39 replies to this topic

[BSS]

Just curious what some of the members here have stumbled across in their years wandering.

I don't know of anything really "weird" other than abandoned homesteads, pot grows, trash dumping, etc. Though I'm sure something will come to me.

[MarkBC]

Cool idea for a topic, BSS! This could be a fun topic!

Many, many, many years ago -- back when I was a little central-Californian kid -- we were on some day-trip road-exploring somewhere in the Sierras and came upon a weather balloon that had come down and was hanging in tatters from the trees. I remember my dad and my uncle took turns swinging on the strips of material, way out from the slope -- it was a big balloon!
That's not really weird -- just unusual.

I'm sure that Members from southern latitudes must have come across at least the occasional extraterrestrial spacecraft out in the boonies of southern California/Nevada/Arizona/New Mexico. I mean, those e.t. guys are pretty sharp, but they must crash once in a while...maybe if they run out of fuel.

[ntsqd]

Pictures exist, but I'll be darned if I can find them. How about a 1/2 dozen or so Skillsaw blades stuck into trees at the 8'-12' mark? It was somewhat of a fluke that I hadn't to even notice them. I've been up and down that road many times and never noticed them, yet they're rusty enough to have been there a while.

EDIT: Just realized where a photo or photos should have been and found one.

Edited by ntsqd, 09 December 2012 - 10:05 PM.

[craig333]

I ran into ET out in the middle of nowhere.

[camelracer]

Found a human skull in the Algadones dunes outside of El Gulfo.

[Smokecreek1]

One of the neatest things I ever saw where two lead wild stallions fighting with each other over some territory. Several years ago, I was leading what we used to call an "adventures in Past/know and enjoy your Public lands" tour up in the Smoke Creek/Shinn Ranch country; we used to regularly (depending on weather) do these tours to show the public what was out on their "Public Lands" and how to use it and not abuse it. Anyway we are bouncing along out there and I came around a corner and low a behold right in front of me were two stallions in a face off-bluffing and snorting with each other. I stopped my rig and the vehicles behind me and everyone got out and started taking pictures. I knew that one of the herds was the resident herd ( I had seen the lead stallion { he was well know in the area and was really big and powerful-the type of horse that they make movies about] and his herd before )and it was was obvious that this was a new bunch that was was trying to move into their area. Each stallion had his second in command behind him-like ready to step in if help was needed (or probably take over), with the rest of each ones herd sort of bunched out behind them with the mares and colts all sort of watching. The boundary was the 4x4 road-you could tell by the piles of horse crap. They actually started to fight-like in the movies. In all my years I had -as had the rest of the tour- never ever seen anything like this. The challenger eventually gave up and led his family group away as the resident stallion did his victory dance! I was accused of setting it up because nothing like that ever happens when you are out there! I've been chased and challenged by horses before when I entered their territory on foot or with my dog, but this something else. Lot's of things to see out there and was so lucky to see this.

Smoke

[Smokecreek1]

Leadsled9

Don't envy you at all! I was shipped south a couple of times to help out on some projects down there--and that sure looks like what they warned us about what not to run into; glad we didn't have to deal with those things up here (officially), have enough problems with meth/dope/pot-hunters, poachers and other low lives- then the real bad guys who flew in on aircraft and set up house keeping in my beloved high desert! Let's go back to the nice adventure sightings like horses, miles of beautiful views, lops and silence, oh and little cow crap here and there!

Smoke

[Foy]

It isn't exactly what I've run into wandering the West, but here in the East, I've run into my share of stills in the woods of VA, NC, SC, and GA. I suppose over a half-dozen years of 100% field work I ran into a dozen or two stills, or at least got to within sight of workings which had to be stills. Our SOP was to look the other way (quite literally: make a grand gesture of turning your head opposite of the workings and walk directly away as though you never saw anything). We never encountered people, but we always had the notion that we were being watched.

My namesake grandfather was a civil engineer and land surveyor in eastern NC from the late 1920s through the late 1950s. "Pop" was all the time walking up on stills and always looked the other way. Family legend says he always received lots of Christmas cheer in the form of hams, sausage, seasonal produce, and home-made brandies come Thanksgiving/Christmas time, mostly as anonymous gifts from the bootleggers' operations he'd so carefully ignored during the preceding year. Everybody in Nash County, NC knew "Mr Foy" and respected his discretion as to what he saw, or didn't see, whilst in the field cutting and shooting line.

In the West, I've backpacked or hiked right upon people enjoying a nooner right along the trail, all sorts of illicit partiers, and who knows how many squatters making a homeplace out of public or timber company land. Not to mention illegal placer and even lode miners.

Get around much and there's essentially no limit to what you'll see.

Foy

[ski3pin]

<snip>

Get around much and there's essentially no limit to what you'll see.

Foy

[MarkBC]

It isn't exactly what I've run into wandering the West, but here in the East, I've run into my share of stills in the woods of VA, NC, SC, and GA. I suppose over a half-dozen years of 100% field work I ran into a dozen or two stills, or at least got to within sight of workings which had to be stills. Our SOP was to look the other way (quite literally: make a grand gesture of turning your head opposite of the workings and walk directly away as though you never saw anything). We never encountered people, but we always had the notion that we were being watched.

My namesake grandfather was a civil engineer and land surveyor in eastern NC from the late 1920s through the late 1950s. "Pop" was all the time walking up on stills and always looked the other way. Family legend says he always received lots of Christmas cheer in the form of hams, sausage, seasonal produce, and home-made brandies come Thanksgiving/Christmas time, mostly as anonymous gifts from the bootleggers' operations he'd so carefully ignored during the preceding year. Everybody in Nash County, NC knew "Mr Foy" and respected his discretion as to what he saw, or didn't see, whilst in the field cutting and shooting line.

Yeah even on the west coast we know about Appalachian moonshiners, thanks to Moonshiners... umm...yes, I've watched it a couple of times. Indulging in the occasional white-trash reality series is one of my guilty pleasures.
Maybe you can tell me, Foy: Are those out-in-the-woods stills (such as featured on Moonshiners) set up on public land -- like, national forest or state forest, or are they on undeveloped private land? The TV show doesn't make that clear. I know very little about the East...but my impression was that there's not that much public land...??

Seems like moonshine-stills back east are like public-land pot-plantations out west.

Your grandad sounds like a cool guy.