Crazy meetings in the mountains

[musky333]

I was hiking up from Holden Village to Holden Lake to do some scrambling on Bonanza Peak a few years back when I met a guy about 2/3 of the way up with three months worth of beard, wearing shorts, T-shirt and tennis, no pack, water, etc.I asked him how he was doing--doing good.I offered food and water--nope, doing good. I asked if he was camping and he said yes, they had broke camp and he said, " I think my brother is over there somewhere", pointing across Railroad Creek towards Dumbell Mt.(Sorry, Mom, I lost my little brother in the mountains) He then said, " I guess (GUESS?) we are supposed to meet up at a lake down there somewhere.(Chelan?) I asked him where he was from, and he said Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I said no shit, that's where I live! I asked his name, and HOLY F-ING SHIT, I know the guy and graduated from high school with him! We didn't recognize each other. He asked where the trail led and I said to Holden Village. He asked if there were any rangers there and I said no, just Lutherans.I told him he could get some food there and hopefully his brother would cross Railroad Creek at the old Holden mine, or he was in for a ton of bushwacking.He took off, not a care in the world.

 

Have you met people lost, ill equipped,or just plane f--ed up in the mountains? There must be some hilarious stories.

[musky333]

Sorry, meant to post this in Climbers Board. Could the man in charge please move it? Thanks.

[builder206]

There was a thread quite a while back, maybe a year or more, in which someone encountered a guy in the mountains carrying multiple suitcases. He would carry one forward some distance, put it down, go back and get the next one, until they were all together then he would go forward with the first, repeating the cycle. The guy was dressed in street clothes and street shoes too.

[Crillz]

I saw a backpacker carrying a giant cast iron pan one time.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

After summitting Rainer via the Emmons we gratefullly topped off at Camp Curtis which was a sketchy scramble that year. There was a dude standing there. He asked us if we'd seen some people whom he described. Nope. He told us he'd hiked up there solo to meet them and waited for a while and was going to leave. And, oh, by the way he'd brought a six-pack of pepsi which he'd set in the snow to chill... and we could have it.

 

[Couloir]

Not all who wonder are lost.

[OlympicMtnBoy]

I saw a backpacker carrying a giant cast iron pan one time.

That was me! And that steak I had in my pack was mighty tasty fried up with a bunch of walla walla onions. Never forget your cast iron pan!

[dt_3pin]

I once met god in Kolob Canyon

 

she looked something like this:

[Reid]

I took a solo trip up Kaleetan peak off the Denny Creek trail up at snoqualmie pass a couple summers ago. On the way down a dog comes around the corner so i stop and pet it and expect to see the owners any second. Yep, here they come now, two buck-naked middle-aged dudes with hiking sticks. They walk right up as though it's just as weird that I'm clothed as it is that they aren't and start making small talk. So I put my headphones back on, say "I gotta go" and take off. 15 seconds later I cross paths with who I presume was the father of one of these guys wearing not a stitch of clothing.

 

Better yet I run into a large group (like a church youth group or something) headed up and I warn one of them, "don't hike too fast you might run into the nudists up ahead."

 

"Oh we know, we saw them in the parking lot already."

[XXX]

 

On a week day I ran up to snow lake in mid september with temps in the high 80s. Ran into a group of naked chicks jumping into snow lake late in the evening.

 

Not another soul around.

Edited June 20, 2008 by XXX

[Sherri]

I once met god in Kolob Canyon

 

she looked something like this:

 

She's purty.

[penoyar]

Coming down from Lena Lakes a few weeks ago after skiing the Brothers, we encountered a middle-aged man in nothing but a cheetah thong and Chacos. He was immaculately tan, shaven, overweight and glistening with cocoa butter. We paused, he paused, long pause. "How's the snow?" he asked. "Pretty good," we say. "Great," he says, "I think I'll go check it out." And he continued up the trail. He must be an advanced sun-bather, now requiring glacial reflection to achieve his bronzing.

[G-spotter]

I met a guy on the Garibaldi trail once portaging a canoe by himself with a case of beer (it was probably Extra Old Stock or Carling Black Label) in each hand. He asked me how far the lake was.

