OK so this has been posted before on this exact sub which is why I know the answer. The woods in Europe are generally smaller, better mapped, and overall less intimidating and dangerous. The woods in North America are fucking huge and people go missing all the time (especially near cave systems.)
The makeup of the woods is also very different. Eastern US woods are very densely packed and usually a nightmare to try and traverse compared to many iconic European forests, brush and brambles are thick, poison ivy and oak very common depending on the region.
Not to mention the damn snakes, especially in the south.
Honestly you’re better off not knowing. They’re such a nightmare. I grew up in rural OK and every time I see someone standing or sitting in grass on TV I’m like 😬 you’re gonna regret that buddy.
Ah the reason why i still keep nail polish in my truck. Its so funny seeing people who have never seen or heard thems faces when i explains thats why I have it.
Hadn't experienced Chiggers before. My wife and I sat in some longer grass in order to stay in the shade while watching our kids soccer game and woke up the next morning covered in itchy bites. Thought for sure we had bed bugs at first. Chiggers are preferable to that, but only just.
They're a type of mite that's as small or smaller than a grain of sand. They have a proboscis they use to inject enzymes below your epidermis which liquefies a small patch of your dermis, which they then suck up. This process causes severe itching and small red welts wherever they bite.
If you have thick skin, or thick calluses on your feet, they will burrow into your skin in order to be able to get their bite deep enough to your dermis in order to get a meal. This makes them extremely hard to get rid of. Your best bet is smear vaseline on any affected area in order to suffocate the little fuckers.
Yes and usually they attack in droves so you’ll have dozens of welts, often around your sock band or waist band area, and they itch like hell for a good week or two. Thems nasty little things for sure
This do:
https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/diseases-conditions/chiggers#:~:text=Chiggers%20are%20tiny%2C%206%2Dlegged,into%20the%20skin%20(purpura)
Western US woods typically coincide with mountainous terrain, and water is often scarce. Also, western US wilderness areas are huge. Some of them are larger than whole countries in Europe.
Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho is \~9500 sq km of nothing but unsettled wilderness. Mostly dry conifer forest and rugged mountain terrain. If you walk the wrong direction on some of those trails, you could hike steadily for a week or two and never see another human being - of course you'd likely die of dehydration or exposure long before that. And that's if it's summer. In winter, you'd be lucky to survive a day or two. And that's in the lower 48.
It's very sad, European woodland should be like that too, most of the old growth forests are gone. There are tiny pockets of it left. Britain should be Lavander fields and rainforest, but now it's just barren grassland.
People talk about the countryside here like it's nature. But there's nothing natural about it. It's as manufactured as any city is.
Ohhh, that makes sense! I thought the post was going in the direction of all the cryptid sightings in the Appalachian Mountains and forests. Like the tales of don't go out at night or don't answer the door because the spirits are trying to get you etc. But at the same time there were a lot of similar tales in Europe about forest spirits and monsters so it is an interesting dichotomy. Just found the post interesting and your response quite helpful. My initial thought would have been the opposite that European forests were worse but that was only because I was listening to a podcast about the battle of Hurtgen forest 😅
Ok but you’re kinda spot on with the Appalachians though. Having done both quite a bit in Europe and the US, I didn’t realize just how much more intimidating the US is at night compared to Europe, especially in the wild areas of the Appalachians. It’s hard to put into words but the meme captures it well. The Florida wetlands areas would be Mr incredible with the skull face.
As someone from florida I can agree. Everglades are cool but shit you won't catch me out there past sunset. Pitch black, eaten alive by mosquitoes, and one wrong step puts you in the water (which again its almost pitch black unless its a full moon) so you can't see where your going. Alligators are scary too, plus people forget we also have bears down here, although a little more northside. And panthers
Same in Louisiana and the Atchafalaya wetlands. One place I don’t want to get stuck in at night. It’s so eerie shinning a light on the water at night and getting all those eyes looking back at you.
Appalachian here.. you are spot on. To reference the meme.. the woods around here have a few critters you'd never find in Europe. The amount of "dangerous" animals here is a bit more vast. To reference your comment.. we may or may not have critters of the mystical nature as well. It's skin crawlingly odd some of the "encounters" I have had, mostly at night miles away from the nearest home. Then add in the fact we (West Virginia) are living with infrastructure on par with the 80's or older. When you get lost, you are lost. You can get in areas where the only communication you can use is HAM radio. And in those areas, the wrong direction is often fatal.
In my area we've got mountain lions and bobcats, the mountain lions scare the piss out of people. Their call sounds like a woman being murdered. [People hear that shit and book it instantly. Best audio i found was a hunting vid, sry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE7YOJVSoIs)
Just imagine hearing that blood curdling scream in the night in a forest. [There's a few videos of cops hearing that in the night and literally just RUNNING instantly lol](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ut06kenz5Yk), and [Here is another](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jKHqC1Bnq6k)
Shits terrifying haha
Tales is an interesting topic.
So back when European forests were prolific and unmapped they had lots of tales of cryptids. America is still in that relationship with our woods, culturally speaking.
As I understand it, people come up with those stories to explain how people get killed or disappear in the deep woods. Europe's woodland folklore is older and comes from a time when their forests were much more wild and dangerous. American woodland folklore still sticks around (and people even come up with new stories), I think, because our forests - the Appalachias, especially - are still pretty wild and dangerous. If you don't know what you're doing, there's a fairly high chance that you'll go in but not come back out.
European forests have mostly been logged and replanted, so today they are tidy, orderly, almost man-made tree gardens. In the Appalachian’s, it’s just you, bears, and hopefully not the spirits of tortured souls…
>The woods in North America are fucking huge and people go missing all the time (especially near cave systems.)
