# Strangest thing ever



## ACinATX

I don't have a lot of miles on trails, so I don't have anything that *I* thought was really strange. But. When I first started riding Pony, it was out at the ranch where he lived at the time. We did group trail rides. At one point there was a deer in the bushes, just standing there. The lady who was leading the ride called out "watch out, there's a deer," and I was like, who cares. I mean, Pony LIVED out in that pasture, and I'm sure it was one of the EXACT SAME DEER that was always there. When we got to where the deer was (also, why didn't it move?) he suddenly saw it and teleported about five feet to the right. Luckily I was in a Western saddle so I didn't fall out. 

A deer on the trail isn't strange, of course, but apparently to HIM it was just absolutely terribly WRONG! Oh no, the evil deer of DOOM!


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## AndyTheCornbread

I ride in the mountains mostly so the only thing we really see is game like deer, elk, bear, cougar, wolves etc. Probably the coolest animal we ever saw was a massive cougar that went right across the road in front of us. We were on a dirt road and his nose was on the far side of the road and his tail was still in the brush on the other side. I have seen plenty of cougars but that was by far and away the biggest one I have ever seen, I would guess with how close its belly was to the ground that it was a large male probably very near the 200lb mark. Normal male would be closer to the 140lb - 150lb range and this one dwarfed any that I have seen before or since.


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## AtokaGhosthorse

Well. We rode through one morning, didn't notice this...


Rode the same combination of trails that afternoon - there's a white bra hanging way way up in a tree... and there had only been one other group at the campsite/trailhead that day: Two other women. Soooo... let your mind go where it will. LOL


Also, what's the meme? You see a bra and a halter hanging up, and the text is: Somewhere there's a horse and a woman running free? LOL


The guy I bought my slant from said one of the most hair raising things he ever saw was he and his horse had gotten well ahead of his wife and two daughters on their horses. He said a group of wild turkeys chugged across the trail several yards ahead of him and his horse starting acting strange. Said he lifted his eyes up... and further up the trail a black panther (Melanistic mountain lion) slunk across and into the trees... he said it was probably trying to flank the turkeys to pick up a meal.


We're in SE Oklahoma. I have ridden those trails many times and I am so glad I've never had a biiiig cat nor a bear make it's presence known. I hope I never do.


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## pasomountain

I was trail riding with some friends out on forested BLM land when a cow elk suddenly charged up from behind a ridge right in front of us. Both her and the horses all planted it and stared at each other in surprise. She was almost as big as a horse! After a few second stare off she turned around and went back down the way she came. And we moseyed on down the trail.


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## lb27312

I kid you not some friends and I found naked pictures tacked to trees in an area once when we were out riding... I thought that was the strangest thing! Why would someone do that? I guess maybe to get even? Don't know.... 

Of course gators, deer, wild pigs..... once came across a HUGE wild boar, I swore it was a bear... wasn't just a big boar.... today came across a rooster just walking around, that's not strange except it was out in the woods.


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## SilverMaple

We were a good 40 miles out into the backcountry in Montana, near the Bob Marshall. We pulled off a little-used trail (by that I mean the only regular use this trail would have received would have been by deer) into a clearing by a creek for lunch. It was as pretty of a little spot as you could find, but sitting off to one side under a tree was an upholstered recliner chair with a pair of unlaced hiker/hunting boots next to it. It had been there for quite some time -- covered with leaves and some mold where the sun didn't reach. We did search the surrounding area for a tent or other sign the person had met a bad end and didn't find anything. No rope, no tent, no backpack, no tarp, nothing. No sign of humans at all except for the chair and the boots. We reported it to authorities when we got back, but there wasn't anyone listed as missing at the time, and I never heard if they found out what had happened. 

Why would someone drag a big, heavy, upholstered recliner that far into the backcountry in the first place? This wasn't anywhere near a trailhead, forest road, or simple access point. The only way to get it back there would have been to pack it on a mule up a steep, twisty, windy game trail that was very rarely used. The boots were worn and unlaced, like someone had taken them off then went to do something and never came back. We theorized that maybe someone had used the spot for deer hunting, but the chair wasn't facing the game trail or an area of the creek where the deer would come to drink, and there are far better ways to wait for deer than with a soggy, upholstered recliner... the area we were in was generally inaccessible by hunting season anyway, due to snow. Just.... odd and creepy.


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## UtahCowboy

ACinATX said:


> I don't have a lot of miles on trails, so I don't have anything that *I* thought was really strange. But. When I first started riding Pony, it was out at the ranch where he lived at the time. We did group trail rides. At one point there was a deer in the bushes, just standing there. The lady who was leading the ride called out "watch out, there's a deer," and I was like, who cares. I mean, Pony LIVED out in that pasture, and I'm sure it was one of the EXACT SAME DEER that was always there. When we got to where the deer was (also, why didn't it move?) he suddenly saw it and teleported about five feet to the right. Luckily I was in a Western saddle so I didn't fall out.
> 
> A deer on the trail isn't strange, of course, but apparently to HIM it was just absolutely terribly WRONG! Oh no, the evil deer of DOOM!


