What is the strangest thing you ever saw in the backcountry?

[Leigh Baker]

High entertainment indeed!! Hard to read though when you're laughing so hard it brings you to tears!
Thanks, just what I needed after a short but stressful work week! Keep them coming!

[Carl Zimmerman]

A trail along Lake Tahoe shoreline about 1/2 M from trail head parking: SCUBA diver wearing a dry suit wearing a re-breather apparatus. He was headed back to his car after some diving.

[Geoffrey Lehmann]

While working in rural, east central Mississippi, we came down out of the woods into a large pasture to see an F4 Phantom sitting about 200 yards away. As we got closer, we could see that it was rigged with cable attachment points and concluded (and later confirmed) that it was used for practice lifts by the Air National Guard base in the county that was home to a large contingent of Chinooks and Sky Cranes.

geoff

[Louis Brooks]

I was about 8 and out backpacking in the woods of North Florida with my dad when we found the crash site of a WWII fighter plane. There wasn't a whole lot left after the crash and sitting for 50 years in the woods/swamps of the area. My dad reported it to the authorities and found out later it was lost on a training mission from the local air base during the war.

My best friend and I also found the remains of an old paddle wheel boat while backpacking along the Apalachicola river. It was just the metal parts and the wheel left but it was still pretty cool.

Another time my best friend and I were out exploring (as opposed to being lost) in a remote area and it was getting late. It was about that time of day when there is just enough light to turn everything different shades of grey. We walked into the clearing which was about waist high in field grass and thought it might be a good place to camp for the night.

Found a big tree stump about six feet long laying on its side and sat down to take a break. I was sitting there for a few minutes resting my feet when I noticed the stump had a plaque on it. Dusted it off and realized we were sitting on an overturned Woodsman of the World grave stone. That is when we realized the clearing was actually a over grown grave yard. Rest Over!

We decided to "explore" for a few more hours in the dark that night and put some distance between us and the graveyard before we made camp. Good thing it was a full moon.

–louis

[Rick Horne]

During the trip last September with Ken, Jack and Bob in SEKI we ran across a family backpacking who found this advertising balloon near Forrester Pass.

[David Thomas]

The ballon reminds me of our UCB Hiking Club on a Tahoe trip finding a jet-engine nacelle cowling, about half the diameter of this one:

We subsequently used it on that trip to roll down the hills with a college student tucked inside.

And brought it on other trips just because.

I always wondered what the 737 driver thought when he landed and inspected the plane, "Man! I could have sworn I started with cowlings on both engines!"

Bet it made for a lot of paperwork.

[Rick Horne]

Snow winged rock creature seen from Kearsarge Lakes:

[Bob Shaver]

We were hiking down the trail from Trail Crest near Mt. Whitney, and we came across two Siamese cats cutting up between switchbacks, at about 10,000'. They are being pursued by the owners, a middle aged couple obviously not prepared for high elevation or backcountry travel.

[Cesar Valdez]

I am not sure if this counts or not as "backcountry" but here goes.

I was in Nicaragua for a month, living on an the island Ometepe in a village of a few hundred locals at a plantation that also run a small and wonderful hostel that had about 10-20 backpackers and travelers in it at any given time. I went on hikes through the jungle nearly everyday, and it was amazing. One day walking through the village I passed a hut, and could not help but look inside, as there was a lot of motion that caught my eye.

And now I can say that I got to see a little person (like, 3 feet tall), with a pot on her head, and brandishing a large wooden spoon to drive a large pig out of the hut.

But on a backpacking trip on a trail out in the woods type backcountry? Out in the middle nowhere near the board to Norway, I found a moose leg. There was no other parts of the moose, just the leg. I was bushwacking, and just following animal trails, so my best guess is that a bear killed the moose, and in the process removed a leg. Then the bear dragged the rest of the body away (to its den?) to eat.

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