I've got a blue BD nut (#5) for the price of just one beer, due to the fact that I already have 2 WC #2 nuts that are pretty much the same size. I found it on The Moke (which happens to be one of the best gear hunting grounds). It was a very dubious placement so I guess it belonged to a noob

I also have 2 yellow tape slings and a green sewn sling all found at the wuss finish of Hawk's Eye. They are going for a beer or a public name and shaming for littering.

Then there is also a fancy new small DMM nut still stuck next to the old stuck cam right of the frog on Hawk's Eye. I didn't have a nut scratcher with me and my mate doesn't operate optimally at heights, so he gave up on it rather sooner than perhaps needed. This placement is even more dubious than the one I referred to in the first paragraph.

While we are at it and knowing that there is many people out there who want to take up trad climbing, I think a very decent rack can be put together from all the stuck gear in the Magaliesberg. Especially considering all the new people that will probably loose half their gear in the foreseeable future.

A few clues for treasure hunters and some other trivia:

• There are 2 cams at the start of Donkerhoek Recess (with a good hex placement between the 2 - makes you wonder). Chances of retrieval : small
• There's a cam on the top pitch of Red Column. Chances of retrieval: dismal.
• Nut in the roof of Twist and Shout. I think it is possible to retrieve it, but it's gonna be difficult and a long stiff and thin rod will help.
• Then there's a cam that looks like it under cammed an flipped over on one of the Fee, Fi, Fo or Fum routes in Kranskloof, but I reckon that thing's going nowhere.
• Apparently someone tried to get the cam on Hawk's Eye out with a crowbar, so I think that one's also going nowhere.
• I tried to retrieve a nut a bit off route on Red Falcon Crag, but was unsuccessful, it was just too deep.
• There is also David's (I think it's his) small cam a bit higher up also on Red Falcon Crag that will take a mean feet to get out.
• I still have a shoddy cam I found on Sands of Time and a #7 BD nut found on The Moke.
• Marley probably had the most spectacular retrieval yet, when he retrieved the long stuck cam on Reunion and went flying out into the kloof when it came out. Reason for his commitment: he thought it was his that I nicked of his rack
• I very nearly lost a nut Saturday on Right Corner Overhang when I tried to place a big nut but wasn't quite happy with the placement and tried lifting it out, but it flicked out and got stuck in the parallel part of the crack. It was the weirdest thing I've seen in a long time. It took me a combined 30 minutes at least spread over 3 tries to get it out again. The last try I climbed back up armed with a rock and nut pick and hammered away for about 20 minutes before I got the now very battered and bruised bugger out

Ok, better get back to work. I can't remember any more stuck gear right now, although I'm pretty sure there are many more to be found.

Shorti
I was on Hawks eye on Sunday, removed a stuck Rock nr 4 just below where that WC nr 3 or 4 is. Also very dubious placement, came out with out any effort. Somebody has been donating a lot of gear lately.
I also didnt have a nut scratcher with me otherwise the other piece would have been gone as well..

Once got a very usuable Rock Empire cam of Sweet Sixteen in Boulder kloof.

A word of caution about climbing after booty, Graham and me once went after a nut on a route to the right somewhere of Reunion, Graham got the piece and topped out, the top was just these big shattered blocks all over the place, not a good piece of gear anywhere, we suspect the party that left the nut had the same problem and backed off, luckily the climbing was easy. I got to the top and Graham was wedged between about 8 different blocks all about the size of a watermelon. with slings around all of them.....

Cheers
Ian

You see, now if we bolted it all in the first place there wouldn't be all this littering...

_________________
Gustav
Roc 'n Rope Adventures
Waterval Boven
013 257 0363
rocrope dot com

I agree with Gustav!

Just bolt the lot and there will be a lot less junk left lying around....

Haha, nice one Gus, but there is a flaw in your plan, we'll end up with a place full of mailons and shoes lying around everywhere. I've never seen shoes lying around other than at sport crags, except for a pair of Lo-Tecs I saw just after the first wade pools in the Wit-Els - I thought it was quite funny.

Haha, now that's some good improvisation! Don't tell Hector, but I once belayed him from a hole a few meters from the edge, just kicking into the sides - figuring I'll just have make sure there is never slack and give lots of slip should he fall. There wasn't any protection to be found within a rope's length. Maybe that's why they bolted Boven.
Anyway, how did you manage to sneak around without me seeing you, I was there the whole weekend? Fine patroler I make.

hehe, me and the missus were on hawks eye at about 8:30. Topped out walked to Boulder, did Trio, had lunch, climbed Red Column and finished on Cederberg Corner and went home, four routes one in each kloof.
Was lots of fun.

