HikeArizona.COM

What the coolest thing you ever came across while hiking?

We found a perfectly mummified 8" gopher snake up in Flagstaff. I just wondered what other sorts of neat things people have found while hiking.

Off trail out on the cliffs near the Salt River I came across a horse shoe. It'd be pretty cool if it's from the rich history of the area. However it's more likely under twenty years old.

http://hikearizona.com/phoZOOM.php?ZIP=13205

In "Crystal Canyon" on the Apache Res. in a, I suppose, previously unvisited ruin, a prehistoric, perfectly preserved yucca sandal.



kurt

I frequently find my mind, usually about an hour down the trail. Sometimes I've found my sanity, and ocassionally my soul shows up.

I have come across all kinds of interesting items out hiking and camping. But the encounter that stands out was the time I encountered an air force security detail for a titan missile silo while night hiking. I was actually "captured" (and roughed up) before they released me.

Water! Sky! (Also rocks, plants, animals, a place to camp, the trail after I lost it).

I found myself lost in the Supes one day on my way to Massacre Falls and in the middle of this huge wash that just kept getting deeper and deeper.....and then found my way out!

Other than that, the coolest things I've found were a geode while hiking in Secret Canyon and some very fine brachiopods up on the Rim!

:mrgreen:

I came across a stone medicine wheel in Boyton Canyon. I supposed some recent Sedonite New Agers made it, but it was cool bushwacking off a spur trail and seeing it.

In Illinois, I was hiking in the Shawnee National Forest near a place called High Knob, cutting through a plowed corn field when I came across what must have been a prehistoric village. Bunches of small bird points, larger arrow and spear points, chert percussion flakes, drill bits, a huge flint knife, chert fish hooks, scrapers, small shell beads, all in about a four acre area. There was even a couple of busted axe heads and two whole hammerstones. The coolest thing was a polished banner stone. I took a picture of it (cuz I didn't know what it was) and sent it to the U of I- it was a counterbalance stone used on the tail end of an atlatl. Amazing!

Mike

In response to joe bartels' reply:

Did you actually find that horseshoe IN the cactus?

It was partially underground