What's the craziest/coolest thing you've found in the wild?

[BigHornRam]

Probably around 1979 ish? Rainbow Lake or Lake at the Falls, if I remember right. A small group of us hiked through the same afternoon. We'd talked to Blaze D earlier in the day too. The guy were were with was a doctor that had recently treated Blaze's wife. We were coming down from the other side. We probably passed you on the trail.

What a coincidence!

1981 at Rainbow Lake. That is a coincidence! Small world.

 

[gouch]

Found maybe a dozen knives and a machete over the years and three of them were pretty good knives. Two hatchets and an Estwing axe. A pair of gold rim sun glasses. A cow bell and my favorite was the remains of an old musket. I did find a body floating in a river when I was stationed in Germany but that wasn't cool at all. The weirdest though was when I was going fishing with my second oldest daughter when she was 12. To get to the water I had to pack the canoe down a steep embankment, across the railroad tracks and them down another embankment to the water. When I got to the tracks, and of course my girl was right there with me, I see a large battery operated dildo, a dog leash and a pare of safety goggles. At times like that I wish my imagination was far less vivid than it is. We never spoke about it but I can only imagine what my daughter was thinking.

 

[Straight Arrow]

We never spoke about it but I can only imagine what my daughter was thinking

She likely thought it was an old rusty part of a cap & ball pistol. (re: rusted piece photo not mentioned in post)

 

[2rocky]

"That looks like mommy's rocket ship"....

 

[gouch]

That rusted piece is the musket I found. I forgot to mention It had been sawed off. A self proclaimed expert I talked to told me it was quite common for them to be sawed off like that because most couldn't afford to buy a new one if the barrel got damaged. Since many of those old boys used their musket as a multi tool they got damaged quite a bit. So they just cut off the damaged part.

 

[dsinwi]

Coyote hunting a few years back I was walking a picked cornfield with about 6" of snow on the ground. I noticed a chaff pile about 50 yards to my right. It was an obvious feature in an otherwise featureless field so I walked over to it check for sign. Yotes were marking it in 2 directions. For some reason I decided kick around it a bit and found and original Newhouse #5 bear trap buried in it. Pretty cool find and worth a fair amount of money.

 

[ZBB]

When I was kid 9-10 I was looking at an exploratory mine drift to build a fort in and I found a bottle with a note in it tucked under a root ball of a birch tree. I tried getting the note out through the hole but I wasn’t happening. So I broke the bottle tried to read the note, couldn’t read it. Took it to my parents to try and read it and got my ass chewed for braking the bottle. Found some arrowheads, the core of a buffalo horn in the bighorns also when I was a kid. Come to think of it most of the cool things I’ve found were when I was pretty young and didn’t really appreciate what I had found. I would love to find an old bear trap.

 

[Kaitum]

A walrus tusk, about 75 miles inland from the Chukchi Sea. I assume it had been used as a tool of some sort who knows how long ago by an Alaskan native. Not all that rare given the location but still cool to see.

 

[glass eye]

Found a couple of Mayan mortars deep in the jungle of the Yucatan Peninsula while hunting Ocellated Turkeys. Also found some pottery shards.

 

[npaden]

While pheasant hunting a group of us came across a freshly dumped body laying in the middle of a dirt road. We all had shotguns and the guy had what looked to us like a huge hole blasted right in the middle of his chest. After spending a couple hours talking with the responding sheriff we were allowed to leave.

A few days later we found out that the hole in his chest was the result of something like 30 or 40 stab wounds. They suspected a girl friend but as far as I know, no one was ever arrested or charged with the death. That has been well 20 years ago now.

Still pretty easy to visualize the scene. One thing that always stood out was the brand new pair of sneakers he was wearing. That was before cell phones so no pictures to share thankfully.

 

[Bhoesl]

A wrecked airplane, several abandoned mine shafts, a very rusty old revolver of some sort. Don't have pictures of any of the above, but did find this old car in the creek fishing a few weeks ago. About a mile from the road. Obviously been there awhile.

 

[antlerradar]

Not a bad way to go if it's your time!

True - but it sucks to be the poor suckers who have to haul you out.
[/QUOTE]
I hope if I go this way the people just leave me in the hills.

 

[dirtclod Az.]

Javelina hunting in Az.Scaled a small peak and at the top I found an
old indian mortar along a well beaten path.Suprised to see it still there in
such a noticeable place.Turned it over near a pile of rocks and half way
hid it.Didn' have GPS back then or would have marked it.Wonder if it's
still there after 30yrs?

 

[antlerradar]

A 212+ inch whitetail head when I was 12. Still remember that like it was yesterday.
An old weather balloon.
Lots of old homestead cabins.
some old sold lead .45 caliber bullets, one was less than a mile from Crazy Horse's last battle.
Old graves
Stone half circles, about 6 of them defending the top of a lone butte a long ways form anywhere.
Far too many party balloons. Nothing cool about them.

 

[Bullshot]

My buddy found an suitcase in the woods well off any road and next to a swamp, filled to the brim with expensive looking stripper clothes, boots, lingerie. Sans stripper. We called the cops, more or less as a welfare check on whoever she was, but they didnt seem overly concerned. I still wonder what the back story was.

 

[fmnjr]

maybe the strap on that was mentioned earlier in the thread was misplaced from those items?

 

[Scarey]

This was 3 miles in on forestry property. I was amazed it was still there.

 

[elkduds]

A crashed single engine airplane, north of Gunnison CO on the south slope of Red Mountain. Heard later that the pilot survived, was rumored to have crashed while spotting elk. Late 1980s.

 

[RockinU]

I'm guessing I'm probably not the only one on this forum to have seen this, and you'll forgive me if I'm not too location specific, but I will say it's a pretty long way from any road or trailhead:

 

[kmott]

once found a scattergun. once found a dude that blew his head off.


was able to get the scattergun back to it's owner , by the serial number .

couldn't do much about the dudes head.