Bizarre scene at Lambert Meadows Camp Site - any ideas?

[GoldenBear]

Early on the morning of Saturday, August 16, I was leaving the Lambert Meadows Camp Site when I chanced upon this sight at the fire pit near the tent site picnic table.
http://whiteblaze.net/forum/vbg/showimage.php?i=60263
http://whiteblaze.net/forum/vbg/showimage.php?i=60264

I called out to see if anyone was around, but didn't hear a peep.

There was no evidence of foul play, other than abandoned clothes, some with singe marks, in the fire pit.
The pit itself was dead cold, thus the clothes had been there at least a day. I'm also pretty sure nobody else camped near me the previous night.

If I had seen any evidence of foul play, I'd have called 911 as soon as I got a signal.

If I'd seen what was unambiguously a wallet or phone, I'd have picked that up, in order to contact its owner.

Because it was only a WEIRD scene, I looked up the URL for the Roanoke ATC
http://www.ratc.org/contact/
and left an e-mail for Shelter Supervisor Homer Witcher. He's not contacted me back, so I presume he didn't see an immediate need to see my photos.

I left everything exactly as I found it JUST IN CASE the area actually did need some careful analysis.

But I'm still curious what others think the situation was (still is?).

Did someone decide to give up hiking here, and symbolically threw away these clothes to show a complete break-away?
Or perhaps someone tried to dry out her/his wet clothes over a fire, only to find out that isn't the best way to handle wet cotton or leather?

Any other ideas?

[Don H]

Looks like someone dumped a bunch of extra clothes they didn't want and lit them on fire to destroy them.
I've seen entire abandoned campsites, tents and all just left. It's kinda spooky to peek into an abandoned tent hoping there's not a body inside!

[Another Kevin]

There was one time I arrived at a shelter and found a whole pile of abandoned XYZ-Mart gear mildewing away behind it. Looked like about four sleeping bags, a couple of tents, a couple of backpacks, and a bunch of blue foam. All soaking wet, moldy and shredded by the critters. My guess is that the people carrying it decided they didn't like backpacking and hiked out to a trailhead leaving all their stuff behind. I wasn't in a position then to pack any of it out. What I should have done, I suppose, was to hike in the next weekend with a wheelbarrow - the trail was on an abandoned logging road, so I'd have been able to - and haul out all that crap. But I'm afraid that I left it for the trail crew. Mea culpa.

(I've surely cleaned out a greater tonnage of trail garbage since that time, if that helps expiate the sin of leaving that trash heap behind.)

[HooKooDooKu]

Without even seeing the images I was thinking "dump".

This past weekend, I was at a shelter in GSMNP (one some distance off the AT) where we found a full tent left at the shelter. It was a cheap tent (fiberglass poles) but my hiking partner though he had seen the same tent bag when we stayed at the same shelter two months ago.

[78owl]

Leave no trace doesn't just mean s&()t. It also means any thing you carry in, you carry it out. These are not outdoors people that do this, just trash, like what they left for someone else to clean up. Probably the way they live elsewhere!

[atmilkman]

Leave no trace doesn't just mean s&()t. It also means any thing you carry in, you carry it out. These are not outdoors people that do this, just trash, like what they left for someone else to clean up. Probably the way they live elsewhere!

Could you just imagine the inside of some of their houses.

[July]

Few years ago in the smokies, just before sundown, at a shelter. Three guys come walking in complaining, fussing. They were lawyers from Atlanta, and had drove to the park and hiked from early morning all day to get to the ridgeline. They informed the full shelter that they would never hike again, they were beat :-) All carrying top dollar gear, and informed everyone that if anyone wished to purchase any gear (everything) was for sale and they would be hiking out and going back home the next morning. Odd encounter...

[78owl]

Could you just imagine the inside of some of their houses.

Its

It probably on the porch, with the couch.

[Wise Old Owl]

Could you just imagine the inside of some of their houses.

I see that daily... watch Hoarders for example

[hikernutcasey]

Maybe they spontaneously combusted

[Sailing_Faith]

Looking at the "gear" I doubt they were hiking... Who carries a full size bottle of hair conditioner (?) on a hike?