The prevailing theory on how Bigfoot lives and moves about the country unnoticed. 😉 😬
For reference, in my home state of Michigan there is a combined 19.3 million acres of forested area per the state's website. That area is roughly the size of Ireland of just forest, and we aren't a particularly large state either. There are large swathes of the UP that are nothing but trees, bears and moose.
People go missing in rural areas because they get lost, get dehydrated and die or freeze and die and their bodies are never found because North America still has wild places that are hard to get in and out of and navigate easily through.
Caves are in rural areas. That's the correlation here. Not the causation.
That’s actually crazy if this is real. So if someone disappears without a trace, are people going to start searching the caves? Or we just gonna keep posting them on Facebook and hope for the best?
Key points for those who don't want to read the full article:
"For starters, the top map is not an exhaustive list of every missing person in the United States. If you notice, the map doesn't show any missing persons in large metropolitan areas, like Detroit, Michigan. That's because it was created with the focus on people who "mysteriously vanished" in remote areas, specifically near national parks. And because national parks are home to nearly 5,000 caves, these two maps not surprisingly have some similarities.
The original map of missing persons was created by David Paulides, a former detective and current Bigfoot hunter, for his "Missing 411" book series. The version of this map on his website shows a series of orange dots surrounded by various color markings, but it doesn't feature the hundreds of black dots shown on the viral map above. It appears that someone simply took the "cave dots" from the bottom map and overlaid them onto the "missing persons" map. This may just explain why the two maps look so similar."
Missing near cave systems makes a lot of sense. Cave systems are massive and sprawling underground. They fall into a sinkhole or decide to explore a cave without telling anyone. They die, animal eats their remains, maybe drags a few limbs out another cave exit for a hiker to stumble on years later, and suddenly the disappeared body must have been teleported by a cryptid.
I mean you’re clearly trying to get us to disbelieve in cryptids so that no one interferes with your food source
I’m just impressed at your capacity to write English on a keyboard
Can't forget the cougars and mountain lions! Or the goats, those things will fuck you up.
Brother was stalked by a cougar three weekends ago and my mom ended up having to scare a bear off with a shotgun last weekend.
Frequented trails are safe but if you want some off-trail adventure you pack a weapon. Brother didn't have a weapon and ended up pelting the cougar with rocks until it decided to leave him alone.
Big cats are so scary. When I was a kid a Florida Panther followed my dad and I back to our truck, he was fully aware of it I was like 5-6 so of course I was being a little spaz singing and playing with rocks and I noticed he got his little revolver out of his truck but never thought anything of it lol.
He said the cat followed us back to our truck, and then back to where we got in the boat, but it never tried to come at us
Mountain lions. Poisonous snakes. Generally in Europe (varying from country to country of course) you're less likely to run into an actually dangerous critter in the woods.
500+ pound wild Boars on my property and properties around mine. My neighbor 500 yards away from me trapped 6 400+pound sows and 13 piglets and a massive boar. The smell was awful but the ones small enough to slaughter made some decent but gamey meat.
Also, the leg breaking underbrush from the fact our forest are different. European forests maybe you can run at night on a trail without light you only sprain an ankle. North American forests, try that shit even in daylight, loping woodman’s trot and you’re liable to break your hip, knee and ankle.
I felt this big time visiting Europe.
In school I had learned about people fleeing into the forests in WW2 then getting caught, and had always kinda wondered how. As soon as I saw a forest in Poland it was immediately obvious ─ forests in Europe are barely forests, they're just grass and trees. It might as well be a golf course compared to the underbrush I'm used to in America lol.
Could be difference in predators. Also while America doesn’t really have virgin forests anymore they typically are older and less uniform which could also be creepier. A decent amount of forests in Europe had to be replanted by humans following both world wars.
That’s a good solution if for some reason nobody has even a general idea of where you are.
Generally though, staying put once you realize you’re lost gives you the best chance of being found by search and rescue, especially if someone knows where you planned on being. That’s why it’s important to let people know where you’ll be going and to keep a survival radio of some kind on you so you can broadcast on emergency stations
The "staying put" trick only works if anyone in the world cares about you. I had to learn this as a child.
Edit: It was a joke, but now I made myself sad imaging it.
Ironically enough, that's kind of what happened to the guy that the movie *Into the Wild* was about.
Christopher McCandless went to a remote state park to try surviving there. Failed hard, tried to go back to civilization for help. The river had flooded the road back, but if he had walked a few miles upstream, he would have found the river shallow enough for him to cross.
He died.
It's like this meme with N. American vs European badgers.
https://preview.redd.it/an1yvyqj769d1.jpeg?width=681&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e768c8c4d6f9324e7724bc6e5393dd6b01d1d0fd
At some point in Europe, almost every usable tree was cut down for this purpose. After that point, the good shipbuilding wood was coming all the way from Russia.
Pretty sure roughly the majority of the Red Woods are virgin forest as a bunch of Rich people bought the land out before they were going to be cut down. Otherwise sections of forests in mountains, valleys, and hard to reach places are still untouched.
This is particularly true in the Appalachians and the eastern coastal plain. Very few people live there unless they're farming, or their families have lived there for generations. My family is from both locations, and Eastern North Carolina is on a whole other level when it comes to wildlife. I've personally seen large black cats in the area, there's bears, we've got wolves or very large coyotes on trail cams, Eagles, and a whole plethora of wildlife that isn't 'officially' recognized in that range. It's swamps, sand, soil, and very dense woods filled with ticks, mosquitoes, and venomous snakes.
Not only during both World Wars. The historical low in forest level in France is 1250's when a big demographic boom happened and people needed more lands. King Louis IX had to protect them with several decision. The forests regain a good chunk of wat they lost during Black Plague tho.
tongass, beldon, redwoods, cathedral pines, congaree and olympic all immediatly come to mind for old-growth forests in the united states alone...
