So you found something in the woods

I dont know if real life is the same , but it seems in every film I have seen, hikers/campers/survivors ..etc. leave things behind. A rescued hiker may leave a whole backpack, a tent, or some stuff. Same for things lost while camping.

So you are camping/hiking somewhere and you see this tent, knife, backpack or whatever. What do you do ? Do you take it, leave it ? Make it more visible ( put it on a rock ) for the possibility of the owner coming back looking for it ???

What do you do ?

usually I'd leave it. How many of us go camping, and have a base camp from where we continue our outing? I'd hate for some idiot to take my tent and wander off, since I wasn't there with a 30-30 to defend my homestand.

If it is only one thing, sounds like trash to me. Pack it out. If it "valuable," turn it in to the local authorities. Now if it a lot of stuff, as in someone has "claimed" this spot but went off to do whatever, that is a whole new deal...

Leave it. Most times its just been cached and the owner is nearby. I have found valuables though - two cameras both in places they shouldn't have been, no owners near. One found its way back to its owner on the way out on the trail, the other to the Forest Service office, never heard any more about it.

Some scenes get eerie though. There's a place along the Duckabush River on the Olympic Peninsula called five mile camp, where someone was long-term camping one winter, with a tent and tarp and lots of gear laid out. I saw him and his camp twice, the third time I was back and he was gone, but al his stuff was still there, some of it knocked over and gathering rain and pine needles. His tent and sleeping bag hadn't been slept in for a while. Reported the gear to the Forest Service, they already knew about it. A trail crew picked it all up and hiked it out. A couple months after that we were back at five mile camp, and under a large rock we found some of his cooking gear still left behind. No idea where he went, up the trail to his winter fate or back down the trail to find a job, who knows. Folks who don't know about the camp will talk about the scene as being kinda spooky though.

I would leave it but I would be aware that there may be someone other than me in the woods and I would watch for them. They may have had an accident and need help.

Maybe a tent isnt a good example. There is a good chance the owner is somewhere around. Same thing for a backpack. But sometime your guess can lean to one side or another. If the pack is zipped up and lying against a rock, maybe the owner is somewhere behind a bush answering nature's call. But a backpack that is open an half empty .. and just lying somewhere near the trail....

Lets say what you found is a small item that is in no way left there on purpose like a knife, a hatchet, a first aid kit. And then suppose it is expensive like a customized knife( to make it worse for your conscious LOL).

If it was something expensive I would take it but I would turn it in to a ranger or sheriff, depending on where I was. I wouldn't keep it, I would know it wasn't mine.

Oh, I posted before seeing the other posts.

I think "cache" items will not be just put there on the trail. They will be most likely buried or at least kept in a conatiner under some rocks. Something to indicate they werent there accidently.

Lono, you have spooked me alright LOL . After reading your post, I dont think that I will even pick it up and carry it to any office. I may take a photo and take it to the authorities.

"...Lets say what you found is a small item that is in no way left there on purpose like a knife, a hatchet, a first aid kit. And then suppose it is expensive like a customized knife( to make it worse for your conscious LOL)...."

Pack it out. Let your conscience be your guide as far as turning it in. Leave it, and the next finder might be a couple of kids who end up hurting them selves...

Depends. If it is stacked and well organized or set up as a camp I just go around it because it is likely a camp and the people will be back.

If it is stashed, well organized, but covered, perhaps camouflaged, or in a depression where it is less noticeable it is likely a cache. Some people leave a note that tells anyone who find it that it is a cache and someone is depending on it. Those I leave also.

In less traveled areas caches can be a good way to work things. You can preposition supplies for a longer hike later. In my experience the people who travel the deep swamps and distant woods tend to understand what is going on and to leave the supplies alone. Sort of backwoods courtesy. In more traveled areas you get a lot of duffers who don't know any better and they tend to be less thoughtful and considerate.

If I see some gear I might mark it on the map and visit on my way out. If it is still there it is a judgment call. In some cases it is clearly abandoned. In which case it is plunder or trash. In other cases it is less clear what is going on. In which case I leave it and try to make a point of mentioning it, possibly leaving the coordinates, with the local authority.

It is pretty easy to lose a cache. Often people will mention to the rangers or guides that they lost one, or assume it stolen, and it can be helpful for them to find out it is still there. coordinates or a marked map help.

Agreed. A lot of stuff, let it be. A knife on the trail, pack it out...

