2 ounces of gold

MoapaPk wrote:drop tanks

Visual aid:

One of the largest natural arches in the world:

http://www.summitpost.org/article/27288 ... -arch.html

I've also found arrowheads, flint knives and other cool stuff. Also an old register on top of a peak where the last signature was from 1911.

Shark teeth buried in the mud....in Arkansas.

Coolest thing I ever found was while hiking down a dim road in the Northern section of Allamuchy Mountain Park, I found a Standing Liberty quarter dollar coin (date unreadable, but minted between 1916-1930). Just enough sticking out of the dirt to shine in the sun. Cool part was that this was on an early morning July-4th hike several years ago.

I was hiking in Sunol Regional Park alongside a seasonal stream that was flowing slowly. As I glanced down I saw a small trout, dead, with a newt sticking out of its mouth. The newt looked to be bigger than the fish. Apprently the trout bit off more than it chew, if you will, and choked to death.

On an island in Prince William Sound, AK, we realized we were camping in the remains of an Inuit wailing camp. The large rock we were cooking on appeared to be were they cut up the days catch.

butitsadryheat wrote:

Dave Varga wrote:Coolest thing I ever found was while hiking down a dim road in the Northern section of Allamuchy Mountain Park, I found a Standing Liberty quarter dollar coin (date unreadable, but minted between 1916-1930). Just enough sticking out of the dirt to shine in the sun. Cool part was that this was on an early morning July-4th hike several years ago.

I don't know what is more cool. The story you just told (a great one, by the way) or the fact that you have been a member of Summitpost since 2003, and this was only your 3rd post!

Quite impressive!

Haha I'm glad someone said it, I was thinking the same thing!

Hmmmm, let's see here..

At the base of El Cajon mountain in San Diego, my friends and I came across some old burned down buildings and some kind of old rusted outpost/hideout tent. Also, a little farther down the trail, the skeleton of what was perhaps a coyote.

Some odd animal skull in Anza Borrego SP.

A dead hawk carcass with its wings spread open in a canyon around Escondido in South California.

Also, once in the San Jacinto Mountains, I found a deer hoof with dried blood on it.

Some mountain lion tracks in the mud on the way to Eagle Crag.

Snow cave at the beginning of the Devil's Backbone on Mt. Baldy. Also a very nicely made snow shelter on top of Stonewall Peak in Cuyamaca Rancho SP. It looked like a brick foundation, with bricks of ice!

Oh yeah, also, around Culp Valley, my buddy and I came across a motion detection camera attached on a tree. It had a small man made water well in its sight close by. It took two pictures of us. I bet we looked like a bunch of goofballs looking into that thing..

I'll try to remember more.. I know there is more..

A red bandanna draped over a log that had fallen across a canyon
Two old boy scout cook sets half submerged in a creek
A crazy granite arch atop a ridge in the the elks range that I seriously need to know if anyone else knows about

Just remembered another one. . .

Once, working for the Forest Circus in late summer, (getting paid to check-out and measure obscure, half-forgotten trails!), I walk through empty forest for a few miles on some such trail, way out there, and certainly not another soul for miles around. Dark in there. The trail emptied out onto a rocky point, where I find the markings of an old helipad. Had lunch in the sun, took in the view, and headed back.
Darker now, and about a third of the way in, I think I hear a noise that stops me in my tracks. Looking around, I don't see anything, and continue on, slowly. Then, I round a bend in the trail, and see an arrow stuck in a tree, about halfway up. Shit. Did I miss that on the way in? Breathing a little faster, but I still don't see anyone. But, I spot what looks like a little lean-to off the trail a bit. Wtf? I walk cautiously toward it. Sure enough, it's a hunter's blind. Empty inside.
I look back at that arrow, and decide to start bookin' it.
Doubtful anyone was there, but, I was spooked, and had to get the hell outa there.

FortMental wrote:Once found a VERY large blotch of blood on some rocks on a high ridge. I followed the drips for a couple of hours, noting the splatter direction, hoping to find some large quivering animal being gnawed on by a werewolf, or zombies, or something. But the drips just kept getting smaller and smaller until they just disappeared......

Sounds like an animal had been shot, and bedded down. Likely, you jumped it out of it's bed and, unbeknownst to you, you kept pushing it as you followed the blood trail. Had you been an hour later, you may have found the dead animal in the first bed after it stiffened up and died.

dskoon wrote:Once, working for the Forest Circus in late summer, (getting paid to check-out and measure obscure, half-forgotten trails!)

So, you were a US Dept of Aggrevation employee? But seriously, that sounds like an awesome job. If I found that job, I'd post it under the "coolest thing I've ever found" thread.

dskoon wrote:"jdzaharia"

dskoon wrote:Once, working for the Forest Circus in late summer, (getting paid to check-out and measure obscure, half-forgotten trails!)

Jdzaharia wrote:
So, you were a US Dept of Aggrevation employee? But seriously, that sounds like an awesome job. If I found that job, I'd post it under the "coolest thing I've ever found" thread.

Yeah, well, in some ways this "filler" job that I had, at the end of a summer working with kids, was fun: being out on my own, driving the ol' truck around the hills to old, forgotten trailheads, hiking around, picking blackberries and huckleberries, etc.
But, it wasn't the wisest use of taxpayers money, not that I cared that much at the time. Just wouldn't want to spin my wheels in that manner all the time. Well, maybe some of the time.

Alaska. Misty weather. Following a riverbed. I'd like to say we were days from any civilization, but in fact we were only a couple of hours from the road, planning to hike into some nearby hills before finding a campsite for the night.

At a bend in the river where the gravel formed terraced banks up to ten feet high, something sticking out of the gravel. Something with antlers. Something very dead. The head, neck, and shoulders of an elk, partly mummified and mostly skeletal, perfectly upright. Probably the creepiest thing I've ever seen.