Beech tree carvings

OK, I need to catch up on a few discoveries as of late. The early spring weather has allowed me to make my treks into the woods a little earlier than expected this year. Still, I always tend to jump the gun and head into the woods only to find that there was more snow on the ground than I expected or I'll find that the ground is still frozen which puts a real damper on my metal detecting since I can't retrieve the targets that I find! This was one of those trips
. At my house in the valley there was not a flake of snow on the ground and my ground test showed that the frost was gone so I headed to a nearby spot that I had been researching which showed an old home site about a mile off the nearest road. The problem was that it was also considerably higher in elevation than where I lived and of course when I got to where I was going to park I found that there was still some snow on the ground. I told myself that it wasn't very much and I could probably still use the metal detector despite the snow. So I climbed up and up the mountain following an old abandoned road and looking for signs of past human activity. Nearing the area of the home site and it seemed with every footstep the depth of the snow increased an inch. By the time I got to the right area there was 5 inches of snow on the ground and metal detecting was out of the question. I had jumped the gun again. Oh well, at least I found it and I could return at a later time to see what might have been lost 150 years ago. Following the road back down the mountain I spotted an old Beech tree beside the road and noticed that it looked a little funny. Beech trees have a very smooth bark and people tend to carve their initials in them. It's just one of those things that people do....I don't know why. Upon closer inspection this tree had attracted some carvers in the years past and since this was a good half mile from the nearest road or house, I was curious what stories the carvings held. Some were still readable like the initials "RH" and a date of "6/39" but this carver also added "Ariz" indicating that he/she was a visitor from the state of Arizona. I wonder why that person was doing in the back hills of CT in 1939? I believe this roadway had already been abandoned by that time so maybe it was a hunter? Or possibly a hiker? Who knows...I can't say that I condone carving up trees but seeing these old carvings out in the middle of nowhere definitely made my trek a little more interesting. Now I just have to get back up there with the metal detector and find all that lost treasure hidden in the hills.