Thefts from Parking Lots - an informal survey

[squamish climber]

Hi,

The latest theft at Star Chek sucks beyond words. Imagine these new parents getting their truck stolen and losing their passports and their climbing and camping gear. It doesn't seem to matter how well you hide your stuff, your car is a sitting duck to low life thieves patrolling the Sea to Sky Highway and trail-head parking lots for cars they know are unattended for hours.

I'm curious to know how common thefts are in the Corridor at climbing parking lots. If you have experienced theft either from a climbing parking lot or trail- head put the info here, like (year/month) when and where it happened, what was stolen and if you ever got it back.

Any suggestions on what the climbing community can do to tackle the problem?

Maybe some anecdotal data would persuade authorities and the district of Squamish to do more to try and fight this kind of property crime.

Here's hoping Braden and his partner will get their stuff back and better days ahead.

[rolfr]

Skaha has similar problems that we are trying to address. The sad part is that responsibility will be down loaded to the victims and tax payers. Parks has had their budgets decimated, RCMP have become jaded towards property crimes, bigger fish to fry.
Local municipal and city authorities will nod their heads in serious agreement of the problem and support YOUR efforts to find a solution.
Politicians will demand stiffer penalties for criminals but we are down stream, were all the sh*t flows.

On a brighter note, the climbers in Skaha are being proactive and starting a Park Watch program to address the escalating problem of property crime at the climbing areas, unfortunately it isn't a quick fix. Fund raising and organization will take a year or two. In the interim we are placing video cameras and signage at key locations with funding supplied by climber fundraisers .

Many years ago , I had my vehicle broken in at Rouges, since then I try not to leave anything in the vehicle.

[mr_staggerlee]

I've been lucky in the corridor up to now (knock on wood). Usually throw the not easily replaceable stuff in my pack and carry with me to the crag.

I did once have a half-eaten bag of chips stolen out of my vehicle's back seat in the Red. Now THAT was ghetto ...... and I was really jones'in that salt at the end of the day too .....

Maybe setting up cameras in high-risk areas? (note: a repeat vandal of a NVan MTB trail was busted this way).