Haha evil deer of doom. Makes me think of how often I see a vacuum and then I get up at night and see it and have a heart attack.


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## UtahCowboy

AtokaGhosthorse said:


> Well. We rode through one morning, didn't notice this...
> 
> 
> Rode the same combination of trails that afternoon - there's a white bra hanging way way up in a tree... and there had only been one other group at the campsite/trailhead that day: Two other women. Soooo... let your mind go where it will. LOL
> 
> 
> Also, what's the meme? You see a bra and a halter hanging up, and the text is: Somewhere there's a horse and a woman running free? LOL





lb27312 said:


> I kid you not some friends and I found naked pictures tacked to trees in an area once when we were out riding... I thought that was the strangest thing! Why would someone do that? I guess maybe to get even? Don't know.....


Perhaps from the same group 😂😂😂


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## UtahCowboy

AndyTheCornbread said:


> I ride in the mountains mostly so the only thing we really see is game like deer, elk, bear, cougar, wolves etc. Probably the coolest animal we ever saw was a massive cougar that went right across the road in front of us. We were on a dirt road and his nose was on the far side of the road and his tail was still in the brush on the other side. I have seen plenty of cougars but that was by far and away the biggest one I have ever seen, I would guess with how close its belly was to the ground that it was a large male probably very near the 200lb mark. Normal male would be closer to the 140lb - 150lb range and this one dwarfed any that I have seen before or since.





pasomountain said:


> I was trail riding with some friends out on forested BLM land when a cow elk suddenly charged up from behind a ridge right in front of us. Both her and the horses all planted it and stared at each other in surprise. She was almost as big as a horse! After a few second stare off she turned around and went back down the way she came. And we moseyed on down the trail.


No matter the animal, seems like some horses are just brave enough to not race off.


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## UtahCowboy

SilverMaple said:


> We were a good 40 miles out into the backcountry in Montana, near the Bob Marshall. We pulled off a little-used trail (by that I mean the only regular use this trail would have received would have been by deer) into a clearing by a creek for lunch. It was as pretty of a little spot as you could find, but sitting off to one side under a tree was an upholstered recliner chair with a pair of unlaced hiker/hunting boots next to it. It had been there for quite some time -- covered with leaves and some mold where the sun didn't reach. We did search the surrounding area for a tent or other sign the person had met a bad end and didn't find anything. No rope, no tent, no backpack, no tarp, nothing. No sign of humans at all except for the chair and the boots. We reported it to authorities when we got back, but there wasn't anyone listed as missing at the time, and I never heard if they found out what had happened.
> 
> Why would someone drag a big, heavy, upholstered recliner that far into the backcountry in the first place? This wasn't anywhere near a trailhead, forest road, or simple access point. The only way to get it back there would have been to pack it on a mule up a steep, twisty, windy game trail that was very rarely used. The boots were worn and unlaced, like someone had taken them off then went to do something and never came back. We theorized that maybe someone had used the spot for deer hunting, but the chair wasn't facing the game trail or an area of the creek where the deer would come to drink, and there are far better ways to wait for deer than with a soggy, upholstered recliner... the area we were in was generally inaccessible by hunting season anyway, due to snow. Just.... odd and creepy.


Now that is creepy. I've found some strange things walking up rivers, but the chairs and such along rivers belong to the homeless.


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## AndyTheCornbread

If you want to read some really strange things people have found in the woods there is a thread on a hunting board that has some of the weirdest things ever found/seen in the woods. I don't think you have to have a login to read that thread. Seriously one guy found a dead midget, not joking, and it goes varying degrees of weird and strange from there: https://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=148441


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## carshon

We ride at a lot of stateparks in our area. Most have designated equestrian trails some don't. Within the last 3 years we have seen men peeing on the trail, not a big deal except this man was facing away from his group and facing my husband daughter and I and in full view of my then 15yr old daughter. He showed no shame but I was not real happy!

We saw a woman peeing at the edge of the trail with her husband holding her horse blocking the trail - he told us to just "ride around" but to the back of his horses because he wife was "taking a long time to ****"

We came upon some hikers having sex on the equestrian trail - that was well - awkward to say the least. Again my daughter was pretty young as were these kids. The boy jumped up and left the girl there on the blanket trying to cover up. We turned our horses around - no words were spoken.

We (just last summer) saw a group bring in their very drunk friend that they had tied to his horse because he kept falling off - he was quite banged up from falling off and had rope burns from being tied by the hands to the saddle horn. his poor horse must have been a saint. 

We see the normal wildlife for our area - deer, turkey, mink. No bears or cougar in my area. We have seen several hawk flying over head holding snakes - we just duck and hope they have a tight grip.


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## knightrider

As a young teenager, I lived in Maryland, where they mine sand and gravel in gravel pits. They make roads around these gravel mining areas which are perfect for riding--miles and miles of sandy gravel roads that don't go anywhere.

