Crap/junk you have found in the back country?

[oldranger]

Bill,

Now that you bring it up I left my new spoon up at Glacier Lake in the Eagle Cap. One minute it was in my hand the next minute it was gone. I spent the last half hour before dark combing the area and another 1/2 hour the next morning. Problem was the spoon was the same color as the rock!

Damn am I embarrassed!

mike

[oldranger]

I can't begin to describe all the crap I found in the backcountry--Whole tents that were shredded after being left set up in the winter, more fishing lures, hooks, and line than I can count. Sets of pots and pans and food abandoned when a group got hit by a snowstorm. Hundreds of pounds of foil, wire, barbed wire, broken glass, flashlights, tennis shoes, boots, whiskey bottles, a large first aid kit, hats,hundreds of helium party balloons, horseshoes, nails, prescription medicine, fishing rod and reel, coleman stove, sheepherder stove, decks of cards, crashed planes, cast iron skillets, sheets of plastic, a weather balloon, dead horses, halters and lead ropes. On second thought I just began to describe some of the crap I have found ...

Mike

[John Dittli]

Does this count?

[LMBSGV]

Nothing quite as spectacular as a helicopter, but along with the usual cans, bottles, balloons, etc. I did come across a full set of bed springs at a campsite in the Minarets many years ago.

[frediver]

Other than normal bits n pieces I did have one lucky find, two faded but full cans of beer.
I've often thought of returning the favor and packing in a six pack to stash a can at a time
for some other lucky hiker.

[oldranger]

Speaking of beer,

In the early 70s a friend and I hiked in over Cottonwood Pass, down to Whitney Meadows. In the middle of the meadow we found an old glass jar filled with Malt (though an ingredient of beer that is not the connection). Later in the day we got near where the map indicated a gauging station along Golden Trout Creek. I told my friend if we went down close to the creek it was likely we would find a decent campsite. We did. Then as I usually do I started poking around along the stream and shortly came back to camp with 5 bottles of Brew 102. Not the best but beggars can't be ..... The bottles had cork inside the caps and a couple were rotted out so some of the beer was spoiled. But all in all it was a great find.

Mike

[trav867]

Thats a good find! There's a lot of junk in big whitney meadow isn't there? Oil drums, tools, old fence and the like.

[rlown]

In 2007, i did find two Garcia bear canisters full of food and a gallon of coleman white gas at Upper Mattie in Yose in early october. No one around but our party. Oh yeah, and the gill-nets.

[frediver]

One thing does bother me about picking up "abandoned" items, am I positive they are
actually "abandoned" and not a pre-positioned "Cache" that someone is depending on?

[rlown]

One thing does bother me about picking up "abandoned" items, am I positive they are
actually "abandoned" and not a pre-positioned "Cache" that someone is depending on?

Yeah, we just found them and looked at them. We didn't bother them. It was clear they were a cache for the following year's net haulout.. I'm not saying some in my party didnt have ideas, but the permit was under my name and they knew where i was going.