[atmilkman]

Looking at the "gear" I doubt they were hiking... Who carries a full size bottle of hair conditioner (?) on a hike?

Those denim blue jeans too were another clue.

[hikehunter]

What the ... People are strange, as the old song goes. Heavy jeans, cotton, and the other stuff make me think that someone had been surfin the net looking at hiking and camping stuff and had the bright idea of : ("This will be easy" - Monty Python and the Holy Grail) The same results. The went down the rabbit hole and the rabbit bit them. I have been hiking and found crap. I found a high dollar SOG hatchet once, it is great on Boy Scout - car camping.
I found a 3 lb. bag of beans last year. I had a good laugh.

[Siarl]

They may be trash or just like the lawyers represented by their behavior, they just didn't know what they were getting into. Like I've said a few times in other posts, I grew up in the Appalachians on a small family farm in VA. That's pretty much probably how a lot of folks stories start out from where ever they are from originally. Growing up I went on hikes and backpacking trips and there wasn't any such thing as 'appropriate clothing' on those trips. We all wore cotton jeans (what other pants were there?) and t-shirts, sweat shirts for night etc. No one in their right mind wore polyester back then since it didn't breathe (we're talking 70's here). So...fast forward to when I'm an adult in my 50's and I finally get to the time and opportunity to do the AT. I find Whiteblaze and BAM! everyone is talking about micro-textiles and wicking fabrics that are all synthetic etc. Same thing with the lawyers except they probably didn't do any research prior to their hike. Same thing probably with who ever that was that left behind their clothing and what not. Or...it could be just some ignorant soul who didn't think about the impact of leaving their trash.

[PatmanTN]

I live close to the smokies/AT and see such every year unfortunately. For some reason a lot folks go on their first-ever backpacking trips in that park. On one occasion I helped a fellow burn a bunch of extra clothes he had brought (was trying to lighten his 65lbs pack). It was actually quite cathartic even though they weren’t my clothes. J

That same fellow also surprised me by pulling out 15 or so inch think foot long sticks of store bought kindling. He explained that he had an irrational fear of not being able to start a fire. I just let it be.

HooKooDooKu,

The Park Service will sometimes set up tents and leave them for bear behavior tests and those are often very cheap tents. Could have been that…

[lemon b]

Could be anything. Inexperienced hiker who couldn't handle the weight, someone who left in a huge rush because they got some bad news like the death of a family member. A booze fueled argument between individuals, an emotionally charged relationship issue, a medical emergency, or maybe even someone on the way to detox.
Where a trail thief left what they did not want from a victim. Never can tell. Ranger Bob who ran the Sperry Road campground at Mount Greylock for close to thirty years
told me he'd find super messes on a regular basis. Don't think anything was ever a real crime scene.

But whoever made that mess should get together with their local trail caretaker and make some amends.

[Mags]

Can't speak for the trash...

I do know when I started hiking, my clothes were blue jeans, cotton sweatshirts, work boots and cotton t-shirts.

If it rained, I would have been SOL.

I did not know any better. Even growing up in Rhode Island, where the winters can be cold and wet, I wore cotton. When you can change into warm and dry clothing after shoveling a drive way or sledding, you don't think about these issues. Cotton clothing was inexpensive and frankly, I doubt my family even knew why people wore wool in winter vs the cotton-shelled winter parka (with maybe synthetic fill..but I doubt it) that Mom could pick up cheap at the local K-Mart.

I suspect most people new to the outdoors have similar stories.

[RED-DOG]

Looking at the "gear" I doubt they were hiking... Who carries a full size bottle of hair conditioner (?) on a hike?

You have to hike to get their, SOBO is pretty strenuous NOBO not too bad, in my opinion they got tired of the weight and dumped it. I see this all the time all along the AT from GA-ME

[Traveler]

Maybe they spontaneously combusted

I'm thinking space aliens......

[wormer]

Last fall I saw the same situation, burned clothing and other gear scattered around the Frye Notch Lean-to fire pit area.