Who steals shoes?

After two rest days, we were eager to get up early and get on the crag again today. So, we woke up at the crack of 8:00 in the morning, and headed to Big Cottonwood Canyon again.

We decided to climb at the Dead Snag area, just up the road from where we climbed on Sunday. In the parking lot, as we were packing up our gear, Pete could not find his climbing shoes. After searching all over the Goose, we realized that he must have left them somewhere. That's when we both realized that his shoes were at the top of the three-pitch climb that we did on Sunday.

We had finished the route and were packing up our gear at the top of the climb. It was a little rocky at the top of the climb and there were not a lot of good stances. Emily had moved up the rock a little to find a better place to pack up her stuff. Pete tossed his uncomfortable climbing shoes up to Emily while he put on his hiking shoes. I caught one and the other fell into this little ditch between two rocks. I placed the other one there as well so that they would not accidentally get bumped and fall off the cliff. As climbers, you get in the habit of placing gear in safe places where it will not fall off the rock. Of course, ideally you clip things to you so that they don't fall, but in a pinch sticking things in a little alcove is handy.

Fortunately the climb had a walk-off (or more accurately a scramble-off) because without his shoes, it would have been difficult for Pete to climb up the three pitches, even if Emily lead the whole route. The route was a 5.7 but it was first ascended in the 1950's, so it was a hard, sustained 5.7. So we started up the walk-off (walk-up?). The bottom of the walk-off-up was a really steep gully full of loose scree and dirt. We were on our hands and feet, desperately grabbing roots, rocks, and anything that we could grab to keep us from sliding down the scree. After the gully, the rest of the walk-off-up was not too bad. We finally scrambled back out to the ledge at the top of the route and find the little alcove where we left Pete's shoes, except it was empty. Somebody stole his shoes. Somebody stole Pete's used, skunky (doesn't wear socks), biohazard waste shoes! Who does that? Fortunately, the pain of needing to buy new shoes is slightly offset by the fact that some Utah climber's pack now smells like crap.

It is understood that gear left on a wall by previous climbers for whatever reason, referred to as "booty", is up for grabs by the next party on the route. Rarely does the gear literally smell like booty, however.

To our fellow climbers: would you take old shoes at the top of a climb, even if they fit? I'm curious of the consensus here.