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.

dakotaconcrete wrote:

Kai wrote:Many years ago, a friend of mine and I were headed up to do our very first waterfall ice climb. We only had three ice tools between us.

The plan was for me to lead with two tools, then lower one of my tools down for my friend to use when he followed.

On the way up to the climb, I found an ice tool. I gave it to my buddy to use on the climb, and he has it to this day.

Thats pretty cool.

Reminds me of an outing I had bouldering a few months ago....a few friends of mine headed out, one didn't have climbing shoes....as my friend and I were bouldering the other was just playing around on some of the nearby boulders...during that time he came across a pair of climbing shoes...they were a perfect fit and they were still relatively nice, soles still had their edges, a little faded from the time they spent in the elements though...what are the odds of that happening! He has been using them ever since!

calebEOC wrote:Bighorn sheep skeleton with radio collar.

dskoon wrote: . . . discovered a snow cave! Snow cave with a candle still burning inside! Bit eery.

MoapaPk wrote:drop tanks