Anybody see anything like this before? It doesn't look like there's anything nearby that would have caused this hole

My truck is a stock 94 f250 4x4 power stroke with a zf5

I am very careful about egt on hills...

Is this a sign of something serious going on?

can I just weld over the hole? Or put some of that exhaust leak wrap over it?

I'm not opposed to replacing the up pipes but I'm on a road trip and would much rather wait till I get home. But then I do need to climb hills to get there and I'm towing a 20' loaded car hauler

 

That's strange for sure. It almost looks like someone drilled that out. Possibly for an EGT probe? If you can weld it easily enough I would. Exhaust wrap probably won't do much. Check up around the collector, up towards the turbo. If they have lots of soot up there, it'll be time for some bellow up pipes anyway.

 

That looks like it was cut removing the old down pipe.
Just weld it

 

Thanks guys, coming up the hills on I8 in California I noticed what seemed to be a serious lack of power, I had to drop down to 3rd a couple times, with about 10k pounds behind me. This is probably the most I've pulled with this truck so I'm not familiar with its attitude under these circumstances. Plus we don't have hills like that in ak so I wasn't sure what to expect.

I was at about 3500 miles since my last oil change and was thinking my oil might be end of life, causing injector issues...

I just stopped and got the ford motor sport 10/30 to change it, and a clamp and gasket material to cover this hole. I'll be headed north from sandiego this evening, hopefully these two will make my uphill battles less troublesome

 

^x2 it definitely looks like a grinding wheel or torch head kind of cut...

 

You've probably already used the clamp and gasket. If it were my truck and I was on a road trip I'd just stop at a muffler shop and have them put a gob of weld bead over it. Won't be pretty but it will last.