View Full Version : Abandoned gear
This is from Stumpknocker's Jan. 15 entry:
"I looked at my map and saw that Locust Cove Gap was just 2 1/2 miles away, so I decided to head there for the night.
I saw an abandoned tent when I got there. I walked over to check it out and saw they abandoned almost everything they had.
There were pots and cups full of frozen water, a water bag with a drink tube that was full of solid ice, a can of ravioli and a bunch of hand warmers.
I looked inside the tent and saw a blanket and a sleeping bag and a few other items.
From the looks of things, it's been there for a while. I decided I didn't want to stay there at the gap, so I walked on towards Simp Gap....another mile down the Trail."
Here is the link:
http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=214688
He also has three pics of the tent and gear.
I don't have that much experience hiking, but in what I do have, I've never seen anything like that before. Maybe a lost hat or something small, but just to leave an entire camp???
minnesotasmith
01-16-2008, 09:55
Both times, it was gear that was cheap and ill-chosen. Once, it looked as if the people (relying on a tiny tarp for shelter, fastened way too high above the ground) abandoned everything in a major rainstorm.
I figure it's either young people with poor gear and even worse knowledge of/commitment to being in the outdoors that mainly do this.
I've also seen bums leave some of their stuff as well, such as in a NY shelter. Diff is, bums' stuff is older (as are they for the most part), usually stinks, and there is alcohol and/or tobacco paraphenalia as a rule.
Morning Glory
01-16-2008, 09:55
I saw the same thing once up on Tumbledown Mtn. in Maine.
I don't have that much experience hiking, but in what I do have, I've never seen anything like that before. Maybe a lost hat or something small, but just to leave an entire camp???
I came across a scene like that at Deer Lick shelters in southern PA last summer. It was late in the day and my plan had been to stay there but internal alarms were ringing like mad. I walked a couple more miles and camped in the woods that night.
I found that kind of freaky when I was reading it last night, too. I have seen abandoned tents--cheap ones. I have even seen abandoned gear here and there--again, all cheap gear. Those pictures were odd because it was an entire set up. The equipment was not the best, but definitely doable. In that area there are a lot of hunters, so it could be a hunter's stuff that he just left up there to have next time he was in that section. I have seen stuff like that here at Pisgah--alot! Let's hope that's all it was.
I found that kind of freaky when I was reading it last night, too. I have seen abandoned tents--cheap ones. I have even seen abandoned gear here and there--again, all cheap gear. Those pictures were odd because it was an entire set up. The equipment was not the best, but definitely doable. In that area there are a lot of hunters, so it could be a hunter's stuff that he just left up there to have next time he was in that section. I have seen stuff like that here at Pisgah--alot! Let's hope that's all it was. If you ask me, it looks like a bunch of cheap gear that was abandoned when newbies/amateurs decided they couldn't hack it anymore. I sure hope it's nothing more than that.
Roots, just noticed you're in Brevard. Short Stuff (my son) and I camped there last summer at Davidson River Campground. I forgot how beautiful that area really is. We did the obligatory looks at some of the area waterfalls and Sliding Rock. I'm sure we'll go back again some time, maybe doing the Art Loeb Trail with Doc this spring/summer. :D
If you ask me, it looks like a bunch of cheap gear that was abandoned when newbies/amateurs decided they couldn't hack it anymore. I sure hope it's nothing more than that.
Roots, just noticed you're in Brevard. Short Stuff (my son) and I camped there last summer at Davidson River Campground. I forgot how beautiful that area really is. We did the obligatory looks at some of the area waterfalls and Sliding Rock. I'm sure we'll go back again some time, maybe doing the Art Loeb Trail with Doc this spring/summer. :D
We love to go car camping over there with our daughter. She loves to ride her bike around the campground. She's pre-teen and we figure if she'll agree to go there to be outside it will work for us. Great fishing, too.
We were thinking about doing the Art Loeb maybe this spring/summer. We should get a group together to do it. It would a good time with a group. The parts we have done are awesome. Very challenging! :)
We love to go car camping over there with our daughter. She loves to ride her bike around the campground. She's pre-teen and we figure if she'll agree to go there to be outside it will work for us. Great fishing, too.
We were thinking about doing the Art Loeb maybe this spring/summer. We should get a group together to do it. It would a good time with a group. The parts we have done are awesome. Very challenging! :)Taking this to Pm so as to not steal anyone's thread. :D
Lone Wolf
01-16-2008, 10:33
I don't have that much experience hiking, but in what I do have, I've never seen anything like that before. Maybe a lost hat or something small, but just to leave an entire camp???
sure. i've seen that a lot over the years. pretty common
It even happens in the smokies. There was a camp of crap left at campsite #18 a couple of years ago.
NorthCountryWoods
01-16-2008, 12:39
On a canoe loop in the Yukon, we came across an abandoned campsite that looked pretty gruesome. There was dried blood in a solo tent, on a bag and pad and on the ground. My dog sniffed out a leatherman with the knife out and dried blood on it a few yards away. My wife completely wigged out and wanted to go home.
Paddled 6 hours back to the outfitter where we parked and found out a guy on a solo trip cut himself with the leatherman, threw it into the woods and paddled out a couple days before. He said he was never going out in the woods again and left everything out there.:confused:
I have to admit, I was thinking the worst, especially after the dog found the bloody knife.:o
River Runner
01-16-2008, 12:46
The photos do look like it's cheap gear, so was probably just abandoned, although with all the recent news of missing or killed hikers in NC & GA, it does make one wonder.
