Oddest single piece of gear you have seen on the trail

>"or he's read some BPL plastic water bottle leeching posts here"

+1

Yeah, those debates are nearly enough to whack someone over the head with a one-gallon, heavy glass jug.

Looks like ya got yerself one those fallin block tent stake drivers theer.

jimmby

looks like he has the same 'Dunlaps Disease' that I have been diagnosed to have…

What is Dunlaps Disease?

Well, that's when your belly dun laps over your belt… :) he he he….

billy

I came across someone on the JMT with one of these strapped to her pack:

We couldn’t help but ask. Turns out it’s a Thera Cane massager, and she swore by it. Said it’s the best piece of gear she carries. It looked totally crazy though.

Lightweight cot!

I was south of Carson Pass along the PCT when some people came in on the trail. One woman was wearing a long dress and heels.

I was in the Pinnacles (now) National Park on a hot day. As I walked uphill toward the High Peaks, some other people were walking downhill. First, a beautiful woman was walking by and appeared to have stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine. Hair, makeup, the whole nine yards. She seemed so out of place dressed that way that I froze in my tracks as I stared a bit. Next, a man was walking after her with a camera dangling around his neck. Again, I was puzzled by this. Then two big strong men were coming along carrying a heavy steamer trunk between the two of them. Again I stopped to stare. Then I put it all together. This was a magazine cover shoot with one female model, one male photographer, and two porters carrying all of the heavy gear.

–B.G.–

Was heading over Kearsarge pass a few months back, and met 2 very nice guys…one of which had a chessboard strapped to his pack.
Not a little travel chessboard…but the biggest I've ever seen. Perhaps 3x3ft by 3" thick. Solid wood.
It had to be a good 5lbs at least.

Judging by the reaction of my Scouts, the Aarn pack on my back is pretty high up there on the "oddness" scale.

A guy carrying a plastic lawn chair and his buddy carrying a case if 12 one liter
water bottles.

We were on a day hike last summer near Lake Dunmore in VT and as we were coming down the trail there was a guy heading up it. He had a gigantic pack on his back, a daypack turned around and strapped to his front, a plastic grocery bag filled with canned goods over one arm and (and this is the strange thing)…

A full case of Duraflame Logs! He was carrying the case with two hands with this plastic bag dangling from one arm. I was too stunned to even snap a photo.

Since I've seen it twice in three weeks, a hundred miles apart, the coming trend is apparently using brightly colored interlocking squares that are intended for exercise mats for sleeping pads-then leaving them behind for everyone else to enjoy.

There was the colander that rode on the back of a large fellow's pack. Women in high heels show up on the Mist Trail with frightening regularity (Yosemite is like that). There was the string of young guys with 60+ lb packs hiking about 5 mph in beat-flat flip flops with their boots tied on the top of their packs…

Ran into some women with makeup – one of them had a hair dryer.

The baby stroller full of gear made some kind of sense until the wheel shattered…

>> Since I've seen it twice in three weeks, a hundred miles apart, the coming trend is apparently using brightly colored interlocking squares that are intended for exercise mats for sleeping pads-then leaving them behind for everyone else to enjoy.

I've never thought about it this way before, but the above makes me *glad* that sleeping pads are so expensive (i.e., few people can afford to leave a $200-$300 pad behind!).

Related to the baby stroller sighting in the comment above, I was taking a rest break and started hearing a huge clattering noise coming up the rocky trail stretch I had just completed. Turned out it was two guys and a girl, and the guy in the back was pulling a little red wagon that had a cooler and folding lawn chairs in it. This was several miles from the road….

…

On the PCT last year there was a guy carrying a 15lb space drum on his backpack. That's probably the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It was cool listening to him play on top of Mathers pass in the sierras though :)

Year ago in Alaska I would go for long trail runs and occasionally run into the same guy over and over carrying a pressure cooker in his hands while running along. I talked to him once and asked him what he was doing and he said that he put his clothes in it to keep them dry.

On the 4 Pass Loop I saw a guy with a tent hanging below his pack and it would hit the back of his legs which each step. The weird thing was it was still in the box in came in.

On the Caribou Trail approaching the Junco Trailhead into Indian Peak Wilderness, CO: A small cast iron woodstove laying on it side.

Never can tell when you’ll need a BBQ out in the backcountry.

HJ
Adventures in Stoving
Hikin Jim’s Blog

My newly aquired hiking partners wore only swim suits, sheepskin boots and carried a 3 liter glass jug of chianti. It was an overnight and we stayed in a hut. They just wore the wool blankets from the hut to dinner.