artifacts put together by the YCA, it's very cool.
+1
A good deed done sir!