I knew the area well because it was fun to ride there. I never saw another person or vehicle out in the gravel pits.

One day I was riding in the pits and was surprised to see a man and a woman driving past me. I knew that road went nowhere. I figured they were out exploring, looking at wildlife, birdwatching. Didn't think much of it. An hour later, the car came back . . . with just the man in it. Woman was gone. No houses anywhere near there. Lots of water and quicksand and an easy place to dispose of a body because no one ever went back there. I have always wondered.


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## egrogan

I'd say it was finding a homeless camp back in the woods, which creeped me out while I was riding alone. It didn't seem like anyone was there at the time I rode past it, but it was definitely a place where people were actively living. I don't know that anyone would have bothered me even if they were there, but I chose to avoid that trail after that so I wouldn't find out!


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## SueC

Here's an recount of an _interesting_ ride last year, from my journal.


*Evening Ride With Attack Emu And Playful Donkeys*

You'd think it would be possible to go for an uneventful little evening ride, wouldn't you? I thought so too. It was windy this evening, and I'm still a little wary of windy evenings because my brain now associates these with breaking bones.







Horse brains are similarly wired. Sunsmart still gets nervous at the spot where his monkey fell off, the gunshot sounds of breaking bones were heard, and then the monkey started sounding like an ambulance siren and crawling around on all fours, and the other monkey came to catch him, who has no business doing such a thing, what's the world coming to? etc etc

Alas though, it's springtime in Australia, and my horse needs serious amounts of exercise during spring flush, or a grazing muzzle, or perhaps both, not to blow up like a balloon. I'm a little freaked about the possibility he's starting to develop PPID, because he looked like a Tibetan Yak this winter and then shed out in the strangest way, with tufts remaining here and there and Clydesdale-like feathers on his feet from his carpal joints and hocks down - all unprecedented for him, and the vet is finally coming to test him next Thursday, after being up to his ears in horse stud work. Anyway, keeping him consistently exercised is really important, especially after the eight-week spell he had while my bones were healing.

So that's why I was out there again this evening. Once we got past the spooky spot with the Ghost of the Accident Past, we warmed up on the sand track - walking, trotting, some canter transitions - and had just gotten into working mode when we turned east on the south boundary and saw something very like this about 50m away and on the neighbour's side of the boundary fence:










An emu with six or seven young, stripey chicks! It's the male emu who incubates the eggs and brings up the chicks, as the effort of laying 6-12 enormous eggs in the relatively nutrient-poor Australian bush means Mrs Emu needs a long holiday to feed and recuperate and generally nurse herself back to good health afterwards. It's a nice division of responsibility that was a huge evolutionary advantage for this species. (Did I ever mention Australian flora and fauna are fascinating?)

Emus with chicks are notoriously aggressive, and it didn't help that the dog ran up to it on the other side of the fence growling and trying to assert its usual sheepdog dominance. This really infuriated Mr Emu, and he ran at the fence with his neck feathers fully ruffled making drumming sounds and looking and sounding highly dangerous. At this point, Sunsmart was getting a bit freaked out and wanted to turn for home. I turned him back again. The dog had backed off, but the chicks for some reason had run into our property and the adult emu, unable to cross easily, was getting frantic.

This video I found shows some of an emu's attacking behaviour, but this one is quite mild-mannered as he hasn't any chicks at foot:





 
The emu we met today was much faster and angrier and really trying to make a point.

At this stage I got off and led my horse, because I prefer a controlled dismount to an uncontrolled one, and because it makes the horse calmer if his erstwhile babysitter is between him and Any Scary Monster. The chicks crossed back to Mr Emu's side of the fence, but was he done? No, he wasn't - he was still throwing himself at the fence, about two metres away from us - and they _can_ jump fences when they really want to. At that point I got miffed, put on my schoolteacher voice and said, "Go follow your chicks, you silly emu, we're passing here whether you like it or not!" And Sunsmart very gamely followed me along, which is very commendable when you consider he's never seen an emu in full attack mode before. I think he expects other animals to do my bidding.







That voice works on Julian, so why not on an enraged emu?









Anyway, once we got around the corner onto the swamp track, all the drama was over, and I got back on the horse, praising him lushly for putting up with a _real_ Scary Monster. We walked and trotted back towards home. Instead of doing a second loop as originally intended, I decided to just run him up the sand track and back to finish the ride - I'd had enough of emus for the day. Just as we turned into the track, who should be veering up the forest track from there but our three donkeys going walkabout?









So I said to Sunsmart, "Look, the donkeys, heeee-haw!" in case he was daydreaming and hadn't noticed them behind the bushes. Don Quixote was already halfway up the hill when he saw us, and in a playful mood. He came back down down in full rocking-horse canter, bucking and throwing his hind feet in the air. "Come on then!" said I, and put Sunsmart in a trot. And ridiculously, I had three donkeys following me single-file down the track, led by a merrily jumping Don Quixote full of mischief. Sunsmart decided it was a race and put on his flying trot.







