Weird stuff on the trail.

[balzaccom]

We've founds pairs of boots twice in the backcountry, each time a good day's hike from the trailhead.  IN each case just sitting out on the ground in the middle of the trail.  But we've found tons of stuff, from whole new tents carefully packed up, to a rainfly carefully draped over a rock to dry, to tons of old mining equipment and too many articles of clothing and mylar balloons to count. .

Best of all we've a few things that we've been able to use ourselves:  a nice Leki hiking pole, a very nice cook pot, two good mesh bags....all of which we added to our gear!

[jay]

sounds like you benefitted from others’ forgetfulness, good for you!  i would hate to be the folks that realized they left their tent after a long day on the trail.

[balzaccom]

I don't think any of those things were forgotten--they were abandoned.  The cook pot was left in a fire ring, and it was black as soot.  We took it home cleaned it up, and still use it as our primary cook pot.

[jay]

Well their loss is your gain, it seems.

[Grey Mouse]

A mid 30's Plymoth I believe. The road use to be above this spot and someone ran off of it, took an 80' dive, and the rest is history.

Edited December 23, 2018 by Grey Mouse

[Mickey B.]

Hiking in the Smoky Mountains, there are all kinds of hidden gems...if you know where to look.  One item that I hiked to a few years ago is an old boiler engine that was used to transport logs up/down the mountainside from the Clingmans Dome area.  It's about a mile-ish off trail, but wasn't hard at all to find.  NOTE:  this isn't my pic.....I wasn't able to access mine.  

[arm2008]

Found these in a mid-1950s trash pile on an old homestead site. I was amused, but when I posted to a FB group I'm part of people were freaking out about calling the cops in case someone was missing. Trash pile. 1950s. I'm not calling the cops....

[jay]

Oh, that's perfect!  too bad there wasn't one of those old Styrofoam head wig holders with it!

[ppine]

I worked outside for many decades all over the West.  Sometimes the best old stuff is where there are no trails.  Like aluminum wreckage of old airplanes, usuallymilitary  jets that have crashed.  I worked around old mine sites a lot.  Old buildings, stamp mills, processing plants, residences full of old stuff.   A lot of it is from the 1800s, but often there are multiple occupations over the years and you have to learn to date things like broken glass. 

In remote country, we would run into old sheep camps and logging people had seasonal camps over the years.  After 100 years usually all that is left is a large midden, trash pile with things like milk cans,kerosene cans, bean cans, and little log cabin shaped ones for maple syrup.  All can be dated by solder marks and stamps on them.  Old glass changes colors over years depending on when it was made.  I worked with archaeologists that are really good at dating sites.  Lots of stuff on the old pioneer trails like wagon parts, cast iron Dutch Ovens, horse harness. 

Then there is all of the pre-historic stuff,   projectile points, fire cracked rock, reductions stations, bifaces, etc.  

I remember a deer hunting trip with my Dad in Virginia in about 1960.  We found an old homestead at the end of a bad road.  We found a nice old kerosene lamp and a broad axe.  We still have them. 

I was horse packing in the Sierras back in the 1970s.  We were in about 18 miles from the nearest road.  We went to visit a hot spring.  There was a cast iron bath tub that someone had packed in on a mule. 

[jay]

Old axe heads and the like are something I would definitely pack out, as well.  If they survived that long outdoors, they will definitely survive what I put them through.