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modiyooch
04-11-2009, 18:55
Just returned from a visit with my daughter in Japan. We were walking up a "hill" or mt on the road. We saw a path. Naturally, we took it. While hiking in and up, I came across a small personal shrine. I didn't know what I had stumbled on at first, but after touring the shrines and temples in the city days later, I realize the different aspects of my find including metal boxes for candle burning. That was a first for me. Anyone else ever stumble across something unusual while hiking, not including fellow hikers?

mikec
04-11-2009, 20:54
I've come across memorials on the trail. Audie Murphy in VA, those two brothers that fought for the union in TN/NC, some young man in MD, and a plaque describing some person's ashes scattered on the trail in NY. I'm sure that there are others that I have forgotten about.

Egads
04-11-2009, 20:57
I found a plastic flower, ashes, and a note inside a hollow tree just North of Dicks Creek Gap

zoidfu
04-11-2009, 21:08
I found an abandoned campsite that someone had left literally everything at. It was like they just decided they didn't want to carry anything back at all. Walked by it two days later and it was all still there the way I saw it prior.

Wise Old Owl
04-11-2009, 21:35
Just returned from a visit with my daughter in Japan. We were walking up a "hill" or mt on the road. We saw a path. Naturally, we took it. While hiking in and up, I came across a small personal shrine. I didn't know what I had stumbled on at first, but after touring the shrines and temples in the city days later, I realize the different aspects of my find including metal boxes for candle burning. That was a first for me. Anyone else ever stumble across something unusual while hiking, not including fellow hikers?

Most of the time the shrine is perfectly natural - some times its because someone went there to commit suicide. - that was last week in National Geo, on Japan's highest volcano.... Uhhh - Well sorry for the downer,

By request I have already verbally committed to hiking my dad's ashes to the AT's Pinnacle near Hawk Mountain... he is still alive and in his 70's and to me that is an interesting wish. If I had the money I would take him back to Snowdon.

OutdoorsMan
04-11-2009, 22:15
A woman doing a long section hike on the AT who put on makeup and painted her nails every morning - oh, I'm sorry you said "besides people".

Deadeye
04-11-2009, 23:02
How about the "hoodoos" at White Rocks on the AT/LT. If you're not expecting them, they can be a pretty strange sight at dusk or in the fog.

Monkeyboy
04-12-2009, 00:22
In Germany, many trailheads have a small shelter type registration table with covered roof. They have a cross on them and a trail register to mark your passing, so if you get lost, they know which trail you took.

Very cool looking. Will see if I can dig up a pic of one.

Shutterbug
04-12-2009, 00:54
Just returned from a visit with my daughter in Japan. We were walking up a "hill" or mt on the road. We saw a path. Naturally, we took it. While hiking in and up, I came across a small personal shrine. I didn't know what I had stumbled on at first, but after touring the shrines and temples in the city days later, I realize the different aspects of my find including metal boxes for candle burning. That was a first for me. Anyone else ever stumble across something unusual while hiking, not including fellow hikers?

In 2006, I was hiking southbound in the 100 Mile Wilderness of Maine. A downed tree blocked the AT, so I took what I thought was a temporary bypass. Before I realized I was off the AT, I was about 1/4 of a mile east of the AT. There, on a game trail, where no who wasn't lost would ever see it, was a memorial marker to a young man who died on the AT.

Big Dawg
04-12-2009, 07:49
How about the "hoodoos"

Please explain:confused:

fiddlehead
04-12-2009, 10:21
the OP's original post reminds me of a time we were exploring Indonesia (with a yacht.)
We searched out uninhabited islands for snorkeling and exploring.
On one of them (that was a big one with fresh water springs) we wondered why no one seemed to live there.
Then we found a big rock that was shaped like a bed in a big clearing. Had old dried up blood all over it.

We later found some villages that were practicing voodoo.

Interesting stuff in that country.

Another time, i was hiking (bushwhacking and following rivers) with a monk in northern Thailand. WE came upon a sign in the middle of nowhere. He told me it said that this was the site of a camp of Laos Communists soldiers that used to attack the Americans in the war in (illegal war) in Laos in 1972.

Bearpaw
04-12-2009, 10:27
Small shrines were all over Okinawa. In mainland Japan, they seemed less common, but there was a large one on top of Mt. Fuji at the entrance gates. Folks left all kinds of things there. Every thing from pre-Pokemon gaming cards and comic books to cans of Ki-rin beer, along with flowers and more traditional type offerings.

middle to middle
04-12-2009, 11:03
Out walking for the day from Warwic N.Y where I lived I wandered off the trail around Green Wood lake NJ (close by). I got totally lost and decided to walk straight as best I could untill crossing a road which I knew to be nearby. Comming up a steep hill I saw a beam of light comming down from the sky, as in "beam me up Scotty" ! !
Summing up all my courrage I walked toward it.
Expecting to see little green people. I found myself in someones back yard and they had one of those crome globes on the birdbath stand.
The sun reflecting off it created this most empressive scene for me.

Releaved to see what it was is an understatement.

Hike on brother

Tom

Deerleg
04-12-2009, 12:03
Saw this on the Quehanna Trail in Central PA....
http://i44.tinypic.com/2wd9d8i.jpg (http://whiteblaze.net/forum/%5BIMG%5Dhttp://i44.tinypic.com/2wd9d8i.jpg%5B/IMG%5D)

modiyooch
04-12-2009, 19:31
In 2006, I was hiking southbound in the 100 Mile Wilderness of Maine. A downed tree blocked the AT, so I took what I thought was a temporary bypass. Before I realized I was off the AT, I was about 1/4 of a mile east of the AT. There, on a game trail, where no who wasn't lost would ever see it, was a memorial marker to a young man who died on the AT. I think I saw this same memorial, but I didn't have time to stop. My husband had to pull me off the mt because the creeks were literally rising. He was on private property and the owner told him how to access the trail from his property.

Matteroo
04-12-2009, 20:00
by dream lake in northern New Hampshire has a small area one could camp by the NE corner of the lake.. there is a small trail they heads along that northeast side of the lake and right at the start of it, very near the trail, is a memorial/ashes spot for a woman who loved the area, i believe.

fehchet
04-13-2009, 03:49
I found an abandoned campsite that someone had left literally everything at. It was like they just decided they didn't want to carry anything back at all. Walked by it two days later and it was all still there the way I saw it prior.

Did you ever consider that maybe a person was close by injured and had not really abandoned their stuff? Probably too late now.