What interesting gear have you found on the trail?

10" cast iron skillet, if you consider that "gear".

Fortunately, a USFS ranger out on a really long day packed it back out.

"Ian, at what point does an old pepsi can turn from garbage to a relic of archaeological significance that needs to be left in situ so that future generations will be able to study them?"

If my first reaction is "What kind of a &%#$%^& arsehole would just leave that here?!?" then I pick it up.

If my first reaction is "Holy crap! I was wearing bellbottoms the last time I saw one of those!" then I leave it alone.

Edit: I couldn't remember for sure but per wikipedia, that has been sitting there for at least 33 years. Was it left there by some Palouse farmer? Maybe an unsung hero of the Cold War from Hanford? Kennewick Man's great great great great great great great grandson? Dunno.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverage_can

I'm not %100 sure how, but I think that logic is a bit like only wanting to save the "cute" animals from extinction ;-).

"I'm not %100 sure how, but I think that logic is a bit like only wanting to save the "cute" animals from extinction ;-)."

I'm ok with that.

…every arrowhead you find in the wilderness is the result of someone who wasn't yo diggity down with LNT.

Cans fro the 70's are a no, but pottery shards from the 1870's is OK? Where is the line? I find condensed milk cans in the middle of the desert. I leave them. Mylar balloons I'll pack out, The can is no threat to anyone.

If you hike around the Death Valley National Park backcountry a little bit, you will come across some great collector's items in the way of dead automobiles on and off trails. It's fascinating to try to identify the make and model based on a rusted hulk.

–B.G.–

The ghost of an AMC Gremlin trying to make it to Disneyland.

Speaking of rubber pole tips? I leave mine on because they tend to leave fewer marks on the trail and are a whole lot quieter than hearing click, click, click as I go down the trail. But I have to confess that I have also lost a couple over the years.

Twice in the last five years I have had my cache of water stolen. I wish people would not steal water unless it was an emergency.

I have not been lucky enough to find anything "good" on the trail that others left behind. I have only found their trash, which really pisses me off!

I checked this thread, but seems no one found, my bpl1100 pot with bushbuddy and myog spinntex bag that my wife lost the first day of a 5 day winter hike in the Vercors mountain.

Two bandanas, a Mora knife in good conditions (someone regrets dropping that, I expect), and a two-foot handsaw (trail maintenance? Horsepacker?).

Also more beer bottles than I could have carried in a shopping cart. Those stayed. I definitely blame the horse riders for those. Backpackers would have more sense than to carry cheap beer in bottles that many miles.

Things get a lot easier to spot off-trail in the underbrush in the winter.

We always hike gear out…..I hiked out a 3 man Ozark trail tent that was destroyed/abandoned once. The tent poles were shattered….Not exactly sure what cheap Ozark trail tent poles are made of (they are extremely thin by the way…not sure how a 5 mph wind doesn't destroy them instantly), but that stuff was nasty with micro splinters…had to be real careful with it. Plus plenty of shoe soles, sunglasses, an inflatable sit pad once, and….usually its just simple candy or granola bar wrappers and …#1 item I find is water/Gatorade bottles.

I know a lot was just from a habitual litterer…but I still like to think that 75% was unintentional littering. Forgetting a water bottle at a rest stop, or it popped out of their side pockets when trying to sit down, or a candy wrapper that fell out of a pocket while trying to dig out something else….

I hike trash out to teach my kids the old scout motto of leaving a campsite and the wilderness better than we left it. But honestly….I'm just trying to make up for all of the unintentional littering that I have done.

For example….while packrafting the escalante I found a 2 liter platypus on a beach….only to realize later that I accidentally left my sunglasses on that same beach.

Is the person that finds the sunglasses going to think that I was littering or just accidentally forgot them? I do hope that most hikers realize that a lot of littering is by accident.

…"every arrowhead you find in the wilderness is the result of someone who wasn't yo diggity down with LNT."

