47. An Abandoned Camp Site
I went camping by myself way out in the middle of nowhere in north-central PA. Drove on dirt forest service roads for over an hour and then hiked about 6 miles in on a barely recognizable trail. There were no signs anyone had been in the area recently. The trail was almost completely overgrown, no footprints, spiderwebs everywhere, etc.
I didn’t really have a planned stopping point, I was just looking for a nice place to camp, but the trail followed a creek in a valley and was very rocky and not flat. As the sun was starting to set, I came upon a fork in the creek, with a nice flat spot just on the other side. As I got closer, I saw all sorts of stuff laying about. I crossed the creek and started looking around.
There was a tarp on the ground by a stone fire ring, a log about a foot in diameter that had been chopped with an axe. A little bit away I found the entire contents of what you would imagine to find in a hikers backpack: food, cooking set, camping pad, first aid kit, etc., all strewn about on the ground, but no backpack in sight.
There was a pile of clothes down by the creek that looked like it had sat through the last rain, which was the day prior, and a towel hanging from a tree. There was an area that had clearly been used as a toilet, for maybe 10-14 days based on the amount of toilet paper piles. But that was far from the strangest thing I saw that day.
The strangest thing was this “cage” about four-foot square, made out of saplings tied together. It was framed where the edges of a cube would be, and then had cross bars diagonally on each face. But it wouldn’t have kept anything inside because of how much open space there was, and obviously wouldn’t have been very sturdy since it was only made from saplings.
I ended up deciding to set up camp there because it was nearly dark and I didn’t really have much choice unless I wanted to hike out in the dark on an unrecognizable trail. I had a 12″ knife on me and I kept that thing in one hand the whole time I was there, thinking some crazy guy was gonna jump out and try to eat me.
All night I barely slept and kept thinking I was hearing things, and then as soon as the sun came up I packed up and got the heck out of there. Everything turned out fine, no crazy cannibals or anything, but it still really bugs me because I don’t know what that stupid wooden cube frame cage thing was. I did try to find out.
I called the forest service for the area and told them about it, even sent them pictures. They said they’d send a ranger in to check it out and clean it up, but I never followed up to see if they figured out what it was. The ranger on the phone told me it was probably either someone with a still nearby, someone growing pot, or just some loner living out in the woods.
I roamed up the sides of the valley before I set up camp and didn’t see anything, a still seems unlikely because of how far you would have to carry equipment in, and the area isn’t really great for growing pot. So maybe it was just some guy living out in the woods. But why the cage??? It’s going to drive me crazy, I know it is.