Basically I am referring to cool or strange items that people found while exploring forests found in North America of course as I wanted to encourage people to share stories about hiking trips.


37 comments

  4. There’s random old stone ruins in the forests around me usually it’s just a part of a foundation but sometimes there’s still a bit of a wall or part of a chimney

  5. Babydoll hanging on a tree near the often ignored end of a train tunnel that collapsed around 1925. No vampires luckily.

  6. I was in a pretty remote area of Michigan on a seldom used trail, I got to the top of a hill and there was a park bench with a plastic skeleton seated on it.

  8. Even though it’s not really that odd, there’s something about coming across an actual beaver dam that’s super weird

  9. A friend found an old 50s shotgun while out elk hunting. From the looks of it, it had been there for decades.

  11. A 1930s car (I think) just sitting amongst large trees. Just peacefully decaying miles from any road.

    Then I found a broken calculator on a trail miles deep into the woods half way up a mountain.

    A random dildo in a conservation area while I was leading an orienteering class.

  12. About five or six years ago I was out hiking in the canyon behind my office. I went off trail, started bushwacking and came across a teenage sex fort, lol.

  13. among some abandoned wooden structure, a random bathtub

    I also once found an abandoned house in the woods, no streets nearby, and a doll hand sticking out the wall.

  14. Not odd but unexpected. Just got done with a about 7 mile hike up a mountain for a backpacking trip. Find a perfectly laid out campsite with no one around. I start to set up camp and notice that it’s littered with broken beer bottles. I had to tie my dog up so I could sweep with my shoes, as much of the glass away into the brush.

    I get that people can just drive into the mountains and probably have parties at night from time to time, but it really sucked to be in the forest, on this mountain, and still have to deal with the nuisance of society not caring about others but themselves.

  15. Primarily old cemeteries (mid 1800s) in the middle of the forest in what used to be logging areas. Also found an old rusted out schoolbus, an old CRT television, and a couple of road signs several miles into the woods.

  17. A burned out delivery truck from maybe the 30s or 40s. No idea how they got it to where it was. Also found an old engine block on a narrow trail a mile up a mountain in colorado.

  22. I grew up in Maine so as several others have mentioned overgrown cemeteries, old glass bottles, and 200 year old stone walls showing that the woods had been cleared for farming in the colonial era. Also wildlife, I’ve been closer than I should be to deer, porcupines, skunks, and foxes among other animals.

    Side note about porcupines, it can take two 16 year old boys, and a mother in her 30s to hold down a 60lb terrier type dog so dad can remove porcupine quills with a pair of pliers.

  24. -Great horned owl nest. Every spring when I hear the sounds of the GHO I go check my rock in the woods. And watch the nesting, hunting and egg sitting. Then the babies appear. When they are ready to fledge the leaves are out and thy are now hard to see from my spot. And the adults don’t want me poking around. So I leave them alone.

    -While mountain biking I found an old cabin a distance away from a ghost town. I was looking for a secluded place to relieve myself and poked my way through some thick brush. I think this cabin had been forgotten since there was no trails around. I predicted where they would dump their garbage and came back with a metal detector. And found three dumping spots. I found a bent spoon, a lid to a snuff box, rusted metal cans and a few old bottles. And there were broken pieces of pottery, a leather shoe part, some bent nails and other odds and ends.

    -There were some nice maple logs on the side of a mountain road. So I went to cut them up for firewood. The saw hit something that caused a spark. I kicked it and found a rusted hoe with no handle.

    -I know where to find several old cars from around the 1920s or so. Just left forever in the wood.

    -There are lots of old metal cables where they logged the old growth forests. I am hiking and it feels like I am in deep wilderness. Then I find the cable. This place used to be a larger logging operation. It is not forest.

    -I know where to find an old gold mine that you can go in. There are crystals and interesting rocks all around the area. I am too chicken to go too deep in the mine. Rumor is that there are nasty fumes inside that might make you pass out. No thanks.

    -Stone walls. There is no record of a house ever being close in this spot. But there are squares of stone walls on our old property. It is not the property line. It was once a sheep farm. My best guess is they held up fence posts to keep the sheep from wandering too far in that direction.

    -I have found dozens of hunting camps. Some still maintained for hunting season, and some pretty much fallen down.

    -So I grew up on a property with over 100 acres of forest land. And we did lots of activities in the woods.

  25. Cult ritual spot. Luckily while no one was there.

    Also, one time, a boar skull and jaw, somehow the rest of the skeleton was gone. I still think about that sometimes, just like, how does that happen?

  27. I was hiking in Pisgah national forest in North Carolina. Fairly deep in the woods, away from hiking trails, and there was an engine block in a gully.
    318 V8. I have no idea how it got there. The terrain was way too rough for off roading, and the trees were too tightly spaced for vehicles to get through. Maybe the area had been logged in the past, but the trees around it were very mature, 2 to 3 foot diameter trunks.

  28. My sister and I have found 2 full unopened cans of Pepsi. Is it littering? Yes. Was it my grandpa’s favorite drink who was an avid hiker and camper? Also yes.

    I accept it as sign from him that he’s keeping an eye on us even after all these years.

  29. Found a pipe bomb in the mountains in Washington, also on a different hike in the middle of nowhere was a dead bird that someone shoved its head into a branch and left it hanging there which was creepy.

  30. Not me, but an ex found 2 intact clay pots while hiking in El Malpais in NM. They were in an ice cave and turned upside down. Next day, the ex took a ranger back to the cave, and they carried the pots out. The pots were estimated to be 800 years old and repatrioted back to the people of Pueblo of Acoma.

  33. Went backpacking in the early 2000s with some friends up to a campsite by a lake. There was a pile of empty rusted out beer cans with pull tabs. Stay-tabs became the standard in the mid 80’s so these were left over from someone’s camping trip in the 70’s. It was cool and eerie that they were still intact 30 years later.

  34. In Northern Arizona you can get a permit to log in forests (not big trees but brush – it helps with wildfires so it’s a win-win – and only in permitted areas.)

    My brother once went to relieve himself and found a WW2 era paratrooper rifle with collapsible stock. My Grandpa, he was in Korea, saw it and fixed it up the best he could before giving it to a gunsmith. You know when you don’t know. The price of ammunition alone made it a collection item.

    My brother, friend, and I were playing paintball and found a Native burial ground. We informed the local Community College and Archeological Department.

  35. Found a wooden fort once, this was far too big and organized to be teenagers. We managed to climb the walls once, a few small structures and people who promptly chased us off, yelling threats. We told our grandma, she called the police, they found the fort but the people were gone.

  37. We found a Native American stone mortar while hiking in Southern California. This was back in the 80s when I was a kid. It was in the same vicinity where there are a couple large bedrock mortars as well. These are large flat boulders that have about a dozen or so holes or depressions that were used for grinding nuts and acorns.

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