Tipi Walter
01-16-2008, 13:01
On a canoe loop in the Yukon, we came across an abandoned campsite that looked pretty gruesome. There was dried blood in a solo tent, on a bag and pad and on the ground. My dog sniffed out a leatherman with the knife out and dried blood on it a few yards away. My wife completely wigged out and wanted to go home.
Paddled 6 hours back to the outfitter where we parked and found out a guy on a solo trip cut himself with the leatherman, threw it into the woods and paddled out a couple days before. He said he was never going out in the woods again and left everything out there.:confused:
I have to admit, I was thinking the worst, especially after the dog found the bloody knife.:o
Be careful who you talk to on the trail as they can turn on a dime and dump all their stuff for others to worry about. For the most part they are nonhackers and deserve the harshest words from those of us who have to look at their strewn garbage. And when you see a little tent with a Walmart type tarp-floor, you know it's junk so who wouldn't leave it?? It always seems to be those kind of tents left to rot.
I saw 3 backpackers leaving a wilderness I was entering and we said our cordial friendly hellos and further up the trail I smelled woodsmoke and found their still burning firepit filled with discarded food and about 12 beer cans under a rock. Why did I even say hello to these miscreant inbred jackals??
On the North Fork Citico I found an entire camp with strung tarps and two cheap big air mattresses left to fester and around which I did my usual acursed profane dance of disappointment. All you can do is roll it up and hide it under a big rock behind a tree. Or come back on a dayhike to lug the crap out.
I often wonder about these personal sorts, they come in with their gear and then dump it on their way out. I wonder, why do they even bother to carry themselves out?? Isn't that gonna be too much weight, too? I guess they want out enough to lug their 180 pounds of flesh back to the road, but it all must be a real chore.
The guy in NorthCountryWood's post should of returned later to pump some nylon out of there.
SGT Rock
01-16-2008, 13:11
I've seen it. A tent and food left still partially standing on the AT in GA and down on Slickrock creek I find gear all the time.
Perhaps the owner went to take a poo and was gonna be right back?
envirodiver
01-16-2008, 14:32
Found a partially burned tent and some misc. gear on Cold Mountain during the winter. Several empty liquor bottles also. Kind of figured there was a considerable amount of drinking. had a great idea to light stove in tent...whoops...not such great idea. Caught tent on fire and quickly loaded up and got out. Leaving some gear. No pads, sleeping bags, packs or stuff like that.
Reported it to a Ranger thinking maybe someone was injured.
Tray Mt Shelter, well the nice tenting area on the trail to the shelter:
A 2 person tent, yea, a cheep one, w poles & stakes.
A nice 8x8 tarp being used as a ground cover.
Some trash.
There was no other gear. I tossed the trash inside the tent, took it down & rolled it up. Then rolled up the tent, as I was already carrying over 65 Lbs I didn't have the desire to carry more, so I stowed it in a corner of the shelter. Have always felt bad about not carrying it out, but I can live with that.
This is just one of the reasons why I hate the book "A walk in the woods". The fat one was always throwing things into the woods.
This is just one of the reasons why I hate the book "A walk in the woods". The fat one was always throwing things into the woods.
The fatter one (Katz) did that, but as I recall, the "flinging" was limited to the approach trail. No, that doesn't excuse it. But no need to misrepresent the book.
dessertrat
01-19-2008, 13:20
Earl Shaffer's Walking With Spring (his first through hike journal) he mentions coming across a leanto with food still on plates, pots and pans, bedding, etc. It looked to him as though someone had abandoned their entire camp in the middle of a meal. Probably they got drunk, were headed out, and decided it was more trouble to carry the stuff out than to just leave it. I would put this in the "more money than courtesy or common sense" category.
dessertrat
01-19-2008, 13:22
The fatter one (Katz) did that, but as I recall, the "flinging" was limited to the approach trail. No, that doesn't excuse it. But no need to misrepresent the book.
No, later on he was flinging stuff while they were on the trail headed from Caratunk to Monson. I think there were a couple of other incidents of him pitching stuff (like a soda can into the bushes at night). Katz was an incorrigible litterbug. I can't believe Bryson makes no comment at all on the littering, and no effort to correct it. That makes Bryson complicit in it, if you ask me.
The fatter one (Katz) did that, but as I recall, the "flinging" was limited to the approach trail. No, that doesn't excuse it. But no need to misrepresent the book.
Yes he did it on the approach trail but he did it again later on in the book. Alot of it was food so he could have aleast left it on the trail for some other hungry hiker could find it but no he would fing it out into the woods.
No, later on he was flinging stuff while they were on the trail headed from Caratunk to Monson. I think there were a couple of other incidents of him pitching stuff (like a soda can into the bushes at night). Katz was an incorrigible litterbug. I can't believe Bryson makes no comment at all on the littering, and no effort to correct it. That makes Bryson complicit in it, if you ask me.
Well said!!!!
Pedaling Fool
01-19-2008, 13:36
I've seen a lot of discarded stuff, but never like what stumpknocker took pics of. The stuff I've seen were thrown/scattered in Katz-like fashion. If I lived near the trail in Georgia I could probably make some money selling used camping gear.:D
John Klein
01-19-2008, 14:56
The fatter one (Katz) did that, but as I recall, the "flinging" was limited to the approach trail. No, that doesn't excuse it. But no need to misrepresent the book.
Didn't he throw some stuff out in Maine, too?
Blissful
01-19-2008, 15:05
We saw a bunch of stuff abandoned on the ridge before you descend to Hog Pen Gap. Tent, quilts, flannel sleeping bags, etc.
The six different sandals, lined in a row, with no matching pair was interesting at Darlington shelter.