Ever seen anything weird on the trail?

[eric j]

I was leading a group with 6 mahattanite wanna be AMC women, and my girlfriend.Garrison NY. Coming down from Sugarloaf,there was this young woman with a white chiffon dress and long dark hair about 50 yards out.
We waved to her, but she just seemed to stare and duck behind trees. She would appear three more times as the trail swithched down. Just staring and seeming territorial, dress blowing with the breeze. I tried to make light of things and mentioned that Stevie Nicks wasn't playing nearby. But it was pretty freaky. Dont think any of those women joined the AMC and they never asked to go hiking with us again

[DrRichardCranium]

It was probably a ghost!

[ShelterLeopard]

Oh, that was me- sorry!

[mudhead]

He kept asking us where Hiawassee, GA was since he was headed there as his aunt had mailed him a carrot cake there that he wanted to get. He had no idea where Hiawassee was at all. Definitely one of the more interesting characters I've met.

He'd fit in in Maine. Most everyone mutters. Cream cheese frosting on the carrot cake? I'd mutter about that!

[Israel]

He'd fit in in Maine. Most everyone mutters. Cream cheese frosting on the carrot cake? I'd mutter about that!

lol- indeed. problem is he was not muttering about carrot cake or any other type of rational things one might mutter about! He was a character to say the least. I was in awe that he carried a 20 lb. salt cured ham. Has anyone ever eaten one of those old time salt cured hams? You literally have to cook it about an hour to make it edible!

[Johnny Thunder]

The strangest thing I saw was a hiker coming up from Unicoi gap headed south with a red bubble motorcycle helmet on. He was real tall and truck'in up that hill, just howdy'd me and kept on going. I noticed a he had a school pack and a gallon milk jug sticking out of it. Awful lot of work to sip the jug. Whad u see?

Johnny Thunder's Weirdest Trail Sightings

(an apt 1000th post...)

On the approach trail I met a guy named Mike who had spent the night out in the rain after melting his flashlight in a little twiggy fire and sogging up his cigs. He later almost burned down Springer shelter on this THIRD NIGHT OUT trying to put Coleman fuel in an alcohol stove.

I sat at Unocoi gap and watched two locals impress some hiker women by doing front wheelies on their crotch rockets. Only, the guy in front went too slow for the guy in back. Dude laid on the brakes and whipped his bike around on the other one like a door caught in the breeze. Egos were injured.

I heard the Georgian Mountain Monkeys.

I loop-the-looped that road from Gatlinburg up to the gap. Crazy.

I witnessed the day of days at Standing Bear. Details are classified except to Chaco, Jack, and others who experienced it. One year later I had a guy explain to me that in a formed life he was a 30 ft tall blue dragon. But, in his most recent life he was a 60 foot tall red dragon.

I saw a man recite MacBeth's soliloquy to a ham hock at Brown Gap. Ox, you remember that. Thor's crazy.

I hitched a ride in a hearse. True story.

In the shennies I saw a hiker totally lose his ****. Clinically.

I saw trees reach for me like something straight out of the Wizard of Oz whilst trying to hike Maryland in a day. Never did get over that.

I saw a life-size replica of Jester get molested...not once, but twice...by a girl with Dahli tatoos and and a bone fetish. What bone?

I had some woman ask me "Do you know where the car wash is?" while I walked into Wind Gap. Seriously?

I saw my father pass out in New Jersey. That sucked.

When I was 17 I found a 20 ft Blair Witch sign in Harriman.

I almost got run over by a front end loader in New York. And then when the driver loaded up all my friends in the dozer end, I quietly divide up their gear with those left behind. Never found out what happened to Zen.

I was almost killed when a crazed man in Vermont tried to swing a pick ax at me. Lumpy saved my life. Dude is my hero for lots of things, this included.

I saw Gelatin Offramp and the guy who proposed to his girlfriend while they played Rock Lobster.

I saw Minnesota Smith try to debate a Twelve Triber about the existence of God and the dude held his own!!! I also saw a guy compare Minnesota's ad-nauseum lectures to watching a movie on Comedy Central circa 1997....they're always recycling them so you can just watch it repeat and leave whenever you get to the part where you joined.

I hitched from the Canadian boarder back to Keane, NH in two cars including a 3 hour ride with a dentist who was also a home brewer and a shaman. We discussed past lives. My girlfriend slept.

I tracked down mysterious phantom headlamps with the Lake of the Clouds crew drunk on top of Adams at 2 AM after being told that they were cool with me cowboying up there. We aint found ****.

I saw Wak-a-Pak rap "Gangsta, Gangsta."

I went from Millinocket to Times Square in less than 14 hours.

Johnny T

[1/4 moon]

At least you heard him coming. When my brother and I were hiking in SNP in late September 1988, a pair of F-15s came screaming over the ridgeline perhaps 200' over our heads. They were moving so fast that we didn't hear the blast of the engines until they were almost on top of us.

