After my experience on White Rim trail the last few days, a thread on weird trail encounters seems appropriate. What are the weird trail encounters you've had?
I'll start.
After reaching the Murphy camps on White Rim this week, we heard some nearby campers cheering on someone on the hogback/murphy climb... On walking over we find a driver is in a newish (rental) ford escape. While White Rim isn't a hard trail, it demands (and more importantly recommends) a little more than an AWD vehicle.
Anyway, he crests hogback and continues on after about 5:30pm (after commenting about how the car was trying to shutdown on him on the way up). Now white rim is a trail that takes around 8-10hr and he just hit the half way point in a car that will struggle more than anything else. As he passes, we raise our hats as a WTF. Sitting around camp with a beer, my buddy and I agree that we will probably see that car tomorrow - and turn in for the night.
This morning we made some coffee, ate a quick breakfast and left camp. After about 8 miles we see a very clear oil line on the trail (look at the middle of my hood on the dirt).
I started recording a bit late on this trail, so this isn't really early in the oil trail (we estimate about 3/4mi of pretty steady oil). However about a tenth or so of a mile earlier, there's also a kitchen knife with a white handle on the side of the trail. Naturally, we were on edge and made sure any resources we had available to us were within reach. As we continued on, we reached the escape and stopped about 1/4 mile shy to discuss our thoughts on approaches we were willing to take with the driver.
We decided to stop and feel him out, but I had my buddy stay back a little just in case we needed more response time for anything weird. Fortunately the guy seemed normal enough so we picked him up and carried him out to deal with the tow on his own. He was pleasant and a self admitted bit of a risk taker - but said he would have turned around if the sign at the entrance was more explicit. The driver thought the trail was a lot shorter and didn't require much as it did and ended up spending the night in his car. Funny enough, he would have definitely ran out of fuel before the end, so this was just a slightly worse alternative.
The rest of the trail would have definitely been a bit for the AWD (a few pretty steep climbs), he really should have turned around before the hogsback climb.
Anyway, this was a great trail for something easier with some desert camping along the way. Last I heard from the driver he's back in town waiting on a tow from a local moab company and relaxing a little with the low proof Utah draughts (I recommended some cans instead, since they can be "full proof" by Utah standards).
I'll start.
After reaching the Murphy camps on White Rim this week, we heard some nearby campers cheering on someone on the hogback/murphy climb... On walking over we find a driver is in a newish (rental) ford escape. While White Rim isn't a hard trail, it demands (and more importantly recommends) a little more than an AWD vehicle.
Anyway, he crests hogback and continues on after about 5:30pm (after commenting about how the car was trying to shutdown on him on the way up). Now white rim is a trail that takes around 8-10hr and he just hit the half way point in a car that will struggle more than anything else. As he passes, we raise our hats as a WTF. Sitting around camp with a beer, my buddy and I agree that we will probably see that car tomorrow - and turn in for the night.
This morning we made some coffee, ate a quick breakfast and left camp. After about 8 miles we see a very clear oil line on the trail (look at the middle of my hood on the dirt).
I started recording a bit late on this trail, so this isn't really early in the oil trail (we estimate about 3/4mi of pretty steady oil). However about a tenth or so of a mile earlier, there's also a kitchen knife with a white handle on the side of the trail. Naturally, we were on edge and made sure any resources we had available to us were within reach. As we continued on, we reached the escape and stopped about 1/4 mile shy to discuss our thoughts on approaches we were willing to take with the driver.
We decided to stop and feel him out, but I had my buddy stay back a little just in case we needed more response time for anything weird. Fortunately the guy seemed normal enough so we picked him up and carried him out to deal with the tow on his own. He was pleasant and a self admitted bit of a risk taker - but said he would have turned around if the sign at the entrance was more explicit. The driver thought the trail was a lot shorter and didn't require much as it did and ended up spending the night in his car. Funny enough, he would have definitely ran out of fuel before the end, so this was just a slightly worse alternative.
The rest of the trail would have definitely been a bit for the AWD (a few pretty steep climbs), he really should have turned around before the hogsback climb.
Anyway, this was a great trail for something easier with some desert camping along the way. Last I heard from the driver he's back in town waiting on a tow from a local moab company and relaxing a little with the low proof Utah draughts (I recommended some cans instead, since they can be "full proof" by Utah standards).