- A Rock Empire cam stuck on the second pitch splitter of Golden Balls in the bottom of Cedeberg (good luck with that)
- A very rusted wire at the starting recess of Tonquani Ridge, not even head height off the ground (same)
- Picked up a DMM no8 nut at Radioactive (who the hell is as crazy as we were climbing trad on this piece of crap shale choss?)
- Removed a BD red (no4?) stopper from the glassy traverse overhang of Right Corner Overhang

And who's the silly person who got his/her green camelot stuck (within the last year or two) RIGHT NEXT TO another stuck green camelot on Donkerhoek Recess? Man I've tried to get either one of those two out. Really, you'd think if the first one was that stuck, you'd just clip it, right?

Hi Guys!

I dropped a nut (size and make unknown as I was following on someone else's rack) climbing in short gully on Sunday, it was unclipped from my harness by a tree as climbing though it. I grabbed the quick draw as it came off my harness but to my dismay the nut on the other end was missing.

If any one found it or finds it lying in short gully please let me know.

One more thing, one of my cams is stuck right at the top of on Nebula Hammerkop, first come first serve.

Thanks
Donovan

Thanks for the heads-up Donovan, I'll go hunting soon... Were you the friendly bloke with Ulrike? I'm just a bit worried that another one sneaked past my not so watchful eye.

That's a very impressive round trip Ian.

Who wants to join me to go get Donovan's cam on Saturday?

Can I bring my Hilti "bolt-gun"!!!

_________________
Gustav
Roc 'n Rope Adventures
Waterval Boven
013 257 0363
rocrope dot com

uhu - I've heard that Amazing Grace can do with a bolt or 4 The FA told me it's barely protectable, sounds like fun...

Yip thats me.

Just a warning, I found that cam on a climb in Kraanskloof 5 years ago and it must have been there for 10 years prior as well as the sling had rotted away by the time I got to it.

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Lifestyle = 5% life + 95% style
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Oh dear, then ve vill haf to get ze nuts back, or you'll have yours on the block!

...and here I was hoping you left us a nice new camelot...

nothing wrong with an old cam! just replace the sling, give it some oil et voila! big score as far as i'm concerned.

Agreed, but I won't mind if someone loose one of those new DMM cams.

Btw, we found another very small nut, BD #3 I think, on Stairway to Heaven (Hamerkop). Seemonster took it, but if it has some sort of sentimental value I'll risk helping you to get it back

I'll gladly take it off your hands, I happen to be very sentimental about the BD 3 you found...

Shorti, that BD nut belongs to Andrew Porter. But he's swanning it in the States now for the next six months and judging by his hit list of gnarly cracks he won't be missing a tiny wire like that.

I've left a #2 DMM wire on Glory Road in Mhlabs, and years ago a friend (SLCD not the other kind) on Dinkum Dihedral also in Mhlabs (cried like a girl). I think the cam is long gone but you're welcome to the wire. My biggest haul was finding two tricams at the base of Straight Edge. I'm still trying to figure out how they work...

Most of my rack is scattered around Blouberg though. There're some wires on the arb ground up to the grassy ledge near Last Moon from various rescues, a wire or two on Blue Moon's crux, another couple of wires and biners on Dog Day in Heaven, plus a bunch of tat in various places. I think I also left my pride somewhere at the base of the ramp before slogging up it yet again, so if you find it please give it back...

If the kloofs are a shop then Blouberg is a whole shopping mall
There are 3 wires just above the second stance of Pshycho Reptile.. There is a fixed nut about halfway up the second pitch(It took a 12 M fall)... further down is a very old DMM nr 8 I think.

Also there is a nut + biner on Suicide in Cedarberg kloof. You can see it from the ledge halfway down frog gully. Should come out easily...

Someone got the second stuck cam on Donkerhoek recess out! How on earth did you (whoever you are) do it? More importantly, I retrieved an old forged friend and quickdraw(!) a meter or so further up the crack. Same deal as always, buy me a beer and it's yours. The cam is old, but still in good(ish) condition. I'd replace the sling though. My dad climbed the route with me (his first time climbing in about 3 decades) and he says the route is still exactly the same as 40 years ago when he first climbed it, except that the whole thing tilted backwards quite a lot

So the second camelot on Donkerhoek recess is gone, but you got another cam out just above it? Why would someone leave the quickdraw as well? Must be a shitscared second not paying attention.

Walked into Drifters the other day and saw an old solid stem friend - the green one from Hawk Eye, close to the frog, quite mashed up but I think that was from retrieving it.