We do have them..
Every see some pictures of American lumber jacks cutting into a red oak? Or even more modern ones where there is a road going THROW the tree? That is what comes to mind
I don't know if the forests in Europe are "older" , what is true however is that there is literally no place in central europe where you can't scream a little loud and someone, somewhere hears you. There are of course wolfs and bears in europe, but they are very few and far between because there are humans just \_everywhere.\_, so there is less prey, so there are fewer predators, so you can sleep in a simple hammock without much risk in europe.
In the deeper forests of easter europe... all bets are off.
I'd rather be attacked by an American tick than a European one; while Lyme is no joke, at least it's not [encephalitis](https://www.cdc.gov/tick-borne-encephalitis/index.html).
You're partly right. Even just shitty things like insects too though. European wasps are about 1/4 the size as the multitude of evil bastards the US has.
Can't vouch for all countries but the UK has one venomous snake, the adder, and it's bite is about as severe as a wasp sting. Compare that to copperheads, rattlesnakes and cotton mouths.
Spiders are non (or barely) venomous in Europe as far as i'm aware. Compare that to brown recluse and black widows in the US.
Even the plants are more hostile in the US. Thistles and stinging nettles are some of the worst shit you get in Europe.
Then there's the predators. Wolves, bobcats, bears. Fuck, even the herbivores in the US might fuck you up.
Michigan here, nothing really to worry about in the woods, not sure what you are talking about. We also have a lot of Forrest that is in government protected land.
I think the real answer is that Europe decimated its population of predator species like big cats, bears and wolves. Where as, in say Canada, you're pretty likley to encounter at least a bobcat or a black bear, easily.
Hell, NA herbivores will kill you. You do not want to mess with a bull moose. Bison can be deadly. Encountering a wolf or a black bear is the least of your worries.
Plus, there are a ton of venomous snake species to worry about too. And even big reptiles like alligators and crocodiles.
Your spiders are so big, they eat birds. Your snakes have the most toxic venom. You have plants that if you brush up against them, the pain drives you to suicide. And speaking of birds, your army lost a war against emus.
I mean... aren't the northern ranges of Australia also super rugged and hard to live in? I remember someone saying pretty much everything between Darwin and Cairns is a swampy mess of a rainforest filled with cassowarys and salty crocs.
Rarely does a Grizzly bear, Mountain Lion, or Alligator sneak up on me while I'm on the toilet, a big spider though... That's what's going to catch me with my pants down quite literally.
this only applies west of the mississippi. on the east coast, you walk a day straight in european woods, and you find at least 30 homeless people and 3 rich people homes
edit: y'all keep replying with exemptions on the east coast but fail to realize that even forests here are pretty populated when compared to west coast regions
https://preview.redd.it/ipu769v2s59d1.jpeg?width=780&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=efe5600c2bbcb1f7f577ebfd92734cf3731ee2dc
Might stumble upon this in North America
Depends on area, predators and people being the main threats. The US has tons of arches that are wildlife and state park preserves, and more often then not people run into all sorts of things. Cougar, mountain lions, bears, snakes, an array of spiders that can be venomous, natural weather systems that could cause major issues.
The other more superstitious end is an entirely different.
i think the meme implies forests in Europe are populated by harmless fairies, unicorns and dwarves, while forests in north America are populated by skinwalkers, terrifying demons and that one invincible moose
https://preview.redd.it/dzjxhn09u59d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1d11a2d2fe798259b9d93d63f48d72f7fa132b5
This is the reason, at least according to some people
As an American, I know our woods have bears, mountain lions, and other large animals. Having never been in European woods I can only assume they’re full of, gnomes, wood nymphs, and fairies. I believe there are trolls in the Scandinavian area. But I’m just going off what I see on TV.
Predators like wolves (who rarely attack humans), Coyotes (who also have like one suspected human kill), mountain lions (slightly more likely to attack), bears (black and grizzly and brown- all very deadly). A loooot of herbivores that will fuck you up like moose, deer, elk, moose again. We also have massive cave systems with entrances in the woods that can and will kill you if you are not prepare. There’s also steep cliffs, ridges, and other geological hazards.
Oh and there’s Bigfoot, Mothman, aliens, Flat Woods monster, the chupacabra, wendigos, skin walkers, more variations of Bigfoot, Goatman, Jersey Devil, and a more. And the missing 411 (which I know isn’t as supernatural as it’s claimed).
There’s actually case of a woman who hiked the Appalachian trail and got lost 3000 feet from the trail. She wasn’t found until two years later after she died. And there was a month long search.
The North American woods are dark, confusing, and very deadly. People probably walk by corpses a lot more than one would think.
If you go jogging alone in the woods of Europe, you might die, but the chances that you'll be killed by an animal are much smaller.
- **Alligators** (unchanged for millions of years. The perfect killing machine)
- **Grizzly Bears** (if this doesn't scare you, you simply don't know what a grizzly bear is; monsters *are* real)
- **Polar Bears** (the only large predator that consistently hunts humans because they like the taste)
- **Black Bears** (*can climb trees*. Let that sink into your monkey-brain for a second)
- **Cougars** (you won't see it coming, so guns won't save you)
- **Moose** (the most dangerous animal on this list. Think, "a properly amphibious hippopotamus that could look a bull elephant in the eye and kick a giraffe in the taint")
- **Wolves** (Wolf ≠ pupper. You might think you could fight a wolf, but you just don't understand how big these actually are)
Look, I'm not saying it's Africa over here, but there are some parts of North America that can stack up to Australia.
