what is the sickest thing you ever saw on the trail??

[jade]

Having dinner at Pinkham with an AT thru hiker, marvelling at how much he could eat and enjoying his stories.....Afterwards I saw him smoking and he told me he smoked about a pack a day on the trail-yuk!

One of the sickest things I've read on this site is the comment on this thread by Mookie.

...Jade

 

[Lawn Sale]

I...I have no response to anything that's been posted here, it's all simply amazing. Sorry I don't have something to share, but my hikes have been downright boring by comparison.

 

[BrentD22]

Gggrrrr

Hiking up Madison I saw a family of people hiking up. The father looked stressed out, the mother did not want to be there, the daughter was pissed off at life, and the young boy was crying. Instead of just turning around the father was saying "come on grow up", "let's go" ect. It was so "sickening"!

 

[stu]

Hiking above treeline on Jefferson sometime in the 70's, we noticed a man and woman appoaching. When we got closer we were surprized to see that the female was....lets say "working on her tan!" (remember streaking?) Not that there is anything wrong with that!

 

[Pat T]

Generally, I do not find nature "sick" or "disgusting" but natural processes do get my attention and can definitely leave a sick feeling. Three incidents come to mind:

--pushing my foot into a boot, trying to get the lump out of my sock, and then finding out that the lump was really a dead mouse.

--bushwacking in Alaska, feeling the footing change, and looking down to see that I was standing right on a very dead moose.

--bivouacking in Alaska, hearing a loud squeal and then a big thump in the middle of the night, and in the morning discovering a large ripped apart rabbit about 20 feet from where we were sleeping.

Pat T

 

[forestgnome]

Should've shared this one on the "deliverence moment" thread...

My wife and I were hiking out Rocky Branch Trail, from Giant Stairs, well after dark. About five minutes before the trailhead we saw the glow of a burning cigarette. As we approached it became clear that it was a redneck sitting on a rock with a shotgun in his lap, no doubt a poacher. My stomach knotted as we walked past him and our freindly "hello" got a sort of grunt for a reponse. The next few moments were horrible, as we walked away with our backs turned, unarmed, knowing that he probably knows we just witnessed him poaching. That was truely sickening.

 

[giggy]

One of the sickest things I've read on this site is the comment on this thread by Mookie.

...Jade

I am pretty sure he was reffering to not needing to see it in a public place - nothing more.

some cool reponses here - I think finding the human skulls takes the cake - that is pretty sick - tho maggots and carcasses always turm my stomach well.

 

[KevCon223]

Yuppies on Falling waters a mile in @ 3pm asking if they were near the summit.

Yes!! On My way down from Algonquin and Iroquois I ran into a couple on the Van Hovenberg trail wearing jeans and sneakers with the sweater around the neck, and they asked if this was the trail to Algonquin (it was about 4:30 in the afternoon in early October). I told them they were still some time away and would run out of daylight fast, but they still pressed on. They had signed in at the register as headed to Algonquin or Phelps.

 

[bruno]

forgotted about this one i saw personal cause it was a long time ago (when i was in school in colorado). we were supposed to go on a "training mission" with the famed boulder-based "rocky mountain rescue group" and it turned into a "real" mission--a recovery of a dude who took a header down one of the small (and probably gettin' smaller) glaciers up in the indian peaks wilderness area in the front range west o' boulder. dude's head was wedged betwixt a coupla rocks in the scree field at the base of the glacier. it was cold enough that there wasn't much blood, but his head was at a weird angle so that was kinda freaky. one of the senior RMRG cats calmly ate a tomato sandwich while zippin' the dude into a body bag for the carry down to where the coroner waited at the trailhead. (coroner didn't go up to the body as he was pretty fat guy, so we took pictures of the body for "official purposes").

 

[sharkbytes]

I do trail maintenance on a section of the North Country Trail, and I continue to be confounded by those who are unable to walk 20 feet (more would be even better!) off the trail to poop. One fall there were TWO piles just beside the trail, one with a bandana which had been used for TP left with the pile. So, I had to clean up this yuk... Diapers for your own kid are one thing. Some unknown jerk's defacta is another.

