Lost & Found on the trail

Hint for Photographers:

1. If you have a fairly modern camera, you can store some of your own information in the camera, because the camera can embed that into each photo file as copyright information. If you have lost your camera and if somebody finds it, they might be able to look for that information in the photo files. Or, maybe not. Some camera menus make this difficult.

2. If your camera does not do any of that, then you write your name and phone number clearly on a sheet of paper, then snap a photo of that when you start your trip. If you have lost the camera and if somebody finds it, they may go scanning through the stored photos as they look for a clue as to the owner. There, on photo #1, is your name and phone number. Also, you can offer a reward if you wish.

–B.G.–

This weekend yielded another knife, half a dozen tent stakes, and some weights that I assume were for holding down a picnic tablecloth – all without leaving the campsite.

Also about forty pounds of mixed beer bottle and aluminum slag in the firepits. Why are horse camps always such pigsties?

I hike a lot in the chugach behind Anchorage, and there are a few really popular trails and tons more that are kind've trails, and then lots of wilderness that's also great. The really popular trails (Crow Creek Crossing) are basically littered with crud, like old TP, and I remember seeing several shirts laying on the ground. There's also a cache of old shoes at a major river crossing, which has its own sort of charm. There's also old mining equipment that predates the area becoming a park. That's a trail where I just ignore trash, because if I start picking up trash it stops being a fun hike as I start getting resentful at everyone and then just quit while I'm angry.

Then there's the usually interesting trash I find along the not-quite trails, or even nowhere near a trail. That stuff I pick up, and most of what I've found has been basically useful, like a tow strap along a ridgeline, a cinch-strap in a valley, a pot-holder on an overlook, and a hat in a snowfield. There's been some true trash as well, but it's always interesting to me to find "stuff" rather than "garbage".

Best is the old bullet casings in military land. I brought some of those home thinking they'd make a great knick-knack, and then I remembered how I have no real place to display knick-knacks. ugh.