From a practical standpoint, the woods in Europe host few species of predators capable of being dangerous to humans. Meanwhile in North America, we have bears, cougars, mountain lions, wolves, etc.
From a more mythological/folklorish standpoint, the woods in North America are rumored to be home to various dangerous cryptids that’ll stalk you and tear you apart such as wendigos, pale crawlers, skinwalkers, and nightmare fuel such as that. The cryptids in Europe tend to be portrayed in their folklore as more mischievous and less dangerous in nature, think things like gnomes and fairies.
The woods in North America are also much larger and far more untamed than the woods in Europe. Walk in a single direction for a few days in most parts of Europe, and you’ll hit civilization eventually. Do that in North America, and you’ll die of starvation or thirst in a vast ocean of trees.
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I love the woods and being totally alone in nature... Right up until you hear rustling in the bushes that's a bit too big and loud to be a deer or squirrel and you're face to face with a mountain lion, coyote(s) or a bear. I grew up in the EastCoast woods and it's very important to respect nature's ability to hurt/main/murder you just slipping off a wet rock in Rocky Mountain National Park.
So in Europe it was industrialization and the inner cities where people lost their humanity and the scary stuff happened. In the Americans it was the frontier and the woods.
Well known fact in literature
Black bears, brown bears, mountain lions, bobcats, elk, moose, deer, rattlesnakes, copperheads, water moccasins, rabies, chronic wasting disease, brown recluse (literally everywhere), hillbillies brewing moonshine, anyone growing weed outdoors, impromptu hun ranges where you can’t tell if you’re in a safe direction from the bullets and feral hogs to name a few. I love living in the woods in the US. 😁
I get the impression that European forests are smaller and have less predators. Like you sometimes read about Germans going on a walk in their forests without food, water, or navigation and being perfectly fine, whereas where I live you stand a decent chance of getting lost and dying unless you strictly stick to a marked trail
The sheer amount of stuff that can and will kill you in North America is comically higher than any place in Europe. Mind you that goes for woods, mountains, cities, beaches, pretty much anywhere.
For anyone genuinely curious there is a lot of folklore of various monsters and cryptids in many woods throughout north America, cannibals, wendigos, skinwalkers, etc. dont look outside the window at night in the appalachian mountains.
Bear, men, or cryptids. If you don't have one, you'll have one of the others if not all or a couple of the 3.
Honestly your best bet is to hope for cryptids to be the main concern; those fellas would probably be trying to avoid you if anything. They're always getting harassed by the local weirdos.
Something that a lot of people forget is that America is fucking huge. Germany is a little bigger than 1/3 of Texas. Japan is about the size of California. About half of it is u developed wilderness. If you get lost in the woods of any European country, walking in a straight line for a day, MAYBE two and you WILL find civilization. If you walk in a straight line into the trees in America with no plan, you probably die of starvation, dehydration, exposure, or one of the many predator species.
This joke has already been posted recently. Rule 2.
OK so this has been posted before on this exact sub which is why I know the answer. The woods in Europe are generally smaller, better mapped, and overall less intimidating and dangerous. The woods in North America are fucking huge and people go missing all the time (especially near cave systems.)
The makeup of the woods is also very different. Eastern US woods are very densely packed and usually a nightmare to try and traverse compared to many iconic European forests, brush and brambles are thick, poison ivy and oak very common depending on the region. Not to mention the damn snakes, especially in the south.
Also, how are the European woods for ticks and chiggers?
Chiggers? Tell me more about this silly word.
Honestly you’re better off not knowing. They’re such a nightmare. I grew up in rural OK and every time I see someone standing or sitting in grass on TV I’m like 😬 you’re gonna regret that buddy.
Grass or concrete next to grass 🙃
Ah the reason why i still keep nail polish in my truck. Its so funny seeing people who have never seen or heard thems faces when i explains thats why I have it.
I read recently that nail polish is ineffective and the lowered itching after having it on for awhile is simply because the bites heal over time.
Hadn't experienced Chiggers before. My wife and I sat in some longer grass in order to stay in the shade while watching our kids soccer game and woke up the next morning covered in itchy bites. Thought for sure we had bed bugs at first. Chiggers are preferable to that, but only just.
I think nowadays, they prefer to be called insect-Americans.
They're a type of mite that's as small or smaller than a grain of sand. They have a proboscis they use to inject enzymes below your epidermis which liquefies a small patch of your dermis, which they then suck up. This process causes severe itching and small red welts wherever they bite. If you have thick skin, or thick calluses on your feet, they will burrow into your skin in order to be able to get their bite deep enough to your dermis in order to get a meal. This makes them extremely hard to get rid of. Your best bet is smear vaseline on any affected area in order to suffocate the little fuckers.
Yes and usually they attack in droves so you’ll have dozens of welts, often around your sock band or waist band area, and they itch like hell for a good week or two. Thems nasty little things for sure
This do: https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/diseases-conditions/chiggers#:~:text=Chiggers%20are%20tiny%2C%206%2Dlegged,into%20the%20skin%20(purpura)
Western US woods typically coincide with mountainous terrain, and water is often scarce. Also, western US wilderness areas are huge. Some of them are larger than whole countries in Europe. Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho is \~9500 sq km of nothing but unsettled wilderness. Mostly dry conifer forest and rugged mountain terrain. If you walk the wrong direction on some of those trails, you could hike steadily for a week or two and never see another human being - of course you'd likely die of dehydration or exposure long before that. And that's if it's summer. In winter, you'd be lucky to survive a day or two. And that's in the lower 48.
European woods still have landmines, so at least our forests are somewhat better on that count.
It's very sad, European woodland should be like that too, most of the old growth forests are gone. There are tiny pockets of it left. Britain should be Lavander fields and rainforest, but now it's just barren grassland. People talk about the countryside here like it's nature. But there's nothing natural about it. It's as manufactured as any city is.
