Coolest Find While Hiking

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Cheaton6
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Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by Cheaton6 »

I love exploring and I know everyone else here does as well. I am wondering what people's best finds have been while exploring the back country? I haven't found anything special, I love stumbling across old abandoned shacks and history. Once in the middle of the woods off trail I found an old wooden box sitting under a rock. Thinking it was treasure of course I opened it up and it was full of ashes. That was my most surprising find but I am sure everyone else has better stories!
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Jim Davies
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Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by Jim Davies »

In the summer of 1995 I found the ashes of Robert Ormes on Mount Rosa. They had been scattered a few days earlier according to the summit register; later that day it rained cats and dogs, so I might have been the last one to see them there.

In the early 90's I was bushwacking up an obscure slope on an unnamed peak near Mt Rosa and found an old Lensatic compass. The face was partly faded from sun exposure, but it still worked. It's still the only compass I carry.
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TK
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Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by TK »

Does it count if someone else found something?

I once fell into the Colorado River in RMNP and lost a wallet. It seems I had my phone number written on a receipt. Six months later, one of the local ranchers called me to tell me he'd found the wallet while fishing in the river. I drove up to get it, had a great cup of coffee with him, and a day hike above Grand Lake. He'd dried out the papers enough that he could read them, called me, and returned everything intact. Amazing.
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EatinHardtack
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Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by EatinHardtack »

While hiking I once found a shoe. Not that's a great find by any stretch of the imagination but it was an old shoe. Full leather with leather sole with pegged wood instead of stiching. I was suprised to find it but not suprised that it hadn't deteriorated as it was high above timberline in a known mining area. It was damn near the same make as my civil war reenacting shoes I use to wear. Did some research on the area afterwards to find that operations had been present from the mid-1860's, so it could have been from that period but maybe a later date 80's or 90's. I left it alone but put it back in one of the mines.
"In our youths our hearts were touched with fire" - Oliver Wendell Holmes
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jeremy27
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Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by jeremy27 »

I found an arrowhead off trail on the side of Spring Mountain. My wife swears it fell out of some kids backpack but I'm telling myself it was real. Better story that way.
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killstorm
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Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by killstorm »

Not really coolest, but oddest find was this:
IMG_4331aasm.JPG
IMG_4331aasm.JPG (145.34 KiB) Viewed 15878 times
This was after hiking Trico Peak (background), I was looping back down and ran across this in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't close to any mining remnants and was a ways from the road. A bunch of 2x4's nailed into the ground
in rows. Not quite sure what to make of it, maybe a mini snow fence...
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Brian C
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Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by Brian C »

Stuff like this is always cool to find...
66184_orig.jpg
66184_orig.jpg (179.91 KiB) Viewed 15850 times
Brian in the Wild
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TeamDino5280
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Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by TeamDino5280 »

This is in the Monte Christo Drainage in the 10-Mile

The rock on top is the size of a mini-van......

Image

Image
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Jeff Valliere
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Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by Jeff Valliere »

My wife and I found a gold Chopard pocket watch, with a steam train engraved on it from the 1880's while exploring a mining site in the San Juans years ago. The outside is somewhat tarnished and the internal gears are not operable, but the inside is relatively intact and the gold inside is quite shiny. Could certainly be refurbished to near original condition.
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Rarefied
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Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by Rarefied »

TeamDino5280 wrote:This is in the Monte Christo Drainage in the 10-Mile. The rock on top is the size of a mini-van......
Cool shot! 8)
EatinHardtack wrote:While hiking I once found a shoe. Not that's a great find by any stretch of the imagination but it was an old shoe. Full leather with leather sole with pegged wood instead of stiching. I was suprised to find it but not suprised that it hadn't deteriorated as it was high above timberline in a known mining area. It was damn near the same make as my civil war reenacting shoes I use to wear. Did some research on the area afterwards to find that operations had been present from the mid-1860's, so it could have been from that period but maybe a later date 80's or 90's. I left it alone but put it back in one of the mines.
That sounds something like one I found a few years back as I came down off North Star. Maybe its mate?! :lol:

R
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spong0949
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Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by spong0949 »

I found an Iphone on Columbia's southeast ridge. We called contacts from the phone until we reached the owner, got an address, and sent it to them. We didn't expect anything in return, just trying to do the right thing. About a month later I got an REI gift card in the mail as a thank you. SCORE!
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Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by MountainHiker »

Dex wrote:
TeamDino5280 wrote:This is in the Monte Christo Drainage in the 10-Mile

The rock on top is the size of a mini-van......
The cairn builders got tired of putting the small rocks on top.
No, they saw on 14ers.com that some people kick over cairns. So they thought, okay, have a go at this one!
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