Soon he'd left them behind, so I returned him to a walk and waited for them to catch up. Then we had another hundred metres or so of donkeys tailing directly behind Sunsmart, before we put on some speed until we got to the boundary.

Then came the interesting exercise of riding the horse back along the twisty-turny track, with incoming running donkeys that could be around any corner. Therefore, I tempered Sunsmart's evident wish to race back like this:










I really didn't want a collision, or even a sudden sliding stop. So we trotted at a very moderate pace until we met up with the donkeys again, said hello to them for a minute, and then headed back home.

Never a dull moment, it seems...


_Don Quixote, Mary Lou, Sparkle_


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## egrogan

I was reading that very entertaining thread @AndyTheCornbread posted, and it reminded me of the gnome shrine I used to ride past at the last barn where I boarded. I mostly rode on dirt roads there as there weren't many trails, and one road had a weird little cave with a bunch of gnome dolls lined up inside. I never did get a great picture of it as my horse was always in a hurry to get home when we passed that point. I thought I had a better one, but this is the only one I could find- you can just make out a little stone structure in the top left corner- that was filled with gnomes!


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## SueC

SilverMaple said:


> We were a good 40 miles out into the backcountry in Montana, near the Bob Marshall. We pulled off a little-used trail (by that I mean the only regular use this trail would have received would have been by deer) into a clearing by a creek for lunch. It was as pretty of a little spot as you could find, but sitting off to one side under a tree was an upholstered recliner chair with a pair of unlaced hiker/hunting boots next to it. It had been there for quite some time -- covered with leaves and some mold where the sun didn't reach. We did search the surrounding area for a tent or other sign the person had met a bad end and didn't find anything. No rope, no tent, no backpack, no tarp, nothing. No sign of humans at all except for the chair and the boots. We reported it to authorities when we got back, but there wasn't anyone listed as missing at the time, and I never heard if they found out what had happened.
> 
> Why would someone drag a big, heavy, upholstered recliner that far into the backcountry in the first place? This wasn't anywhere near a trailhead, forest road, or simple access point. The only way to get it back there would have been to pack it on a mule up a steep, twisty, windy game trail that was very rarely used. The boots were worn and unlaced, like someone had taken them off then went to do something and never came back. We theorized that maybe someone had used the spot for deer hunting, but the chair wasn't facing the game trail or an area of the creek where the deer would come to drink, and there are far better ways to wait for deer than with a soggy, upholstered recliner... the area we were in was generally inaccessible by hunting season anyway, due to snow. Just.... odd and creepy.


Sounds like modern art! :Angel:




AtokaGhosthorse said:


> Rode the same combination of trails that afternoon - there's a white bra hanging way way up in a tree... and there had only been one other group at the campsite/trailhead that day: Two other women. Soooo... let your mind go where it will. LOL
> 
> Also, what's the meme? You see a bra and a halter hanging up, and the text is: Somewhere there's a horse and a woman running free? LOL


Unless she's A-cup size, I don't think she'll be running - at least not free... maybe she's running with her arms crossed across her chest to stop painful bouncing though...

This is why I could never buy Lady Godiva. Unless the was just walking, or on a gaited horse...


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## beau159

Two things. Came across a Canadian Goose in an old hawk's nest in a tree. Very, very rare for a goose to live in a tree! And she didn't move when I rode by with my horse, and stood there and looked her, LOL. Went back the next day and took photos and sent them in to the state wildlife magazine and they published my pictures. Pretty cool!


Second weird thing, is I once RAN OVER a fawn with my 3-year-old filly was riding. We were just loping through the field and all of a sudden I hear this weird shrieking type sound and a flash a color jumps out from under my horses's shoulder as we are loping along. Fortunely, it was a really nice sweet filly I was riding and we both just kinda stopped and were both like "What the he!! was that?". She didn't even spook. I turned around in time to see the fawn run a little ways and then lay down in the tall grass again. Poor thing. We loped right over the top of him! My horse didn't trip or anything so I don't think she actually stepped on him. Weird, for sure!


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## NavigatorsMom

@knightrider that is so creepy! I would always wonder about that too.
@egrogan I've also run across homeless camps while trail riding and they always make me uneasy. There was one trail near my old barn that became so overrun with people dumping trash/large furniture as well as homeless camps that we ended up never using it. Never met people back there but we had a large homeless population in town and many with mental illness. Most would probably be harmless but I felt it was just too risky.


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## JoBlueQuarter

Love this thread. @knightrider - that is hella creepy 
The strangest thing I've found out riding was probably an unmarked electric fence that resulted in running home on foot after my horse? Though that's not really strange, just unfortunate lol. Idk, haven't ridden out much except for on our property so haven't found any crazy stuff. I've found a beer can out in the woods (our land, cattle pasture so there shouldn't have been any hunters out there) but there's many ways it coulda gotten there.
@SueC - Love the account of your Emu ride, that sounds like a lot of fun! Has me wondering tho, would a male Emu be more aggressive/protective than a momma cow? :think:
I love reading about the country and wildlife in Australia, sounds amazing.