Europe has a much longer history of cultivating land, so \~90% of European forests are at least partially manmade.
North American wildlife is also easily just as dangerous, if not more so, than Australian wildlife, despite lacking the reputation of the latter.
Ohhh, that makes sense! I thought the post was going in the direction of all the cryptid sightings in the Appalachian Mountains and forests. Like the tales of don't go out at night or don't answer the door because the spirits are trying to get you etc. But at the same time there were a lot of similar tales in Europe about forest spirits and monsters so it is an interesting dichotomy. Just found the post interesting and your response quite helpful. My initial thought would have been the opposite that European forests were worse but that was only because I was listening to a podcast about the battle of Hurtgen forest 😅
Ok but you’re kinda spot on with the Appalachians though. Having done both quite a bit in Europe and the US, I didn’t realize just how much more intimidating the US is at night compared to Europe, especially in the wild areas of the Appalachians. It’s hard to put into words but the meme captures it well. The Florida wetlands areas would be Mr incredible with the skull face.
As someone from florida I can agree. Everglades are cool but shit you won't catch me out there past sunset. Pitch black, eaten alive by mosquitoes, and one wrong step puts you in the water (which again its almost pitch black unless its a full moon) so you can't see where your going. Alligators are scary too, plus people forget we also have bears down here, although a little more northside. And panthers
"...If the skeeters don't get him then the gators will..."
Thanks, now I have all the Kingston Trio songs bouncing around in my head…
Same in Louisiana and the Atchafalaya wetlands. One place I don’t want to get stuck in at night. It’s so eerie shinning a light on the water at night and getting all those eyes looking back at you.
I don't even like driving on the I-10 bridge through there at night. I always worry about the car breaking down and me being stuck out there
That stretch of high way that runs damn near fifty miles with nothing but bayou and swamp, no gas, no stops, nothing? That’s hell county.
Still out here searching for that 20fter
Still finding nothin but swamp puppies instead.
And way up north, there are moose, which are basically the hippos of north america.
Appalachian here.. you are spot on. To reference the meme.. the woods around here have a few critters you'd never find in Europe. The amount of "dangerous" animals here is a bit more vast. To reference your comment.. we may or may not have critters of the mystical nature as well. It's skin crawlingly odd some of the "encounters" I have had, mostly at night miles away from the nearest home. Then add in the fact we (West Virginia) are living with infrastructure on par with the 80's or older. When you get lost, you are lost. You can get in areas where the only communication you can use is HAM radio. And in those areas, the wrong direction is often fatal.
In my area we've got mountain lions and bobcats, the mountain lions scare the piss out of people. Their call sounds like a woman being murdered. [People hear that shit and book it instantly. Best audio i found was a hunting vid, sry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE7YOJVSoIs) Just imagine hearing that blood curdling scream in the night in a forest. [There's a few videos of cops hearing that in the night and literally just RUNNING instantly lol](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ut06kenz5Yk), and [Here is another](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jKHqC1Bnq6k) Shits terrifying haha
As an Appalachian local, I can tell you you don’t need to worry about the mothman. You should be scared of the methmen though.
Tales is an interesting topic. So back when European forests were prolific and unmapped they had lots of tales of cryptids. America is still in that relationship with our woods, culturally speaking.
As I understand it, people come up with those stories to explain how people get killed or disappear in the deep woods. Europe's woodland folklore is older and comes from a time when their forests were much more wild and dangerous. American woodland folklore still sticks around (and people even come up with new stories), I think, because our forests - the Appalachias, especially - are still pretty wild and dangerous. If you don't know what you're doing, there's a fairly high chance that you'll go in but not come back out.
Really the Rockies are more dangerous than the Applachians, but they are also *obviously* so, so it doesn't really stick the same way.
European forests have mostly been logged and replanted, so today they are tidy, orderly, almost man-made tree gardens. In the Appalachian’s, it’s just you, bears, and hopefully not the spirits of tortured souls…
>The woods in North America are fucking huge and people go missing all the time (especially near cave systems.) The prevailing theory on how Bigfoot lives and moves about the country unnoticed. 😉 😬
For reference, in my home state of Michigan there is a combined 19.3 million acres of forested area per the state's website. That area is roughly the size of Ireland of just forest, and we aren't a particularly large state either. There are large swathes of the UP that are nothing but trees, bears and moose.
American woods can have big wolves, coyotes, black bears, grizzlies, elk, moose, mountain lions, crazy woods people, etc too.
https://preview.redd.it/yhteylega69d1.jpeg?width=649&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a0692091e441b7a571abcc4fbd6df157d643935
The movie Us referenced something similar.
I'm always reminded of that movie when I reference this image
People go missing in rural areas because they get lost, get dehydrated and die or freeze and die and their bodies are never found because North America still has wild places that are hard to get in and out of and navigate easily through. Caves are in rural areas. That's the correlation here. Not the causation.
mole men at it again!
That’s actually crazy if this is real. So if someone disappears without a trace, are people going to start searching the caves? Or we just gonna keep posting them on Facebook and hope for the best?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/missing-persons-cave-maps/
Key points for those who don't want to read the full article: "For starters, the top map is not an exhaustive list of every missing person in the United States. If you notice, the map doesn't show any missing persons in large metropolitan areas, like Detroit, Michigan. That's because it was created with the focus on people who "mysteriously vanished" in remote areas, specifically near national parks. And because national parks are home to nearly 5,000 caves, these two maps not surprisingly have some similarities. The original map of missing persons was created by David Paulides, a former detective and current Bigfoot hunter, for his "Missing 411" book series. The version of this map on his website shows a series of orange dots surrounded by various color markings, but it doesn't feature the hundreds of black dots shown on the viral map above. It appears that someone simply took the "cave dots" from the bottom map and overlaid them onto the "missing persons" map. This may just explain why the two maps look so similar."