Yea I tell that to my archeologist spouse each time he finds artifacts….he gets real excited, takes lots of photos, me not so much.
"One man's trash is another's treasure" kinda thing I guess.
Down here on the Mexican border you can judge how long an illegal trail has been used by the age of the steel juice cans littering acres of shady spots…..

Due to fire pressures where we live the recreational opportunities got shrunk down to basically three canyons out of six so those left that are worth hiking are experiencing much more pressure, trampling, biking and of course trash. I keep a surgical glove and zip locks in my pack to carry out the mounds of TP that appear, especially after holidays. Thanksgiving beat the daylights out of the only place with trees here and I was picking up poopie papers for days…..gross. I wonder what goes thru people's minds when they walk away from mounds of TP within three feet of a popular trail? Like It's actually OK for the rest of us to have to look at it forever? UGH! Just two days ago I found an unopened 7up right in the middle of a trail…..how could a person miss dropping that?
Oh and I've got a pile of bike parts….and walking pole tips.
By far the worst was the biking club that decided to do a night ride…some idiot decided it would be a good idea to put up HUNDREDS of reflectors on every tree, rock and USFS sign for two and a half miles using ammonia based plumbers caulking…..made me just about as angry and sick to heart as I'd been in years….of course I reported it. I will add that I in no way resent bikers, except those that are not courteous, even after that farce. I just pick up the parts they leave behind….and jump out of their way when they bomb on by…..

Apparently, a lot of you are finding those rubber pole tips — damn, I need a pair of those, but haven't found any!

On trail, I've mostly found the usual stuff, abandoned hat, gloves, bandanas. My best haul was a yellow Garmin GPS (which I can't find around the house, no matter where I look – Karma!!!). I examined it carefully, and started it up, but there was nothing that listed the owner. If it's garbage, we usually pack it out (my husband brought out an old Mateus bottle today — heavy SOB).

Living in the desert, we don't touch water caches. It could be a matter of life or death for someone — wouldn't want to be morally responsible for someone's death.

Off trail, I've found lots of stuff: a powder horn (!), shell casings, pens, bottles and cans (some old), bandanas, the odd climbing nut or carabiner, bits of old climbing rope — and a (used) pair of boxer shorts printed with roast turkey legs (!!!). I can't even imagine what the story was on that last item. My buddy & I couldn't stop laughing — he put them in a plastic bag, and brought them home!

As for stuff I've lost, well… I'm probably not ahead of the game over all.

What I have NOT found: The Lost Dutchman Mine.

I found a large container of Vaseline once.

Also, towels for some reason…

Aside from numerous cheap sleeping bags, the only piece of actual gear I've found was a R1 hoody that someone apparently tossed after it got a small rip in it. Wasn't my size, but I had it repaired, and gave it to someone who could use it.

Edit: forgot that I found a Buff on the ground at a TH. Kind of ironic that it's the only Buff I've lost, and have no idea what happened to-I know where the other one I lost went, but it's 1500 miles away with my Suunto M3-DL. So much for LNT…

I hike in North Georgia, Tennessee and N. Carolina.
I've found old steel beer cans with "church-key" openings (I call that a condensed milk can). Also, lots of hats, shoes, a patagonia jacket, a tent, bags of trash, lots of mylar balloons, paracord in trees, sunglasses, tampons inserters, etc

A pillow, several lights, water bottles and Nalgenes, sleeping pads (usually foam, which seem to escape cord or strap with regularity).

I found one Nalgene standing alone in the middle of a meadow once. Took it home after trying to find the owner in the crowd at the trailhead (it had a name on it). A year later, on a whim, I returned to the Dinkey Wilderness with it (I don't usually carry Nalgenes in summer) and was holding it in my hand as we climbed to Dogtooth Peak – a group going the other way included a young lady who recognized it as hers. Evidently she takes disadvantaged youth from Orange County up there every summer, and forgot it last year on a break. I offered it back to her but she let me keep it.

