Why does nobody talk about trail signs getting stolen

I was on the Pinhoti Trail in Alabama two weekends ago and hit a junction where both wooden markers were completely gone. Somebody must have ripped them down for firewood or something. I ended up taking the wrong fork and adding 4 miles to my day before I realized my mistake. Has anyone else run into missing signs messing up their route?

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3 Comments

pat7812mo ago

More likely they were taken by souvenir collectors than someone burning treated wood.

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daniel_gonzalez2mo ago

A buddy of mine collects old lumber from demolition sites, and he showed me this barn door he found once. The thing had these crazy old nail holes and stains like someone used it for a target range or something. He said people will pull nails out of old railroad ties just because they look cool on a shelf. Another time he found a chunk of floorboard from a 1800s courthouse that had initials carved into it, probably some bored kid or a prisoner. Souvenir hunters can be pretty ruthless, especially when wood has history to it.

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the_olivia1mo ago

Picked up a piece of old barn siding at an auction once and found a bullet lodged in it from who knows when. @daniel_gonzalez your buddy's right, people go nuts for anything that's got a story attached to it.

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