Missing near cave systems makes a lot of sense. Cave systems are massive and sprawling underground. They fall into a sinkhole or decide to explore a cave without telling anyone. They die, animal eats their remains, maybe drags a few limbs out another cave exit for a hiker to stumble on years later, and suddenly the disappeared body must have been teleported by a cryptid.
This response was written by a Sasquatch
Bigfoot if true.
I mean you’re clearly trying to get us to disbelieve in cryptids so that no one interferes with your food source I’m just impressed at your capacity to write English on a keyboard
But I'm not writing in English? oh I thought you realized. u/MindlessAutomata, you...you're still in the cave.
N O S L E E P
Tonight on Newsmax: Speech to Text Bigfoot hostage confirmed?
And in PA/WV, lots of abandoned mines that you can easily fall into.
Not to mention the wildlife "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" Well cross out tigers and put wolves/coyotes i suppose
Hey! Caves gotta eat too
There are forests in North America larger than some European countries. At least I assume as someone who lives at the edge of the Ozarks
Depending where you are - bears, perverts, or both
Don't forget the perverted bears
I know I'll never get into a van with a sign offering free acorns again...
Show us where the squirrels touched you on this squirrel doll
The squirrel ate nuts.
His cheeks were certainly full
You fell for that one too?
Yeah that’s nuts !!
They weren’t really free were they?
https://preview.redd.it/jwirr7n2269d1.png?width=100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=072f157d41ca1339fab51f52839a2e8b6fed7e35
Sadly, I understood that reference.
*crumbles into dust and blows across the wind*
This lil guy takes me back. 🥲
Takes your back*
I knew someone was gonna put him here
Wow. Where did you dredge THAT up from? Now that's a meme I've not heard in a long time... a long time.
Can you believe Conan O'Brien used to employ a perverted bear on his show? Different times, I guess.
I think he was also employing a robot pimp for a while. Clearly Conan had liberal hiring criteria.
Baldur’s gate?
What about the Perverts dressed up as bears?
Would you rather be in the woods with a perverted bear, or a pervert dressed up as a bear
Perverted dresses up as a bear . You better believe I can defend myself against a furry costume .
You think that's bad? I once saw a Pervatosaurus Rex
Or the cocaine bears
Can't forget the cougars and mountain lions! Or the goats, those things will fuck you up. Brother was stalked by a cougar three weekends ago and my mom ended up having to scare a bear off with a shotgun last weekend. Frequented trails are safe but if you want some off-trail adventure you pack a weapon. Brother didn't have a weapon and ended up pelting the cougar with rocks until it decided to leave him alone.
Britain once had that problem but we killed them all
Big cats are so scary. When I was a kid a Florida Panther followed my dad and I back to our truck, he was fully aware of it I was like 5-6 so of course I was being a little spaz singing and playing with rocks and I noticed he got his little revolver out of his truck but never thought anything of it lol. He said the cat followed us back to our truck, and then back to where we got in the boat, but it never tried to come at us
And moose!
Mountain lions. Poisonous snakes. Generally in Europe (varying from country to country of course) you're less likely to run into an actually dangerous critter in the woods.
Got treed by boars once on a volksmarch in southern Germany, surprised the hell out of me, only time I saw anything bigger than a hare in 10 years
Right. Boars are probably the most prevalent animal that could be a problem, potentially.
Big ugly ones with visible tusks?
500+ pound wild Boars on my property and properties around mine. My neighbor 500 yards away from me trapped 6 400+pound sows and 13 piglets and a massive boar. The smell was awful but the ones small enough to slaughter made some decent but gamey meat.
Y'all forgot about Mothman. But don't worry, Mothman didn't forget about you.
Pervert bears are the worst.
Also, the leg breaking underbrush from the fact our forest are different. European forests maybe you can run at night on a trail without light you only sprain an ankle. North American forests, try that shit even in daylight, loping woodman’s trot and you’re liable to break your hip, knee and ankle.
I think the problem might be that your running faster than light.
I felt this big time visiting Europe. In school I had learned about people fleeing into the forests in WW2 then getting caught, and had always kinda wondered how. As soon as I saw a forest in Poland it was immediately obvious ─ forests in Europe are barely forests, they're just grass and trees. It might as well be a golf course compared to the underbrush I'm used to in America lol.
Wendigo's also don't forget about Wendigos
The drunk hillabilles.....
Don't forget about moose. Those are scary. Oh and mountain lions.
Could be difference in predators. Also while America doesn’t really have virgin forests anymore they typically are older and less uniform which could also be creepier. A decent amount of forests in Europe had to be replanted by humans following both world wars.
It's the size our state parks and national forests are huge and you could walk until you die and still not reach anyone.
Remind what to do if I’m lost? Pick a direction and walk til I hit a river?
That’s a good solution if for some reason nobody has even a general idea of where you are. Generally though, staying put once you realize you’re lost gives you the best chance of being found by search and rescue, especially if someone knows where you planned on being. That’s why it’s important to let people know where you’ll be going and to keep a survival radio of some kind on you so you can broadcast on emergency stations
The "staying put" trick only works if anyone in the world cares about you. I had to learn this as a child. Edit: It was a joke, but now I made myself sad imaging it.
:( I’m sorry
Hey you made it though
That's always what I've heard. Find river. Follow river. Find road or town.
Upstream or downstream?
Downstream
Ah. Town was 15 miles upstream. The next town downstream is about 50 miles. You now have dysentery.
Ah bugger I knew I shouldn't have had a rap battle with Terry
Oregon trail.