I had a similar experience in the highlands in2007

[Stump46]

In Va in '07, I met Tyvek. He was hiking with all his stuff (pack, sleeping bag, water bottle holders, poncho) made out of Tyvek, the insulation used to wrap buildings before the siding is installed. That was strange, but the strangest thing was that he was hiking barefoot.
He was a good guy. I met someone on the trail last spring who saw him in Key West with the same Tyvek and still barefoot.

[DylonHike]

this was back around october i believe. Going from Damascus to Watauga Lake. There was a man, i suppose his wife, and a kid who looked like he should be in 1st or 2nd grade. the kid was wearing a school pack and he was trying to tell me and my dad that he had spinal fluid leakage but my mom had it and its unbearable and couldnt survive on a trail. I think he wanted money as he kept saying if only i had some money to take my kid to get something (cant remember) and he was going SOBO but saying he was trying to get to damascus but he was going the opposite way. very strange.

[Nearly Normal]

A buddy of mine and I were on the Foothills Trail by the Chattooga River last fall. We were near Big Bend falls and found a wheel from a wheel chair right at the end of an overgrown logging road. We couldn’t figure out how it got there but we reference that logging road from then on as “Wheelchair Road.”

Man, a couple of years ago I was there in the area on a fishing trip and I found about 2 miles downstream from burrell's ford a completely stocked cooler with a hachet on top. I mean bacon and eggs and lots of other ****. It was wheeled but that trek couldn't have been easy. Looked around for a while but didn't see a soul. Just left it cause it was so fresh.
Very strange.
Found a heavy coat at beauty spot just up stream from big bend Falls (that you can't get to safely) that had been left there a while back. Just hanging on a branch.
That area in the last 4 years has seen so much traffic you better visit soon if you want any alone time. The accesses down to the river have gone from real bush wacking to common trails. Really sucks.

[canoehead]

Thin bearded ones I saw..

[Wise Old Owl]

I was leading a group with 6 mahattanite wanna be AMC women, and my girlfriend.Garrison NY. Coming down from Sugarloaf,there was this young woman with a white chiffon dress and long dark hair about 50 yards out.
We waved to her, but she just seemed to stare and duck behind trees. She would appear three more times as the trail swithched down. Just staring and seeming territorial, dress blowing with the breeze. I tried to make light of things and mentioned that Stevie Nicks wasn't playing nearby. But it was pretty freaky. Dont think any of those women joined the AMC and they never asked to go hiking with us again

a photo would have been great.... just saying...

[wakapak]

Johnny Thunder's Weirdest Trail Sightings
........................................

I saw Wak-a-Pak rap "Gangsta, Gangsta."

I went from Millinocket to Times Square in less than 14 hours.

Johnny T

LOL!!! Not too many alive can say they've seen me do that!!

And i witnessed at least half of that transition from Millinocket to Times Square....wasn't sure if how you'd fare when we all parted ways in Boston!!

[wakapak]

One of the weirdest things I've seen was a beetle in Chaco's bellybutton.

Totally serious on this one!

[Tinker]

I had two strange creature encounters:
Back in the 1990s when hiking the southern Vt. section I had orange newts swarming all over my feet at Stratton Pond. Seems they were attracted to the dead skin.
Similarly, in the PUD section between the Long Trail and the NH line I was soaking my feet in a small pool off the trail when a blue crayfish came out from under a rock and began nibbling at my foot. I don't know who was more surprised. (I jumped at least two feet off the ground when I felt it).

[Shiraz-mataz]

Last year at Ensign Cowell Shelter in Maryland, a whole family showed up after dark. They were some combination of the Clampetts and the Addams Family. All of their gear was carried in garbage bags. Their 16 year old daughter was shacking up with some MUCH older dude. The funniest thing was their 13 year old son (who said he had a bullet in his head) was trying to boil water in a tea kettle over the camp fire and we kept telling him the plastic handle was going to melt. He said it would be fine... and then (drumroll...) the handle fell into the fire. He then proceeded to burn his hands on the pot trying to pour water!

[slugger]

It was our third night on the allegheny front trail and it just stopped raining for the first time the whole trip. We where in the valley and if you have ever looked at the allegheny front trail then you know there are mts on all sides. Any way We made camp for the night and right after dusk around 8pm Some one starting blowing a whistle long and hard over and over. Me and my 2 other mates walked for about 2 hours in the dark yelling asking for a response, got nothing(Also We had no cellphone service). The whistle was echoing all over the valley. Went back to camp and went to bed. Had to try and sleep through the whistle until about 10pm it stopped. It made for an eery night and not easy to fall asleep.

Checked all the local papers after we got home 2 days later, Found nothing.

[Sir-Packs-Alot]

Uh no but I am working here.....

Is that really a racoon on a boar's back? Where and when the heck is that from?