Strange things found in the woods

[The Heretic]

It'scUOTE="Unka-Boo, post: 520471, member: 265"]View attachment 172648

Tripped on this while bunny hunting back in April...thought it was kinda random to find it the way I did.

It's called a benchmark. It's for plotting a surveyors line.[/QUOTE]
Yes. My father was a surveyor and I've seen these a number of times. You will find different kinds, this one probably marked a corner of a section (640 acre plot) or maybe a larger area. You have to have some place to start.

I have at least two markers on my property, but they are markers for the corners of my lot - I have seen one and the other I know roughly where it is because it is on the plot map.

 

[rwadeg311]

This (for the most part) has been a great read that unfortunately petered out twords the end. It kinda sux when someone goes off topic and pretty soon everyone's talking about things that have nothing to do with the thread.
Also I was looking forward to checking out the similar thread on iFish but they seem to be revamping their webpage and it maybe gone. If someone else finds it please im me a link.
Thanks to everyone who contributed.

 

[salmonriverjohn]

So this turned into a debate about legalizing pot?? I've heard enough.let's get back to the job at hand.....telling stories of weirdness.

Holly cow dung batman, just show up for the party? That was a loooong time back, and trust me on this, about the last strange damn thing you want to find in the woods is a bunch of cartel pot growers,, but hey your the who changed and jumped topics this time

 

[The Heretic]

 

[eliduc]

One of my best friends, when he first moved here I took him up into the Fremont National Forest behind our house. About six miles up a forestry road there is an old tank back in the woods. It's barely visible through the trees. It's an old metal water or fuel tank about seven feet tall and twenty feet long. It might be left over from an old logging site. I hardly knew Michael at the time. He walked around to the back side of the tank. On an impulse I picked up a large rock and threw it at the tank. It Went BAWOW....BAWOW BAwowwowowow. Unbeknownst to me there was a hole in the back of the tank and Michael had stuck his head through it to look at the inside of the tank right when I threw the rock. He said I almost gave him a heart attack. I felt a little bit bad after I quit laughing.

The other funny thing, further down the same skid trail is this old fiberglass boat also about 20 feet long sitting on the ground under the pine trees. Someone must have dumped it there.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Looks like the crater left by that guy who blew himself up with Tannerite on Hwy 26.

 

[mkwerx]

I like the small UFO landing site theory Or a squirrely amphitheater.

 

[358guy]

Just found this thread and had to comment on this post although years old :

Thank you Asavage270. There are few that would share that with abandon for the sake of others.
On a side note, there is a species of "Gardner" snake that is quite toxic. The snake has black sides, a yellow strip along its top and orange tiger stripes that run vertically from back to bottom.
This particular snake is the only animal that eats the mild mannered, but highly toxic yellow bellied newt that happens to be the most poisonous amphibian in north America.

It is an ongoing chemical war between the two, the snake eats the newt, then goes into a comatose state as his body absorbs the toxins (hence the black/yellow/orange warning colors)
and employs them as a defense. The newt over time has evolved to be more toxic, and the snake has followed suit.

If you happened to eat one of these colorful fellows and also ingested water hemlock, you were very lucky indeed. I'm just curious, it wasn't this particular variety of snake was it?

To those readers of strange things,, sorry, I didn't mean to spin the thread, I just felt it was worth asking.

I happen to have this type of garter snake roam my yard on a regular basis and they are some of the largest that I find. I also find (though fewer as the years progress) newts that have black bodies with yellow spots along the sides and lighter colored bellies. Going to have to google these guys now. My grandmother owned my house before me so I've been handling these things for decades now just figuring they were normal fauna. Maybe they are and maybe I've been courting death lol.

 

[jsparks747]

I can give you a little more on what/why on these two.

In the south they built cabins in two parts with a covered breezeway between for the summer months. That way the cooking heat would not make the sleeping quarters too hot, and if it was really hot outside they would just sleep in the breezeway. Down south it rarely gets cold enough to worry about having to heat the sleeping quarters. The old boy that built this cabin probably came from one of the southern states.

Your fighter (depending on when) was probably an A6 varient from Whidbey Island Naval air station. They had a practice bombing runs on the Boardman range in Oregon that took them through the canyons in the Cascades and the basin. Two reasons for this: They were trying to get to Boardman without being detected by defensive radar, and they were practicing their terrain avoidence. The A6 was a night attack aircraft.

My parents have a house across the inlet from Whidbey and we hear and see the fighter jets from Whidbey and Indian Island Naval Base all the time. They are annoying as **** but then again they are protecting our country while most of us sit on our butts.