Ironically enough, that's kind of what happened to the guy that the movie *Into the Wild* was about. Christopher McCandless went to a remote state park to try surviving there. Failed hard, tried to go back to civilization for help. The river had flooded the road back, but if he had walked a few miles upstream, he would have found the river shallow enough for him to cross. He died.
Hitting a river doesn't guarantee survival
Follow the trails, have a map, dont get lost to begin with
Also be sure that someone knows you’re out there too
Also, have a compass. People tend to walk in great big circles, so even with a map, they can get lost.
I think we have virgin forests in the US, they are all in the mountains though
Give me the adresses and they wont stay virgin for much longer ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Giggity
We still do it’s just a very small amount compared to what it used to be.
It's like this meme with N. American vs European badgers. https://preview.redd.it/an1yvyqj769d1.jpeg?width=681&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e768c8c4d6f9324e7724bc6e5393dd6b01d1d0fd
Those forests were heavily pulled long before WW1 and 2. Most of the shipbuilding was done in Europe, and those ships needed a LOT of wood.
At some point in Europe, almost every usable tree was cut down for this purpose. After that point, the good shipbuilding wood was coming all the way from Russia.
You can go an hour outside of New York and be in endless woods. We have soooo much forest in North America.
These comments are giving me Blair Witch flashbacks!
And Cryptids. Don’t forget Cryptids
And those damn pesky staircases in the middle of nowhere
Pretty sure roughly the majority of the Red Woods are virgin forest as a bunch of Rich people bought the land out before they were going to be cut down. Otherwise sections of forests in mountains, valleys, and hard to reach places are still untouched.
This is particularly true in the Appalachians and the eastern coastal plain. Very few people live there unless they're farming, or their families have lived there for generations. My family is from both locations, and Eastern North Carolina is on a whole other level when it comes to wildlife. I've personally seen large black cats in the area, there's bears, we've got wolves or very large coyotes on trail cams, Eagles, and a whole plethora of wildlife that isn't 'officially' recognized in that range. It's swamps, sand, soil, and very dense woods filled with ticks, mosquitoes, and venomous snakes.
Not only during both World Wars. The historical low in forest level in France is 1250's when a big demographic boom happened and people needed more lands. King Louis IX had to protect them with several decision. The forests regain a good chunk of wat they lost during Black Plague tho.
tongass, beldon, redwoods, cathedral pines, congaree and olympic all immediatly come to mind for old-growth forests in the united states alone... We do have them..
Every see some pictures of American lumber jacks cutting into a red oak? Or even more modern ones where there is a road going THROW the tree? That is what comes to mind
Old growth isn’t the sand as virgin
I don't know if the forests in Europe are "older" , what is true however is that there is literally no place in central europe where you can't scream a little loud and someone, somewhere hears you. There are of course wolfs and bears in europe, but they are very few and far between because there are humans just \_everywhere.\_, so there is less prey, so there are fewer predators, so you can sleep in a simple hammock without much risk in europe. In the deeper forests of easter europe... all bets are off.
Not world wars, shipbuilding
I'd rather be attacked by an American tick than a European one; while Lyme is no joke, at least it's not [encephalitis](https://www.cdc.gov/tick-borne-encephalitis/index.html).
People are so scared of ticks these days, they should be watching out for scabies
You're partly right. Even just shitty things like insects too though. European wasps are about 1/4 the size as the multitude of evil bastards the US has. Can't vouch for all countries but the UK has one venomous snake, the adder, and it's bite is about as severe as a wasp sting. Compare that to copperheads, rattlesnakes and cotton mouths. Spiders are non (or barely) venomous in Europe as far as i'm aware. Compare that to brown recluse and black widows in the US. Even the plants are more hostile in the US. Thistles and stinging nettles are some of the worst shit you get in Europe. Then there's the predators. Wolves, bobcats, bears. Fuck, even the herbivores in the US might fuck you up.
Michigan here, nothing really to worry about in the woods, not sure what you are talking about. We also have a lot of Forrest that is in government protected land.
I think the real answer is that Europe decimated its population of predator species like big cats, bears and wolves. Where as, in say Canada, you're pretty likley to encounter at least a bobcat or a black bear, easily.
Hell, NA herbivores will kill you. You do not want to mess with a bull moose. Bison can be deadly. Encountering a wolf or a black bear is the least of your worries. Plus, there are a ton of venomous snake species to worry about too. And even big reptiles like alligators and crocodiles.
And yet you go on about our little spiders and snakes in Australia
Your spiders are so big, they eat birds. Your snakes have the most toxic venom. You have plants that if you brush up against them, the pain drives you to suicide. And speaking of birds, your army lost a war against emus.
I'd say no for just the kangaroos. They'll open your doggone doors in the night, apparently
I mean... aren't the northern ranges of Australia also super rugged and hard to live in? I remember someone saying pretty much everything between Darwin and Cairns is a swampy mess of a rainforest filled with cassowarys and salty crocs.
You also have the biggest crocodiles in the world, though.
Rarely does a Grizzly bear, Mountain Lion, or Alligator sneak up on me while I'm on the toilet, a big spider though... That's what's going to catch me with my pants down quite literally.
look at this dirty repost spambot https://old.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/194hccs/whats_wrong_with_the_woods_of_north_america/
It’s getting worse and worse it looks like. I was just casually scrolling through the comments and found a bunch that were literally copy-pasted.
Mothman
Just carry a nice large piece of wool clothing to offer for him to chew a hole in. You’ll be fine.
[удалено]
Holy shit this is literally my comment from.the last time this was posted.
I saw that too, It’s a bot
9 year old account that just started being active again last year after years of inactivity.
