MTNTOUGH - Use promo code RANDY for 30 days free

History Found In the Field

When I was a kid, my dad would take us on hikes on the old trails up to lookout towers. Some of the trails on the ground were long gone because they built roads to the towers, so the trails were no longer used. We could follow the trail because when they built the trails back in the 1930s, they marked them with blazes on the trees and nailed up porcelain covered metal signs every so often. The signs were white with black lettering that said TRAIL. I wish I would have snagged one of those signs back then, they were pretty cool looking. As late as the 1980s or maybe early 90s I knew where some of those signs were, but I think they are all gone now along with most of the lookout towers and pretty much all the blazed trees.
 
These old signs are getting pretty scarce around here but we used to see lots of them when I was a kid. Most of them are so faded that you can't read them today. I took this photo this fall while hunting grouse.
I have seen some of those routes drawn and labeled on vintage maps, both here on Olympic Peninsula in WA where I am presently living and in the same township as property I own in MT. I never realized that they were officially designated trails marked by the Forest Service. You've provided some additional (and much needed lately) motivation for me to get my old butt outdoors again!
 
On a turkey hunt this spring we were floating very small river in a very remote area of the Northern Great Plains. While scouring a sandbar for petrified wood I found a small button. Pretty rusted and no visible markings. This was dozens of miles from the nearest road, and about 30 miles form the nearest small town. Pretty cool little find.
I'll post a picture of it if I remember.

Pics added. Hot wheels for reference, thanks to my son.
IMG_1262.jpegIMG_1263.jpegIMG_1264.jpeg
 
Last edited:
View attachment 345504

“Found” this old Ford truck in at an old closedown service station in rural Nevada during my drive out for a hunt. If the old truck could talk…probably an interesting story there. Happy hunting, TheGrayRider a/k/a Tom.
Yep. The spotlight is for checking range heifers during calving. Been there done that. My dad's first truck was a similar '49 Ford surplused by USBR when the dam where he worked was completed. It was a small flatbed stake truck with a bracket built on front bumper to support long pipe loaded on the bed. Duals and a helluva stack of overload springs. Plenty of dents in the top of the cab ... pushed out not in (ouch!). One day Mom came home from town and a tie rod broke in the driveway. Front wheels spread like a hooker's legs when the fleet was in. I guess that must have been 1960. Remember it like yesterday.
 
Last edited:
Found quite a lot of this pipe where a spring makes a brief appearance in a draw. Probably piped water to a long gone stock tank. Guessing it was made in the late 1800’s.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_3503.png
    IMG_3503.png
    4.4 MB · Views: 27
Buddy found this in the sierra nevadas of CA. As it lays and a size estimate with his hand. We guessed its a spear or knife based on the size. View attachment 346358View attachment 346359
I found a big stash of obsidian in the Eastern Sierras, down by Kennedy Meadows. It was all put in the crook of a tree. Cool find back then. I don't think obsidian is from that area.
 
I found a big stash of obsidian in the Eastern Sierras, down by Kennedy Meadows. It was all put in the crook of a tree. Cool find back then. I don't think obsidian is from that area.
Thats really cool. I do not think obsidian is too common in these parts of the sierras either. Pretty crazy that the natives had to trade for it from far away and bring it here. Buddy was within 20 miles of Tahoe area at around 8000'. I have never been so lucky to find an arrowhead even.
 
Back
Top