[olyclimber]

I met a guy on the Garibaldi trail once portaging a canoe by himself with a case of beer (it was probably Extra Old Stock or Carling Black Label) in each hand. He asked me how far the lake was.

 

i think i know who this was how long ago?

[G-spotter]

Must have been around 1988?

[Reid]

On a week day I ran up to snow lake in mid september with temps in the high 80s. Ran into a group of naked chicks jumping into snow lake late in the evening.

 

Not another soul around.

 

No fair, how come my nudist encounter sucked and yours kicks ass?

[olyclimber]

heh, would have been around that time...but this was probably a different person as the location is way way off and your guy had booze.

i actually never met the guy, but the story was relayed to me, but the story was this:

 

my friend was canoeing the Yukon and was hailed by a crazy looking guy with thrashed gear who hurried to catch up to my friend. the crazy guy was talking like someone who had not seen another human for a long time and indeed he had not. he also had no food other than what he was foraging from the wild. turns out the crazy guy was on a quest to canoe across the world. he had a really bad drinking problem and had for whatever reason started canoeing across Canada in order to avoid the evil licker.

 

he apparently had a quite an adventure to that point, canoeing across as far as he could before running out of provisions, then stopping and working in a town to save up money to get the stuff to continue on. at one point (i think in the rockies) he left his canoe up in the mountains and went into town to work for the winter. that spring he couldn't find his canoe, and after a long, long search found it encased in a glacier that was advancing. he spent weeks chopping it out. i guess he had many adventures with bears, and had an extremely rough go at it, but got his canoe over the mountains and my friend was the first human he had run into since then.

 

they floated down to fort yukon together and then my friend gave him all his gear and left over food...including his canoe which was in MUCH better shape. the guy conversed with him over the phone after my friend returned to Port Angeles, but the guy had made it all the way up the coast and was preparing to cross the bering strait in a specially rigged canoe.

 

not surprisingly, that was the last he heard of him.

[111]

I am pretty sure I read on here about some guy in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness hiking around with a cooler of beer selling it for exorbidant amounts of money.

[111]

And Skyclimb told me on a wilderness user survey job in the woods he spied on a lesbian encounter on a lake shore. (He is a bit of a fibber though)

[ken4ord]

There are a bunch of freaks on the AT every year, flip-floping non stop. I was out for a month and there was a few I met twice.

[Cairns]

Have you met people lost, ill equipped,or just plane f--ed up in the mountains?

 

 

Sure. Every time out, in fact.

 

But just once, in South Africa's Northern Province, after being lost, ill equipped, and plain f--ed up for a couple days, we met a couple of children returning from their day at school 3 hrs (for them, not for us) down the mountain.

[tanstaafl]

Andy -- I spent that same hike down stopping at all the little huts to see if anyone had found the rock shoe I'd lost on the hike in. No one had found it, but we got some really nice oranges from one of the farmers.

 

Most amazing of all, the shoe was lying in the trail next to the watering hole we'd stopped at for a ten-minute rest about an hour from the kraal where we left the car three days ago; not eaten by a cow or picked up by a schoolchild or anything.

 

And I got to have the memorable experience of climbing Blouberg wearing one Mythos and one Trango S Evo. The Trangos climb astoundingly well; I only had to aid like three moves on the route. Such an amazing place.

 

 

[builder206]

the memorable experience of climbing Blouberg wearing one Mythos and one Trango S Evo.

 

New extreme sport! Climbing with mis-matched shoes!

[dt_3pin]

And Skyclimb told me on a wilderness user survey job in the woods he spied on a lesbian encounter on a lake shore. (He is a bit of a fibber though)

 

You might be confusing cc.com with Penthouse . . .

[chris_stolz]

One of the funniest (and kinda saddest) things I've seen was on Mt Whitney. We topped out from the East Buttress on a sunny and very windy day, and on top there were about 40 people, each one shouting "YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE WHERE *I* AM RIGHT NOW!" into their cell phones.