Sand Booting

I recently partook in a humorous event that led me to coin a new term: “sand booting.” So what are we dealing with here? Well, take your standard sandbag, but mix in the possibility of finding booty and you’ve got sand booting. Here’s how it plays out:

A confident looking party asks for your input on a route they are about to climb. If they go to the top (5 pitches), they will only need one rope, and it would appear the route is within their abilities, so you tell them to leave the second cord on the ground. A pitch and a half off the deck, however, all is not well, and the second can not go on. The leader must then leave a slew of gear to retreat with one cord, and they tuck tail to go climb some stuff closer to the ground.

Sounds like your standard sandbag, yeah? Well, what if a couple hours later, you head up on the same climb and hit the jackpot? The first pitch yields a new sling and locking biner. The second, another locker. Even when your partners mock you and apologize for scoring all the booty, as you pull around the corner on the 3rd pitch, you hit the mother load: 3 nuts, a sling and nice locker. How you beeotches like that?

And there you have sand booting: Knowingly sending a lesser experienced party up a route you know they can’t do, and will have to leave copious amounts of gear to bail off of (and bail they will!). You then climb the route once they’ve cleared the area, and score! And for those booty pirates out there, this is much more effective than climbing trade routes after a holiday weekend, since you are assured of finding gear AND you know exactly where it will be.

Disclaimer: The inspiration for this new term was innocent enough, and we didn’t know they would bail, but we did score the booty! 😉