 

[DeanMk]

Back in the old days, those jets used to break the sound barrier all the time. My childhood is filled with the rumble of sonic booms bouncing off the Olympics.

 

[teflon6string]

Back in the old days, those jets used to break the sound barrier all the time. My childhood is filled with the rumble of sonic booms bouncing off the Olympics.[/QUOTE

We got sonic booms now and then in Portland when I was a kid. I always imagined WWIII was starting (until I started reading and learned about Yeager).

Back to the woods...
A buddy of mine was hiking and found a 2x2' 12V solar panel he uses to charge his batteries. Nice score.

 

[mjbskwim]

Back in the old days, those jets used to break the sound barrier all the time. My childhood is filled with the rumble of sonic booms bouncing off the Olympics.

My Dad's yard was about a half mile on the other side of HWY 512 from the end of McCord AFB in the 70's when the F16 and 18s were there
That was a noisy location,lol

 

[DeanMk]

Back to the woods...
A buddy of mine was hiking and found a 2x2' 12V solar panel he uses to charge his batteries. Nice score.

Nice score indeed!
Reminds me of the time my dad went hunting in e. Washington and found a nice Leatherman, still in its scabbard.
He had it about a year when a friend of his noticed it and asked where he got it.
Turns out, the Leatherman belonged to that friend and they had lost it the year before my dad found it, while mushroom picking in the same area.
Dad offered to return it, but the friend had bought a new one in the meantime, so he kept it.
After my Dad passed away, I took the Leatherman and used it at a job I had for a while.
Although I don't carry it anymore, I still have the knife packed away at home.


Dean

 

[2A2Dend]

Long story. I actually forgot about until seeing this topic.

This is something I've never, ever thought I'd find. Or heard much of others finding. Least in the woods.

About 1987-88 when four wheel atvs were becoming popular, I bought one so I could not be a passenger on our outings, out there. I'm not saying where this was, but we found an old elk camp. It was mid September when we found a place that was used heavily through the years. Plywood buildings, old and broken, ransacked travel trailer, everything torn up and weathered. We got off the atvs and started walking through, looking. Not much there cept a bunch of trash basically. We spread out and looked more, eating lunch and having a soda. I come to a fire pit that still had the log sections around it stood on end. I looked all around, scanning the brush. Then,.....WHAT?.....NO. It can't be. I walked over to what was a Winchester Mod 94, leaned barrel up against a tree. I stopped in my tracks and told my friends. hey, here's a place to sit and eat. They all trickled over and sat down, and we all talked about the camp. It was strange, some parts. Some of it looked like "someone" was living there recently. The travel trailer was ransacked, but STOCKED with lots of well, camping stuff. The usual hunting/camping stuff, ya know! But was strewn about and pilfered. One of the guys said, hey, I found a nice pair of sunglasses!..as he put them on. I asked them all if anyone ever found a gun out in the woods before, like when out scouting, or hunting. No one had. Knives, binos, packs...just never a gun. I made comment..what if you did find a gun, what would you do? They smiled..TAKE IT HOME!! That's when I got up and walked to the tree and picked up the 30-30. LOOK, I said.It was leaning right here barrel up. Still loaded. The guys couldn't believe it was there. But it sure was. And, I took it home.

The rifle was loaded with no way to unload it due to a good coating of surface rust in the action. Maybe even brass fouling I figured. I tied it on the front of my atv, barrel forward/down and rode in front of the pack. Once home I soaked liberally with marine fogging oil and left it for a few days. After a few more soakings and working on the lever every time, it finally broke free. I took all the wood off and submerged the rifle in marvel mystery oil for near 3 months, working things from time to time. All in all, after near 6 months it cleaned up pretty dang good, and was safe to shoot. All in all the condition was about 80% when I finished tinkering with it.

 

[teflon6string]

Nice score indeed!
Reminds me of the time my dad went hunting in e. Washington and found a nice Leatherman, still in its scabbard.
He had it about a year when a friend of his noticed it and asked where he got it.
Turns out, the Leatherman belonged to that friend and they had lost it the year before my dad found it, while mushroom picking in the same area.
Dad offered to return it, but the friend had bought a new one in the meantime, so he kept it.
After my Dad passed away, I took the Leatherman and used it at a job I had for a while.
Although I don't carry it anymore, I still have the knife packed away at home.