One time we found a stainless steel pot full of flatware next to the trail. It'd been collecting rain for a while. Obviously no one who came here (or to any store with outdoor equipment) first.

I can't be the only one who turned around at the parking lot and hiked back three miles to pick up an escaped sleeping pad, can I?

watch, hat, pole baskets, various climbing booty while climbing… including a patagucci Nano puff that fits perfect (no one at the cliff, not anyones i asked about it)

found a water bottle coming down mt washington this fall. dumped it out cuz i'm not carrying water i won't drink. found the ownder up the trail a while later and he was like is there still water in it? "there was" haha at least he knows it didn't break falling out of his pack.

I once hauled a completely rusted out circular saw that I yanked out of an iced over log. It was a little wildlife refuge about 10 minutes from my hometown, so it's not like somebody hiked 20 miles with it, but it was probably a mile and half or more, and depending on the time of year it might have been compete bushwhacking to get there.

I was just snowshoeing out there (thus, not bushwhacking since all the brush was down) so I have no idea how long it was there, but it probably weighed 15 pounds, and I had no pack to carry it in. They apparently didn't forget to bring the battery out though.

My most interesting is probably a lawn chair. The old alum. kind with the wide fabric straps. Carried it out. Also found a full sized coleman white gas lantern, my buddy carried that one out. He used it for car camping for a long time.

Some awesome quotes in this thread

"
A liter Nalgene bottle filled to the very brim with some excellent tequila. Found amongst a bear ravaged campsite on the Lost Coast. Improper food storage. 1 Lara Bar also there untouched."

As well as the Gatel "check your premise"

And what is with the Leki Makalu? I also found one, on an alpine route in NOCA. Weird.

Always sunglasses. Lens caps. Once some full cans of beer that had obviously taken a tumble, but the majority were unbroken… and delicious.

This weekend I found an old tobacco tin on a remote slope in Anza Borrego. I have never seen another person in this area, it is rarely hiked.

It was one of the slender ones with a flip top lid, similar to this:

The outside was burned and completely rusted. Inside were a couple pages of folded onion skin paper, the edges were charred. There were written instructions (navigation instructions) on the paper, barely legible. The ink was from a fountain pen. There was no sign of a recent fire, or even a long time ago fire. Since fountain pens went out of favor for the most part in the 60's, I am guessing this thing was from the 50's or even earlier.

Being that I am sure it is over 50 years old, I left it where it was. I did find one mylar ballon, long deflated and disintegrated. I packed that out. The only other thing I found were animal tracks and a lot of big horn scat.

Many years ago, a group of college students, me included, were on a week-long trip through the Guadalupe Mountains in West Texas. It was spring break, and so perfect time to be in the desert. We were a mixed group in our experience level with the backcountry, with this being the first trip for about half the group. We were of course heavy hauling (think 30 years ago). Much of our load was water, as most campsites were dry.

I was a little smitten, in that not so discerning way that college freshman boys tend to be, with one of the young ladies in our group. She was from the half of our group that was new to backpacking, and was struggling.

On our second day her hiking boots, which she had borrowed from her mother, started failing. The glue holding on the soles was not holding. The boots were were probably 20 years old, although the suede looked almost brand new. Her mother had probably bought them before her daughter was born, but never used them.

At this stage I was getting nervous for her and our ability to complete the trip. As we had a lot of miles to cover. The boot was probably only a few hundred steps away from total failure. I started asking the group if anyone had some duct tape that we could wrap the boot and hold on the sole. No one did. I start encouraging her saying we would figure this out while I ran through my head what other fix might work to salvage the boots.

I was in the lead at that point. We probably went another 15 minutes down the trail. Everyone was quiet. You only heard foot steps and the occasional flapping of her boot sole as it continued to work its way free. With the sole on the other foot not far behind.

It was a typical hot sunny blue sky day. We had not seen anyone else the entire trip so far. And we were miles from any campsite. As we walked, right in front of me, sitting on the dry rocky ground, dead center of the trail. A quarter role of duct tape.