What is the most interesting thing you have found while hiking?

[dashboardc33]

Weather it is an item or a place, what is the most interesting thing you have found while hiking?

The most unique item I found was an old metal kettle. It almost looked as if it was homemade. It was near a small pile of large rocks, so I am assuming the kettle could have been placed over the fire to make tea.

While hiking in the national forest here in Wisconsin I came across what was left of an old "cabin". It was a pretty small cabin, only one room. It looked like it was just big enough to have a small cooking area and for one person to sleep. All that is left of the cabin is a few very old pieces of wood and some rusty nails and screws. The bottom base of the cabin is still in a square shape, but everything else is gone.

[Grandpa]

How about a near new saddle deep in the Frank Church Wilderness. I found the saddle and a frypan hanging from a tree. The cinch and stirrups had been removed. I assume (yes, dangerous I know) that if I looked hard enough, I would have found a dead horse that someone led or rode into a jam they couldn't get out of.

[MissyKitty]

There are a few things that i have found that were really interesting. I was hiking over a small hill, i slipped and slided down the slope. When i got up i noticed a several small arrowheads in front of me. In total i found 7 arrow heads made of stone.
The most frighting thing i have found was an old weapons cache. I saw a small hatch and opened it out of curiosity. When looking in i saw several guns and dynamite. I called the police and got out of there :P. Now that was an experience to remember.

[Pathfinder1]

Hi...


Blasting caps...!!

[ppine]

An Anaszi burial ground, bows and arrows and cliff dwellings. Lots of petroglyphs out in the middle of the Navajo Nation. We found the old mining town of Rosebud, NV once. Not much was left but the site was not located until we found it.

Sheepherders.

[Lamebeaver]

I found myself.

[ghostdog]

I’d have to say this question in the end has answers too numerous to mention.

On our very recent backpack;

The tiniest bighorn sheep depiction I have ever come across next to girlfriend’s finger for scale;



a tiny shell bead, the second one we have found;



a shell medallion. The flip side had a tiny drill hole started that someone never finished. Some flutin’ rucksack wanderer humped this in from the coast a thousand years ago;



and enough new striking designs on pottery sherds to fill a good portion of my journal. It is all still out there for you to discover in your own time.

And this image of my good friend who looks like an 18th Century explorer save some of his more modern accessories.



I could go on for years on this subject and some of them are almost unbelievable except I have pictures.

[ppine]

Ghostdog,
Working for Peabody Coal at Black Mesa, the local biologist was from Kayenta. At "Newspaper Rock" which is only a few miles off the pavement, but has no trail to it, the petroplyphs are 400 yards long and about 15 feet high. At the base of the Navajo Sandstone wall are shards of 5-6 types nearly touching for several acres. The local guys come by horseback once in awhile driving their sheep and goat herds. It is a power spot.

[ghostdog]

Originally Posted by ppine

Ghostdog,
Working for Peabody Coal at Black Mesa, the local biologist was from Kayenta. At "Newspaper Rock" which is only a few miles off the pavement, but has no trail to it, the petroplyphs are 400 yards long and about 15 feet high. At the base of the Navajo Sandstone wall are shards of 5-6 types nearly touching for several acres. The local guys come by horseback once in awhile driving their sheep and goat herds. It is a power spot.

So you are saying you worked for Peabody up on Black Mesa? For near thirty years I was up there in the air twice a month doing all the mapping work at Black Mesa.

I saw the terrain over near Kayenta and all that incredible terrain west of Black Mesa, the area that turns into the huge carved red sandstone canyons, alcoves and very, very remote and hard to get to places leading toward Navajo mountain and Lake Powell. I always wanted to go in there but never took the time to get a Navajo permit while on the way to other places.

I understand when you speak of the power you feel when coming up on a site with petroglyphs, pictographs and scatters of pottery pieces and lithics. It is an incredibly powerful place to be. I like to linger in them for hours. I think one of the more pleasurable things is winding around in the unbelievable stark terrain looking for signs while admiring the overall scenery and unique plant life within.

I love photographing the varied designs and graphics on the broken pottery pieces. We met another couple on the Plateau who were seeking a certain feature in a trailess area but were way off course. They both had brand new expensive cameras with long lenses. We helped to orient them with our map and the woman told of us a striking black on white piece that had stopped them in their tracks. I showed them a few of the more than one hundred images from the recent two days of various painted sherds I had on my very beat up old DSLR that has the paint rubbed off in places. They almost trampled themselves getting on their way to more adventure after that.

[Marshmallow]

We found a Civil War belt buckle and buttons all within a few feet of each other in the tobacco field near my mom's house. We have found tons of arrowheads, tobacco pipe pieces and Indian artifacts. The Civil War pieces were a bit different and unexpected.