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## SueC

@JoBlueQuarter , cows with new calves tend to be less bothered by horses with riders than people on foot, in my experience - and perhaps more afraid of a large animal like a horse? Or don't see it as such a threat? I've never been attacked on the horse, but a few times on foot, in my life.

This was Sunsmart with a momma cow in our paddock:






Granted, her calf was a few months old, but our cows and horses, when grazing together, generally don't have issues. Other than that Sunsmart is occasionally playful like this...

The emu was attacking the dog, primarily - and once it was ramped up, was attacking anything that moved, me and the horse included. 84-year-old Bill, who grew up in this district and rode in his youth, told me he got off his horse once to look at some emu chicks, in his innocence, when Mr Emu came charging out of the bushes at him. He leapt back on his horse - and then that was the end of the attack, in that situation.

I've never seen emus attack horses or cows outright - it's usually dogs or people that set them off in the first place...


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## Woodhaven

One of the trails I ride has a hunter's shack beside the woods and it has big openings on three sides with camo curtains covering them and as I rode by one day the curtain blew back and I saw a deer inside, very strange, I went on and coming back I slowed to see if the deer was still there, couldn't believe that a deer would hop into this shack. Well it was a decoy deer but looked quite real at a glance.

Another time my niece and I were riding and found a deer trail so decided to follow it. The problem with deer trails is that they do not have clearance for horses and riders. As we went the brush got heavier and we were leaning way down on the horses to get through. I had a blouse on and was sure it would be scrapped off me and I would have to ride home shirtless:eek_color: The trail was so thick we couldn't turn around, Lucky we were riding short horses.

These are not scary things but unusual at the time.


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## knightrider

Here is a story about a murder I DIDN'T see. 

My friend and I had a standing date to ride together every Saturday morning. We often rode in a big loop, riding through Christian Brothers Monastery in Laurel, MD. It was a huge beautiful abandoned piece of property, with ancient fruit trees and neglected gardens. At one time it was a thriving orphanage and monastery, but at the time my friend and I rode through it, there were only 6 ancient monks left.

We stopped off at my house at the end of the ride, and my friend's mom called. "Did you see all the excitement? Was it you who called the police?"

We hadn't seen a thing, but only a few minutes after we had passed through one of the abandoned gardens, somone found a murdered woman. Her body had been dumped there, just six feet away from the trail we regularly rode. I am so glad I was not the person who found her. It would have bothered me forever.


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## trailhorserider

The strangest think I ever came across in the woods was a naked woman on a blanket. I ride out there all the time and rarely see anyone and I came up this hill (not on a trail, just cross country) and I rode right up to this woman on a blanket. So I pretended I didn't see her and kept going.......what else can you do? I did see her Jeep as I left but the way I approached the Jeep was out of sight. So I don't know if she was sunbathing or had a boyfriend hiding somewhere......

I have seen lots of wildlife including bears. One time we rode up on a momma elk defending her calf with a young bear hanging around trying to get the calf. We chased the bear away. 

Another time I stopped to pee and left my friend a short ways away at a watering hole. I came back and heard all this elk mewing. We carried elk calls to talk to the elk, so I figured my friend was playing around with me. I rode up and it was a baby elk that appeared out of nowhere, apparently thinking our horses were elk? It was amazing. But kind of sad. We rode off hoping the momma elk would come back for him.

So those are my most memorable strange things happening on trail rides. 

Oh, we came across an elk bedded down with a broken leg too, a front one. :frown_color: He looked really bad. We called the game and fish department when we got back and they said they wouldn't have done nothing about it anyway. 

Which reminds me, TWICE now I have come across elk or deer legs caught in barbed wire fences. No body, just a leg! It makes you wonder what happened to the rest of it.

Then there was a time we came across about 4 dead cows and calves laying under a big ponderosa tree. Apparently it by lightning. I actually took a picture of it but then deleted it because I thought it was creepy.


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## AndyTheCornbread

Saw this guy out hunting one day a few years ago. I wasn't riding at the time but it is the biggest grizzly I have seen so far down here.


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## Foxhunter

I wrote about this in my journal. 

I had taken an ex flat racing mare in part exchange. A chestnut filly coming four. She was a beautiful filly, darn near perfect in conformation and moved like a dream, trouble was she had blown her brain and would be cantering on the spot whilst other horses were walking. 

I turned he away for a couple of months and started working her, getting her to understand that life wasn't all a mad rush. I knew I could sell her. For a lot of money so was prepared to spend the time on her. 

My boyfriend at the time, had an older ex showjumoer who was the most rock solid horse ever. He never spooked and was a very calming influence on other horses. 

Bill and I went out for a rode early one summer morning. We rode to some orchards. I had ridden filly there on her own but not with another horse. We had a few canters and she remained totally relaxed. I asked Bill to canter on ahead to see how she would react to that. 