Dean

No woods/forest in this anecdote, but a knife. When I was a kid, my dad and I went to see his father up in Seattle a couple times a month. They were both avid photographers so parts of each road trip (and everything else my family ever did for over half a century) ended up on Kodachrome in carousel reels.

They're both long gone but my mom is still hanging on, and I like to show her slides of old times, holidays, family vacations and trips she took with my dad all over the world. THIS is why we keep pictures - trust me.

So a few weeks ago we were looking at one of the Seattle reels, and there I was sitting on a rock at Alki Point. About 10 feet from another rock with a big open Barlow knife on it, probably 10 seconds before I turned around and found it. Nice score for a 9-10 year old.

And I'd still have it 'cept for a little scrape I had with authorities about 7-8 years later. Easy come, easy go.

 

[DeanMk]

Long story. I actually forgot about until seeing this topic.

This is something I've never, ever thought I'd find. Or heard much of others finding. Least in the woods.

About 1987-88 when four wheel atvs were becoming popular, I bought one so I could not be a passenger on our outings, out there. I'm not saying where this was, but we found an old elk camp. It was mid September when we found a place that was used heavily through the years. Plywood buildings, old and broken, ransacked travel trailer, everything torn up and weathered. We got off the atvs and started walking through, looking. Not much there cept a bunch of trash basically. We spread out and looked more, eating lunch and having a soda. I come to a fire pit that still had the log sections around it stood on end. I looked all around, scanning the brush. Then,.....WHAT?.....NO. It can't be. I walked over to what was a Winchester Mod 94, leaned barrel up against a tree. I stopped in my tracks and told my friends. hey, here's a place to sit and eat. They all trickled over and sat down, and we all talked about the camp. It was strange, some parts. Some of it looked like "someone" was living there recently. The travel trailer was ransacked, but STOCKED with lots of well, camping stuff. The usual hunting/camping stuff, ya know! But was strewn about and pilfered. One of the guys said, hey, I found a nice pair of sunglasses!..as he put them on. I asked them all if anyone ever found a gun out in the woods before, like when out scouting, or hunting. No one had. Knives, binos, packs...just never a gun. I made comment..what if you did find a gun, what would you do? They smiled..TAKE IT HOME!! That's when I got up and walked to the tree and picked up the 30-30. LOOK, I said.It was leaning right here barrel up. Still loaded. The guys couldn't believe it was there. But it sure was. And, I took it home.

The rifle was loaded with no way to unload it due to a good coating of surface rust in the action. Maybe even brass fouling I figured. I tied it on the front of my atv, barrel forward/down and rode in front of the pack. Once home I soaked liberally with marine fogging oil and left it for a few days. After a few more soakings and working on the lever every time, it finally broke free. I took all the wood off and submerged the rifle in marvel mystery oil for near 3 months, working things from time to time. All in all, after near 6 months it cleaned up pretty dang good, and was safe to shoot. All in all the condition was about 80% when I finished tinkering with it.

Do you sill have the gun?


Dean

 

[BigLen]

I was sitting down glassing for deer up above lake Merwin when I noticed a figure in the bark of an alder. The bark was cut and a carved stick figure was tucked in the crease of the cut. It was crude but carved well enough to know it wasn't natural. I put it back moved down the trail a quarter mile hunting. It started to get dark so I headed back and when I came to the tree the stick figure was gone. I looked around the tree thinking it fell out of the cut but it was gone. I saw no one in the woods with me that trip and my hair is sticking up on my neck thinking about it.

 

[2A2Dend]

Do you sill have the gun?


Dean

I do not. A few years later I gave it to a friend of my dads, as his grandson's first deer rifle. I already had a model 94 given to me by my dad, as my first.

 

[fredball]

I found and old passenger rail car in the woods I know it's still there also found a box of Blasting caps when i was very young

 

[jbett98]

I was given a really nice Old Timer 2 bladed folding knife some years ago.
My friend found it stabbed into a remote Mt. Jefferson Wilderness trail sign that marked the name of a nearby lake.
He pocketed the knife and 100 yards later came upon a really weird scene in the lakeside camp ground.
He found a tent that was all sliced up, a bunch of clothes all torn and spread around and a sleeping bag hanging way up in a tree branch with some rotten food stuffed in it.
Needless to say, he and his girlfriend decided to hike back to the trail head and not spend the night there.
On the way back, they discovered a message carved into the back of the same sign that held the knife.
It read "I can't take it anymore and they will never find me!"
They reported all this to the State Police, but never heard back about who/what really happened.
He gave me the knife because it gave his girlfriend the willies.