Coolest Find While Hiking

Have an interesting or epic climbing story? Post it here.
Forum rules
  • This is a mountaineering forum, so please keep your posts on-topic. Posts do not all have to be related to the 14ers but should at least be mountaineering-related.
  • Personal attacks and confrontational behavior will result in removal from the forum at the discretion of the administrators.
  • Do not use this forum to advertise, sell photos or other products or promote a commercial website.
  • Posts will be removed at the discretion of the site administrator or moderator(s), including: Troll posts, posts pushing political views or religious beliefs, and posts with the purpose of instigating conflict within the forum.
For more details, please see the Terms of Use you agreed to when joining the forum.
Post Reply
User avatar
LURE
Posts: 1281
Joined: 6/27/2011
14ers: 34 
13ers: 10
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by LURE »

bking14ers wrote:I guess its possible to have been placed there to take water to some other lake, if that's what they used to do years ago. I really don't think its being used for anything anymore. Normally it would have been covered over by a higher water level and out of sight. But for me (a water guy) I thought it was cool.
I'm curious about it, also as a water guy. From what I can tell there should be no structures being used to remove water from those lakes, anymore at least. Though, my research into it was brief.
User avatar
habaceeba
Posts: 166
Joined: 4/15/2010
14ers: 27 
13ers: 93 1 1
Trip Reports (3)
 

Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by habaceeba »

I found a folded $20 on the trail above 4th of July Mine headed up the Arapahos a few years ago. It bought me some burritos after the hike.
User avatar
davebks
Posts: 764
Joined: 6/5/2008
14ers: 10 
13ers: 10
Trip Reports (3)
 

Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by davebks »

I got the top of the ptarmigan fingers in RMNP and found a gold wedding ring just sitting there. I am guessing it fell from around someone neck or as they took off a mitten.

would love to find the owner but all my posts have lead me to nowhere.
did I already post this? cant remember.
User avatar
Loves Thin Air
Posts: 10
Joined: 8/8/2018
14ers: 5 
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by Loves Thin Air »

In short...my soul. :wink:
kcs1993
Posts: 1
Joined: 11/6/2018
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by kcs1993 »

My roommate and I were hiking up long's in August and got up to the open field before you get to the boulder field and a storm rolled in. Little rain and hail started coming down, and lots of wind - but we weren't ready to give up yet. We went back a few steps to get behind a giant rock and hike from the wind. I sat next to this rock. That was enough for us to turn around and say we'll come back another day :)
Attachments
39937484_10156749881119703_1388141843908132864_n.jpg
39937484_10156749881119703_1388141843908132864_n.jpg (85.4 KiB) Viewed 12836 times
User avatar
cougar
Posts: 1179
Joined: 8/9/2007
14ers: 58  2 
13ers: 135 2
Trip Reports (10)
 
Contact:

Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by cougar »

- Gold (just a flake)
- Beer on a summit
- Lava tube and volcanic fissures and a summit crater (in northern CO)
- shock absorber while bushwhacking, a decent distance from road or trail
- random abandoned cars and junk in unlikely places
- old smelters in the forest on bushwhacks
- furniture in odd places. Some chairs and fireplaces made of flagstone
- some sort of chicken coop wood shelter thing
- mummified bat in the desert
- some electrical wires on a rock outcropping in the middle of nowhere, over a mile off trail
- newborn elk on a summit

Bushwhacking is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're gonna get
http://www.listsofjohn.com/m/cougar

"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going."
"Bushwhacking is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna get."
"Don't give up on your dreams, stay asleep"
User avatar
Scott P
Posts: 9436
Joined: 5/4/2005
14ers: 58  16 
13ers: 50 13
Trip Reports (16)
 
Contact:

Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by Scott P »

cougar wrote:Lava tube and volcanic fissures and a summit crater (in northern CO)
Interesting. I know of a few volcanoes in northern Colorado, but they are hard to get to. I'd be curious as to the one in your post.
I'm old, slow and fat. Unfortunately, those are my good qualities.
User avatar
cougar
Posts: 1179
Joined: 8/9/2007
14ers: 58  2 
13ers: 135 2
Trip Reports (10)
 
Contact:

Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by cougar »

Interesting. I know of a few volcanoes in northern Colorado, but they are hard to get to. I'd be curious as to the one in your post.
Bald Mtn in Neota Wilderness, a pretty short hike from the Trap Park trailhead off Long Draw Rd.
http://www.listsofjohn.com/m/cougar

"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going."
"Bushwhacking is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna get."
"Don't give up on your dreams, stay asleep"
User avatar
mbourget
Posts: 121
Joined: 2/3/2008
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by mbourget »

Found this elk hunting in the San Juans. Would like to know more of his story.
IMG_0232.JPG
IMG_0232.JPG (167.9 KiB) Viewed 12790 times
Those scientists better check their hypotenuses.
User avatar
Trotter
Posts: 1406
Joined: 6/5/2013
14ers: 58  5 
13ers: 220 2 8
Trip Reports (10)
 

Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by Trotter »

I ran into a retired geologist at an old mine on the flank of a 13er. He helped us gather some very cool sparkly rocks from the mine, which I later researched was all sorts of cool gold and silver ore.
After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. -Nelson Mandela
Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called Ego. -Nietzsche
User avatar
maxhikes14ers
Posts: 16
Joined: 1/19/2016
14ers: 58  1 
13ers: 7
Trip Reports (3)
 
Contact:

Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by maxhikes14ers »

While hiking to a slot canyon in a very remote area of the San Rafeal Swell, I came across some very cool looking rocks. I brought some home and showed a geologist friend. One was a brilliant softball sized egg shaped orb made of translucent red and black rock. Turns out it was Opal! One the same trip I found what seems to be a Native American hide scraper, made from flint.
On a different trip hiking in the grand canyon area, I found an old abandoned mine. Inside (ya stupid idea but worth it), the walls were made of giant calcite crystals, in shades of orange, red, and clear. It was so cool! Farther in the mine, there was a bunch of silvery grey ore. I took a handful home. That turned out to be Silver ore!
Max Manson
User avatar
JChitwood
Posts: 622
Joined: 8/29/2011
14ers: 58 
13ers: 51
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: Coolest Find While Hiking

Post by JChitwood »

Being a bit of a misanthrope I don’t do a whole lot of good for humanity. But I do gather up trash everywhere I go. I pick up my neighborhood regularly, often return from bike rides with jersey pockets full, and just yesterday picked up the entire parking lot at the Castle Rock cinema while waiting on my wife to arrive. And while hiking, like many of us I’m sure, I load up my pack with items other wonderful humans have tossed on the trail. Last September while returning from an ascent of Rio Pyramid down the section next to Weminuche Creek I spotted some papers off the trail on the steep slope. Retrieval would be difficult, but after cursing the hunters who discarded the trash (absolutely nobody else was in the valley above), I got down on my stomach and reached into the abyss with my hiking poles. Thinking no good deed goes unpunished, I figured it would be a major injury or at least the loss of a hiking pole. After messing with the poles for a bit I finally got the trash high enough to grab with my hand and was pleasantly surprised to find a $100 bill and four $1 bills.
"I'll make it." - Jimmy Chitwood
Post Reply