Bill and Tictak cantered off along a straight ride between the trees. Filly remained alert but calm. I let her trot and then canter. She swept along with her head down, eating up the ground but calm. 
At the end of the ride Bill had turned. I was making a fuss of the filly, scratching her neck, telling her what a clever girl she was and not looking where we were going. She swung around the corner and we ran smack bang into Tictak's back end. 

That old horse was at least three hands bigger than normal refusing to go past two back packs by the side of the track. Over the backpacks were neatly folded clothes and two pairs of hiking boots with socks neatly draped over the heels. 

On the other side of the track was a couple, he was tall and skinny, I have seen more meat on a butcher's pencil. Behind him was a woman who was the size of a house. She was a lot older than him and trying to hide behind one of the trees. Unsuccessfully I might add. She would have had trouble hiding behind a 300 year old oak tree! 

Bill and I were laughing so hard and I eventually got the filly past the obstacle with Tictak following. We galloped down the track and I had to take a pull to stop filly. 

The good thing was that it didn't revert her back to her old self as she was content to walk home on a long rein. 

Not scarey but certainly strange!


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## AndyTheCornbread

I served with a guy in the Marine Corps who was stick skinny like that and loved the large women. Put it this way, if the girl wasn't pushing near the 300lb mark he wasn't interested. I can't repeat on this forum why he liked the tatonka sized variety of the fairer sex but suffice to say I have never been able to wash the mental image out of my mind. It still grosses me out to this day when I remember it.


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## SueC

knightrider said:


> Here is a story about a murder I DIDN'T see.
> 
> My friend and I had a standing date to ride together every Saturday morning. We often rode in a big loop, riding through Christian Brothers Monastery in Laurel, MD. It was a huge beautiful abandoned piece of property, with ancient fruit trees and neglected gardens. At one time it was a thriving orphanage and monastery, but at the time my friend and I rode through it, there were only 6 ancient monks left.
> 
> We stopped off at my house at the end of the ride, and my friend's mom called. "Did you see all the excitement? Was it you who called the police?"
> 
> We hadn't seen a thing, but only a few minutes after we had passed through one of the abandoned gardens, somone found a murdered woman. Her body had been dumped there, just six feet away from the trail we regularly rode. I am so glad I was not the person who found her. It would have bothered me forever.


mg: @knightrider! What with that and the mining pit story, this is starting to sound like you live in the _Midsomer Murders_ universe! Do you get that show in the US?


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## knightrider

I'm not familiar with that show.

But, since I've been riding almost every day since I was 11, that's a LOT of trails and experiences. Bound to be some weird ones.


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## 4horses

Knight rider- i think you forgot about the time at Doe Lake with the crime scene tape and police by- Was it Lake Mary? Apparently some guy murdered his wife, at least that is the rumor i heard. Not sure if that is true but someone put up a cross by the Lake at that spot. 

Weirdest thing i have seen was a nudist colony playing volleyball. Granted they were on a dirt road, but still...Not what i was expecting. There were trees between them and the road, but not that many trees.

I also got pulled over by a police officer for riding down the street. He wanted to know where i lived and that the horses weren't stolen. I thought that was strange, but at least he was apologetic about it.


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## UnhappyHacker

all of our trails are owned by the stables I'm at, so their compleatly off road and surrounded by trees.... then one day I was going down a normal trail, that I had been down dozens of times before- turned into the field... and there was an ENTIRE BUS in the field.
Not even like a school bus, I mean like a giant coach that you could probably fit 60+ in.
THERE ARE NO ROADS TO THAT FIELD.


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## Filou

I've seen a lot of wildlife on horseback, and well not on horseback, a lot of naked people at college, and bras in trees...

Not strange but cool/scary, I was riding through the pasture in front of a cow pasture at a canter, it was spring and the grass was a bit taller. To the side a mountain lion popped out of the grass and chased my horse and I for a few yards! Pretty sure she had some cubs and was showing them how to hunt, there's no way she was truly trying to take down my 17hh selle francais gelding.


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## Celeste

I have a lot of strange stories that I could relate, but one stands out as being totally weird. 

I was riding an Arab gelding that was normally a great trail horse who was very willing to go past anything. We were on a dirt road that never had any traffic on it. Suddenly, my gelding just stopped. His head was up, his ears forward; he almost looked like he would bolt for a little bit. He refused to move. So we sat there. I was pretty sure it was something real.

In about 10 minutes, I started to hear the most awful sound ever. I thought that maybe someone was strangling a cow. Or a pig. Or maybe a woman. Then the sound got louder. Eventually I could hear and see the issue.

There was a man marching up the road and playing bagpipes. When he saw us, he stopped playing but continued coming in our direction. We waited for him.

I just had to ask him was in the heck he was up to. He told me that he was trying to learn to play the bagpipes and march so he could be in the nearby annual Scottish festival. (He had a long way to go on the playing part.) He told me that the people in his subdivision had called the police on him for violating a noise ordinance. He thought he was far enough in the middle of nowhere that nobody could hear him.