 

[Mark]

One of the sickest things I ever saw on the trail was this dude with a totally tricked out pack! It had a carbon fiber frame, built-in GPS antenna, magnesium pocket stays, dual heated water bladder pouches and a nasty candy apple red paint job and racing flame details! He replaced the stock waist belt with a custom leopard skin model with a remote control buckle release! Dude, it was so sick!

Oh, wait. I fear I may be suffering from exposure to my 16-year-old son's slang. Never mind.

Pimp My Pack! ​

 

[dudley]

I do a lot of saltwater fly fishing. The more remote the beach and the longer the walk, the more likely you will find somethink really gross.
I've found a dead pure white baby seal. About 20 members of it's pod were watching from the water waiting for it toget up.
A large gray seal with no head.
A few porpoises.
An on Cape Breton,N.S. a mostly decomposed whale. Now there was a smell.

 

[Pete_Hickey]

I was camping for the night, and before going to bed, I had a 'cup-a-soup' I left the cup out for the night, with about a half inch of soup left (Yeah, I know I shouldn't have done that).

The next morning, it was full of bugs, spider web across it, etc. I was lazy, but fortunately, I had another clean cup, so I made myself a cup of tea in the clean cup. About halfway through my tea, I decided I was awake enough to wash the dirty cup. Quickly poured the rest of my tea down my throat. At the same time I felt lumpy things going down, I noticed that the 'dirty' cup, was already clean.

 

[mookie]

jade,
sorry if my post offended you, but my case was these things dont need to be done in public. would have posted the same response if it was man and woman or two women or a man and a pig or a woman and a horse (so on and so on). some things should just be done in private, not in a public state park.
i was simply having fun with the post and answering the question.

 

[Hillwalker]

Accident victim

When I was a teenager I worked at Belknap Recreation Area (now Gunstock) during the summers. One afternoon I was alone, putting stain on one of the jump towers when I noticed that the Mt Rowe chair lift had stopped for a long time. It ran during the summer for sightseers and had to start and stop to let them on and off. Being curious I bushwhacked over to the lift line and saw that the cable and chairs was on the ground, and people were walking around screaming. I joined three men who were hurrying up the line toward the summit lift station. Just below the summit a male passenger had been flipped through the air and had landed head first on a rock. His head had been scooped out and there was nothing at the top at all. We lifted him onto a litter, covered his head with a handkerchief and the four of us carried him down to where a six-by was waiting. On the way down I saw several compound fractures among the other riders, many of whom were children. At fourteen, it was my first experiance seeing violent death. Now let me tell you about my 68 and 69 tour in Viet Nam as a Ground Pounder............

 

[chuck]

Scooping a guys head off a rock and childern with compound factures on the side of a ski slope in the summer.......... To me the is the sickest image so far. For some reason I can see this yuck.

 

[mookie]

that is sick and scary to think about. i dont think i could have handled a situation like that.

 

[chuck]

Actually I take it back some of the trail head parking lots around Blue Hills are the sickest.

 

[sapblatt]

Actually I take it back some of the trail head parking lots around Blue Hills are the sickest.

You should check out the Sheepshold area of the Middlesex Fells - probably very similar.

 

[Gris]

Not the sickest, but entertaining none-the-less. I finally convinced my teenage daughter to accompany me backcountry camping - on Cumberland Island National Seashore. We were hiking a remote stretch of trail and I was telling her how cool it was to get off the between path away from everyone else. The sun was setting and we were hoping to find a campsite soon. She was feeling her oats and forged ahead. Soon she came running back down the trail screaming. We both went back to the scene of the crime. There was a skull, and what looked to be human bones spelling out the word "H-E-L-P." She had just seen the Blair Witch Project a few weeks before... Suffice it to say, we "slept" very close that night!