A friend of mine is a park ranger. He has loads of stuff that people just get to tired to carry and throw along the trail. I'd do what they do - pack it out, turn it in, and come back in a month to get it if no one claims.

when hunting there have been times when I have had to stow my backpack and some other non-essential gear under a tree marked with trail tape so I could hump out the meat to my truck.(this can take up to 4 trips when alone and when hunting Moose) I have since bought a meat hauler bag that can fit the meat with the gear but a lot of my friends still use the ditch the gear under the tree technique.

A hunter would be REALLY pissed off to return and find someone walked off with his gear.

If I had to leave anything behind (and it would seriously pain me to have to do so), I'd leave a note on waterproof paper pinned right to the outside of my pack/stuff with instructions to any passers by that if it were beyond xx/yy/zzzz date and I had not returned, to take my stuff to the nearest ranger/conservation station and report it.

That move could save my butt if something had happened to me while I was doing whatever it was that made me leave my stuff behind.

Good idea

I hated leaving anything as well, thats why I got the Erblestock J104 for hunting as I dont have to ditch gear. In the past I would take my PSK and FA supplies etc and stuff them into pockets, take a GPS grid of where my gear was stowed, mark the location visually(but not noticable to someone who just may wonder by) I didnt want to draw attention to where my stuff was because I am not so trusting of other people as some.

It sounds silly to do but if you want to get the meat back to the truck something has got to give. A moose quarter is just way to hard to carry with some styles of back pack so it comes down to one or the other. I keep my rifle as well and dont ever leave it in the truck to be stolen by someone. It stays with me back and forth between trips. Besides, A guy trotting along with a quarter of meat on his back all alone in the vast wilderness of northern Alberta is a bears dream come true.

LOL. That's more funny to me today for some reason. Maybe it's the Bear Aware certification I got last weekend.

The funnier thing is that you're not supposed to drop the meat and run...because then you're feeding the bear and habitualizing it to associate humans with good eats.

I suspect the training documentation was written by a hunter who'd rather fight a bear than give up his 1/4 moose.

I was using the word cache loosely - forgot there's still places where folks may churn up the ground to bury a real cache. Out here in the PNW we try not to disturb the soil, instead you throw a trailhead bike or pack or non-essentials behind trees or ferns or rocks and usually return to find it okay. There's lots of cover ten feet off trail without burying things. And if its a food cache, much better to hang it than to bury it, today's cache hole becomes tomorrow's mud hole (once you've returned and emptied it out).

Someone else said something that strikes me as a good idea for marking gear so others don't assume its lost (besides a note) - put a rock on top of it. I can't think of too many situations when a thinking man won't ponder how that rock got there if the owner didn't place it.

Another bear factoid: Burying food won't stop a bear if he's determined. Uncle Grizzly's claws were made for digging and they've been recorded digging up to 6 feet deep in a 13 foot diameter because they smelled something tasty...in the case I read about it was garbage.

Geez, so if he smells your grave, your food??

Grizzlies prefer rotting meat/carrion to fresh (one of the arguments for playing dead...they're less likely to eat you until you're 'ripe'). They're more scavenger than active hunter.

So, what have you actually found while hiking?

My list includes a mosquito headset, a beanie, socks, a 19th Century ladies shoe, blasting caps, and, of course, innumerable items of trash, some recent, and some appearing to be 50-10 old.

Jeff

I've only ever found garbage and broken equipment like tent poles, fishing rods, etc.

Plus rope...I constantly find rope in the bush, tied to trees, etc.

Same here Hacksaw. Mostly junk, A LOT of string/cord/rope but worst of all is beer bottles and tin cans. The worst trail I was ever on was a snowmobiling/ski trail and there was more garbage on it than I could carry out in a month of Sundays! Even the warm-up ski shacks were full of garbage!

I did find a cheap Canadian Tire multi-tool though - it had almost no rust on it so I assumed it was a fresh loss and took it home, gave it to the nephew. It was still in good shape but I didn't need it.

Ive only found cans, and some wire...

Pop top pull tabs. I haven't seen a can with those in a long long time, but I still find them. Nails in trees too, but those are harder to pack out. As a camp host I find all kinds of things that campers leave in a vacated campsite, I just store it in case they return for it, after a few weeks I tell the ranger and let him/her worry about it. No one ever leaves anything that interests me, darn it..

A cop's stolen SUV.