One would think you could get 8 miles from nowhere and avoid bagpipes!


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## CopperLove

I love reading all these stories even though some of them creep me out lol

This was not trail riding, but there is a hiking/hunting trail in my home town that my partner took me to years ago when we first started dating. I was taking a 35mm black and white film photography class at the time, and at the end of this trail there is a little cave you can climb up in and water runs down out of it, so I wanted to go take photos there of the water flowing. The trail itself is the kind of trail I'd imagine a lot of people probably do ride on, just not in a great area to make a horse trail. Despite its natural beauty, being situated where it is makes it a prime spot for drug activity.

So the first time we go out there everything is fine. Not another soul in sight. Get some cool photos that I developed myself and still have a few prints of.

The second time we go out to hike it, there was another car parked off the road so we knew there was at least one other person nearby. We are a short distance from reaching the cave and we can hear a man talking and a woman laughing/cackling. We hear the man say, "There's someone coming." More giggling from the woman. We come around a curve in the trail and sure enough, she's leaned up against some rocks prettymuch on her back and he is standing over her trying to pull her up by her arm. All clothes intact. She gets up when she sees us, we just nod to them and continue up the trail. We climb up to sit in the mouth of the cave and we can still see them from where we are.

The man decides it's time to go but is having a hard time convincing the woman. She is very clearly drunk (or could have been under the influence of other substances) and arguing loudly with him. I think the man was a little drunk too, but holding it together better than she was. So finally he says "Fine you drunk b***h. Stay here. I'm going to the car." And he leaves, presumably thinking she will follow. Well, she stays there a while, then proceeds to get down on her butt and slide down the bank in front of the cave area.

At this point we are in the cave dying watching this woman, holding our hands over our mouths to keep from laughing and making noise because we knew it would echo. Then she starts trying to get back up the hill on her hands and knees and is clearly struggling. Keep in mind, this is the peak of Summer in the middle of a forest. Plants are grown up, no telling if there is poison ivy or other undesirables are down that bank... and IMAGINE all the ticks and other creepy crawlies that are out at this time of year. I remember briefly wondering if I should go offer help, but also knowing that getting involved with someone who clearly wasn't in their right state of mind and could get aggressive was a bad idea.

We hear her companion come crashing back up the trail yelling for her. He finds her halfway up the bank and goes to help drag her back up, asking her what the heck she was doing, etc. She tells him she dropped her purse. He leaves her on the trail and goes down the bank himself, cursing, looking for her purse (I never saw a purse, I don't think she dropped anything and I don't know why her partner wouldn't have realized she wasn't carrying a bag.) He finally comes back up, more cursing involved, and she finally follows him back down the trail toward where their car was parked.

It was hilarious at he time but also a bit sad because addiction and alcoholism is such a problem in our area... but who knows, they could have just been a couple being out drunk and stupid. My partner laughed even harder when I made some kind of comment about how she was going to have chiggers up her butt crack (We'd been dating a month, I don't think he'd ever heard me say anything like that.)

I'm sure anyone who trail rides or hikes regularly has ample stories of people in some awkward situations. I'm just thankful there was no nudity involved :rofl:


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## akihba

Not very strange, but we came across a coyote once.


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## knightrider

Here is a fun coyote story. I was out riding with my daughter and teen friends in 8000 acres of privately maintained hunting land when we saw two coyotes running. They turned and ran alongside us for about 100 yards. They were running with us like our pet dog was doing. Our dog was on the trail with us and the coyotes were running alongside us in the brush. One was larger than the other, and we figured they were a mated pair.


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## akihba

Ok now that I've read through this thread, my post seems VERY tame, haha. Probably a good thing as I was quite young when I was regularly trail riding. Only other time there was something slightly "odd" was when I came across sort of a dumping area for cows that had died. There were skeletons and calves in various stages of decomposition. Mostly I thought it was cool, lol. (I like skulls and that sort of thing.)


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## WhattaTroublemaker

I put most of the miles on Trouble up in the Appalachian mountains, and have come across some strange and scary things.

1. We were heading down a steep trail that wound down the mountain through a half grown clear cut, when Trouble started dancing and snorting. We finished the trail but he was TIGHT. If I would have told him to go, he would have WENT- no hesitation. When we looped back around we saw a truck with two hunters in it, they yelled and waved us over, and asked if we had saw the bull moose that was on the side of the mountain. I guess a few minutes after we passed, the moose had charged them and beat the heck out of their truck. 

2. We were traveling a well used, public ATV trail, pounding puddles and having a good time. I saw something in one of the puddles ahead and stopped to investigate. Someone had taken a full sheet of plywood and screwed probably between 200-400 sheetrock screws in it, and laid it face up in the puddle underwater. We REALLY got lucky I happened to spot something strange in the puddle. Sick individuals. I waited there and flagged down a guy on a four wheeler and asked to help me move it, and he said that someone was boobytrapping that trail for quite some time, putting wire across the road at neck level, etc. This trail was on public land and away from any kind of establishment, so some sicko was out there just trying to hurt people. 