You're not alone, down south we also have LOTS of stuck gear:

Off the top of my head...
Blue Alien on the second pitch of "Not just a pretty face" - Muizenberg
Cam on India Rubber - Lower Buttress, TM
Cam and 2 nuts on the 18 traverse on Omega - Wolfberg
Nut (possibly 2) on the first pitch of Energy Crisis - Wolfberg
Lots of gear in "Donkerkloof (not sure what the real name is)" - the huge kloof/chimney running up the face of the peak behind Paranoia Point, Koelbaai. The result of a friend having an epic and having to bail...

If you want it, you can have it.

First thing I ever bought for my rack was a nut pick, and thats how I "purchased" my first nut :-)

_________________
Happy climbing
Nic

ah, yes the nut on enegy crises, fond memories of that one I have

It wasn't all that easy to retrieve, it walked in quite deep. Even the quickdraw was hard to reach with my long fingers (heehee). I had to send down a loop of rope to get a nut pick. The cam has a very handy little string that I could hook with the nut pick (again, I could only just reach it with the pick). The string pulled the trigger and from there it was easy.

Donkerkloof, I've always called it Gasherbrum because of the way the face lights up when the sun sets on it. Had no idea any one had ventured up there, looks like a slog? It is an amazing piece of rock. Any know the real name and if its been climbed?

Back in the day when my friend was young, fit and eating brave pills by the handful, he and his climbing partner got within a couple of hundred metres of the top before being scared off by wet, crumbling, chossy rock. Then they bailed and left about half his rack behind in the rock because they couldn't find points to rig tat to abseil off.

Don't know if anyone else has given it a bash.

_________________
Happy climbing
Nic

Damn! You weren't joking. I retrieved a nice little hex (#3, I think) from Indian Giver. It was stuck just below a very old very stuck little cam right at the top under the little roof. I kinda like the hex, so the usual price has gone up, you'll have to fight me for it
I tried to retrieve the old seized up cam at the top of Bombay Duck, just for the sake of it, but alas, I couldn't figure it out.

So finally my time has come to donate some gear. It comes with great humiliation, but I'll take it like a man. Saturday morning 3 of us set of to climb Aasvoël's End at Kransberg. I kinda got lost a bit and ended up on a big couch sized ledge high and far to the right in the middle of nowhere. The prospects of going up looked kinda grim but doable to the fearless, since there didn't appear to be any gear as far the eye could see. I figured I'll worry about it after the others have joined me, but then it started to rain. The moss-covered rock turned into soap and they soon had to retreat to wait out the rain. Finally one of them made it to the ledge along with some noteworthy battle bruises, a serious case of vertigo and plenty of help from the jumars (we packed just for in case we get ourselves in trouble again). The other lad's confidence got a bit of a knock after I bombed him with gear. I was supposed to send him jumars, aiders and a few slings by lowering it with the one rope, and using the other rope to guide it. Unfortunately half of the gear got unclipped the moment I let go of it, and it went down the guide rope straight at the unsuspecting Marley. Anyway, we decided it might be better to retreat, especially since it looked like it could start raining again at any time.

So if you ever feel like climbing our new route, aptly named Arse-end's Voël (it is somewhere between Aasvoël's End and Endvoël's Arse), you are welcome to find a finish for it and help yourself to 2 big nuts, 3 lockers and 1 sling. My buddies promised to replace the gear if I agreed to bail

Hey shorti, I climbed at Wolfberg last week with the guy who fixed that nut on Energy Crisis. He says you're welcome. Also a fixed nut on "Quite Something", pitch 4, behind a very dodgy sounding flake.

We salvaged 2 more nuts from Hawk's Eye yesterday. A #5 walnut at the stance just before the traverse to the left and a #1 walnut just before the eye. I don't understand why people complain about gear being expensive, it seems like it is too cheap! The #5 was a great placement for the stance and was no problem to retrieve. The #1 was a shocker in the light of there being an abundance of obvious placements right next to it, but we got it out eventually. I gave both to my buddy, but I'm sure he can be persuaded to give it back with fair payment in ale.

Got the super old Hex that has been stuck on Rib Tickler below the crux a couple of weeks ago, looked absolutely welded but I gave it a quick twist with my nut tool and it came out quickly. My rack of salvaged gear is starting to look quite respectable....

I picked up a hardly used #2 dmm nut lying at the abseil tree above the Comanici roof in Boulder Kloof. It must have been unclipped by accident while sitting next to the tree. The Seemonster thinks it belongs to Freddie, because it is marked with yellow and blue tape that's supposed to represent the Swedish flag.

I sadly got my yellow hex stuck on Saber. I don't understand why I can't get it out, maybe gravity is playing a nasty trick on me. I have an idea how to get it out, but I'll resign it to fair game simply because I feel like an idiot for getting it stuck in the first place. Sorry for potentially spoiling someone's fun in the mean time.

For interest's sake, there is an old forged friend deep in the second layback crack on Slipstream.