-Blast

Around here, they would have torched the thing just because it did belong to law enforcement...

finders keepers, losers weepers...lol

Camp 1: Winter hiking along a wide creek in a Wildlife area. No snow on the ground but temps in the 30's. Noticed a camp maybe 100yds off trail other side. Tent collapsed. Investigated. Crummy brand tent & sleeping bag. Tent collapsed and open with some snow inside. Sleeping bag kind of tossed about. Really cheap cooking kit sitting in the fire ring with ice in the pot. Really cheap damaged pack. The tent and gear was not up to the seasonal temps and looked long abandoned.
My buddy and I packed it all up into the backpack and stashed the pack next to the cattleguard that defined the land boundary between State and Federal land (Didn't want to carry it all out). The "trail" was a closed 4WD road that would be passable if it were open.

I called the County to report what we found. Dispatch said it was a poacher's camp they'd been watching for awhile. (Known of - perhaps. Watching - I don't think so. It was abandoned.) Called the USFS and told them where to find the packed up stuff on their next drive thru the area. (it's gone)

Camp 2: hiking in a relatively remote valley looking for airplane wreckage. Month of June so still some snowdrifts at treeline. I hiked to the ridgetop and looking downhill saw something blue sticking out of a snowdrift.
Story here:
http://www.coloradowreckchasing.com/DillonA3/A3trips.html
JD had been hunting. Weather started very heavy snow. He wrote a note with his phone # and left it in his camp then bailed out. I took his note and called him to verify he got out ok and to tell him the camp was melting out.

Bottom line is that the answer depends on what I find. If it's a dropped water bottle, I'll carry it in case I find the owner. Camera would get turned in. Gun likewise. Knife .... depends on value. Stashed gear gets left alone. Trash gets picked up.

It depends.

Unimogbert,

Wow, you have some great stories! I'd never thought to go hunting downed aircraft.

-Blast

I'd leave it as is.

I don't know if they are on a little day hike or if I may be disturbing a crime scene.

I might flag a couple of trees around the site with some of the surveyor's ribbon I carry if I have a creepy feeling just to make it easier to find later.

After we die, we all are food. Circle of life, grasshopper. If you are what you eat, then something will be me, posthumously. I hope it's something cool, and not just a colony of bacteria. Or if a colony of bacteria, a really cool colony...

"...colony of bacteria, a really cool colony..."

Isn't that like military intelligence???

well, there are some slime molds that are pretty spectacular:
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/slime1.htm

Wouldn't be the worst way to get used.

I think I found some of that in the back of my 'fridge once. Didn't seem to change the taste of whatever it was growing on though...

I want to die by falling into a blackhole listening to Johnny Cash's, "Ring of Fire..."

Most of the camping I do is wilderness camping in the BWCAW. Since they have a "leave no trace" policy, I take everything I find. So far I haven't found much though. A length of rope here, a fishing lure there, nothing of significant value...

If in the BWCAW, and I can pack it out, whatever it is, I'm taking it out with me. Seems like the right thing to do there IMHO.

Just be careful not to disturb a potential crime scene or an SAR start point. While it may be well meaning to remove these items, simply entering and disturbing the site might jeopardize a potential criminal prosecution or complicate SAR operations by adding footprints and/or contaminating human scents. Whether it is an isolated item or an entire camp, I would suggest leaving the item/camp alone, marking it on your map and perhaps place some surveying tape 9or other brightly colored object) on the trail near the item/camp to make relocation easier. Report the observation ASAP. If cell phone communication is possible, notify the park rangers, 911 or police, report the finding and request guidance as to whether to stay (if possible) nearby or meet them at some location to provide them with location.

If you have a camera, video or cell phone camera/video, taking pictures as you found the item(s)/camp may be extremely useful.

Pete

We find many goodies when we go camping or 4-wheeling. Jeeps / rigs bounce around and toss out tons of good stuff. Money, tools, etc. We ask as we go if it belongs most of the time the person is long-off so we keep it. We make an effort to return it and post on forums if we find something of value (toothpaste is thrown away).


-Todd

This "possible crime scene" thing is intersting. It leads me to think another thread :
( So you "found" someone camping soemwhere in the woods )

Generally when you meet other campers/backpackers what happens ?
Do you sometimes assume a possible criminal ? or do you generally invite them over for a campfire chat ?

And what happns if you camp and find out another camper nearby ? Say you didn't see each other when you camped, but next morning you smelled his/her coffee brewing.

Edit:

And suppose you were planning to leave your tent ..etc and go hunting, bird photography or whatever. Would you leave your stuff with this other camper around ?