3. An abandoned coroners van still running in the middle of the woods, on an old logging road. We rode by and did a 6 hour loop, came back and it was still running, one door open, just as we had passed by earlier. A week later when we came back it was still there, had run out of gas and the door was still open. This was 25km from any main road, and one direction was a loop that went into the woods, woods all around for miles. Never heard anything else about it. 

4. Bloody clothes in a pile outside a hunting camp. I assumed someone had an accident, and knocked on the door to make sure no one needed 911 or emergency rescue. A woman opened the door, and had looked like she had been in the woods for weeks. She cried and hugged me and when I went inside she jumped through the back window and fled into the woods. I called the police and never heard another word about it. 

5. The weirdest by far. a group of us were riding back to camp at dusk. This guy comes running out of the woods, spooks the horses. He's in boxers, barefoot, sunglasses on with one lens. He's yelling about his wife and kids in the woods, and he runs away. We stayed where we were and called the cops, search and rescue showed up and they found him in a homemade lean to in some swamp, apparently he had escaped from the nut house and had been missing for weeks, and was considered dangerous. The cop said we were lucky we were in a group because he had attacked women on wooded trails before.


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## WhattaTroublemaker

Ou, I forgot about these two-

We were riding one day, along a hunting trail. We passed under a tree stand, and when I looked up there was a blackbear in the stand :lol: He was watching us. Not strange but I thought it was hilarious!

A scary one. My friend and I had two horses out packed full of trapping gear, and were laying snares and conibears along a brook, following this brook through some thick brush. We went about 20km in. Suddenly, there was a chair. A black metal foldy chair, sitting on the side of the brook. I thought it was a fishermans chair, whatever. When we got closer, both horses rooted themselves to the ground and refused to move. Two solid pack horses. 

We tied the horses and went to investigate and things got REALLY weird. There was a small folding table next to the chair with all kinds of tools. Scalpels, filet knives, bone saws, pliers, which would be normal for a fisherman but there were about 20 pairs of women and childrens shoes piled next to the chair, a couple bras, and a few pairs of underwear. There was mold on a lot of it, and it had been there awhile. Down the bank, we saw 10 or 12 of those hard lunch coolers with handles, and probably 20 empty bottles of bleach. Some of the coolers were green with mold, some were brand new. All my hair stood on end, and we both got this creepy feeling someone was watching us. And the FLIES. There were SO many flies down there. 

When we got back to the horses we discovered that both horses had been untied. Thank god they didn't go anywhere. We dumped the trapping supplies, climbed on the horses, jumped them down into the creek and got the he!! out of there as fast as we could.

That was probably the scariest thing to ever happen to us. We were both crying when we saw the horses untied. We were TERRIFIED. They didn't just untie themselves. We were two 18 year old tough **** counrty girls and we were both packing, but we cried in terror until we were out of there. When we took her dad back there a few weeks later everything was gone, and there was dead grass spots where some of the coolers were for a LONG time.


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## ChieTheRider

Nothing freaky except hogs around here. My horse hates water and literally spooks at puddles though. Which is great since there's a lot of swampy land around.


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## SueC

UnhappyHacker said:


> all of our trails are owned by the stables I'm at, so their compleatly off road and surrounded by trees.... then one day I was going down a normal trail, that I had been down dozens of times before- turned into the field... and there was an ENTIRE BUS in the field.
> Not even like a school bus, I mean like a giant coach that you could probably fit 60+ in.
> THERE ARE NO ROADS TO THAT FIELD.


Maybe it flew in. ;-) 

It's clearly a Harry Potter mobile.

I did hear that there was a documented case of a cow falling from the sky in Eastern Europe many decades ago. Apparently it dropped from a cargo plane...


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## Willrider

When I was about 11, I was riding my quarter pony mare out on the trails behind our house. We’d been on those trails tons of times and never encountered anything strange or scary until now. We walked around a bend and noticed a larger coyote a few yards away. I stopped the pony so she could look at it, and then we continued on our way. As we drew nearer to the coyote, it started barking at us. I didn’t really pay any attention to it; until it started growling at us. My pony started getting nervous then. I tried to keep calm as we continued down the trail, but when we got about even with the coyote, it kind of lunged at us. It chased us down the trail about twenty feet, with my pony cantering quickly and me grabbing onto her mane with all my might, until it decided we were far enough away from whatever it was guarding and turned around. I didn’t go back on trail for about three more years.


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## ChieTheRider

ok I said there wasn't anything freaky around here, I sort of take that back. I found some pretty darn big hog tracks. The picture quality isn't great and the ground was soft and the tracks messed up easily but here's the track. 










For comparison, here's my horse's hoof print. She's got small feet but has shoes on the front so that makes her feet a tad bigger. This is a front track.









_they're just about the same size...needless to say I turned around and rode the other way._


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