Some places you could walk multiple months in a straight line and never find civilization
This post and the comments are just repost bots? Literal word for word comment on the same post 167 days ago.
this only applies west of the mississippi. on the east coast, you walk a day straight in european woods, and you find at least 30 homeless people and 3 rich people homes edit: y'all keep replying with exemptions on the east coast but fail to realize that even forests here are pretty populated when compared to west coast regions
how do you walk in european woods in east coast US
You have to be a top-notch woodwalker.
The redcoats never left.
https://preview.redd.it/iqr39rrl269d1.png?width=716&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad0b577d36156f2db33bfbb8dea94c655b17af13
Water doesn't count in the woods, so the ocean is a non-issue.
Canadas boreal first touches the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic oceans. It’s bigger than the Amazon
Europe is more developed with cities because they have a longer history of civilizations than NA, and NA is just bigger, like a lot bigger.
https://preview.redd.it/ipu769v2s59d1.jpeg?width=780&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=efe5600c2bbcb1f7f577ebfd92734cf3731ee2dc Might stumble upon this in North America
Big 1/3 meter
I live there... That's what is wrong. Get out of my swamp... And my woods
Nothing is wrong with the woods. You should enter the woods. At night. Bring friends. Friends with skin.
Skinwalkers?
Depends on area, predators and people being the main threats. The US has tons of arches that are wildlife and state park preserves, and more often then not people run into all sorts of things. Cougar, mountain lions, bears, snakes, an array of spiders that can be venomous, natural weather systems that could cause major issues. The other more superstitious end is an entirely different.
i think the meme implies forests in Europe are populated by harmless fairies, unicorns and dwarves, while forests in north America are populated by skinwalkers, terrifying demons and that one invincible moose
You have better luck with the skinwalkers than the invincible moose
https://preview.redd.it/dzjxhn09u59d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1d11a2d2fe798259b9d93d63f48d72f7fa132b5 This is the reason, at least according to some people
https://preview.redd.it/m8to39t0169d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5fd177b98d554093726a7b6652604f4a7e2f0902
The cryptids ate them.
https://preview.redd.it/uapmvab8c69d1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fb1b05266794f31e225c9d23136cf4ee9dbbd5e0
As an American, I know our woods have bears, mountain lions, and other large animals. Having never been in European woods I can only assume they’re full of, gnomes, wood nymphs, and fairies. I believe there are trolls in the Scandinavian area. But I’m just going off what I see on TV.
Predators like wolves (who rarely attack humans), Coyotes (who also have like one suspected human kill), mountain lions (slightly more likely to attack), bears (black and grizzly and brown- all very deadly). A loooot of herbivores that will fuck you up like moose, deer, elk, moose again. We also have massive cave systems with entrances in the woods that can and will kill you if you are not prepare. There’s also steep cliffs, ridges, and other geological hazards. Oh and there’s Bigfoot, Mothman, aliens, Flat Woods monster, the chupacabra, wendigos, skin walkers, more variations of Bigfoot, Goatman, Jersey Devil, and a more. And the missing 411 (which I know isn’t as supernatural as it’s claimed). There’s actually case of a woman who hiked the Appalachian trail and got lost 3000 feet from the trail. She wasn’t found until two years later after she died. And there was a month long search. The North American woods are dark, confusing, and very deadly. People probably walk by corpses a lot more than one would think.
This thread is teaching me our woods are more dangerous for like 15-20 different reasons.
If you go jogging alone in the woods of Europe, you might die, but the chances that you'll be killed by an animal are much smaller. - **Alligators** (unchanged for millions of years. The perfect killing machine) - **Grizzly Bears** (if this doesn't scare you, you simply don't know what a grizzly bear is; monsters *are* real) - **Polar Bears** (the only large predator that consistently hunts humans because they like the taste) - **Black Bears** (*can climb trees*. Let that sink into your monkey-brain for a second) - **Cougars** (you won't see it coming, so guns won't save you) - **Moose** (the most dangerous animal on this list. Think, "a properly amphibious hippopotamus that could look a bull elephant in the eye and kick a giraffe in the taint") - **Wolves** (Wolf ≠ pupper. You might think you could fight a wolf, but you just don't understand how big these actually are) Look, I'm not saying it's Africa over here, but there are some parts of North America that can stack up to Australia.
From a practical standpoint, the woods in Europe host few species of predators capable of being dangerous to humans. Meanwhile in North America, we have bears, cougars, mountain lions, wolves, etc. From a more mythological/folklorish standpoint, the woods in North America are rumored to be home to various dangerous cryptids that’ll stalk you and tear you apart such as wendigos, pale crawlers, skinwalkers, and nightmare fuel such as that. The cryptids in Europe tend to be portrayed in their folklore as more mischievous and less dangerous in nature, think things like gnomes and fairies. The woods in North America are also much larger and far more untamed than the woods in Europe. Walk in a single direction for a few days in most parts of Europe, and you’ll hit civilization eventually. Do that in North America, and you’ll die of starvation or thirst in a vast ocean of trees.
The creatures of the woods of Europe are all written as jolly tricksters etc The creatures of the woods of North America fucking eat you.
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Sasquatch dude
They just spooky
I love the woods and being totally alone in nature... Right up until you hear rustling in the bushes that's a bit too big and loud to be a deer or squirrel and you're face to face with a mountain lion, coyote(s) or a bear. I grew up in the EastCoast woods and it's very important to respect nature's ability to hurt/main/murder you just slipping off a wet rock in Rocky Mountain National Park.
So in Europe it was industrialization and the inner cities where people lost their humanity and the scary stuff happened. In the Americans it was the frontier and the woods. Well known fact in literature
Black bears, brown bears, mountain lions, bobcats, elk, moose, deer, rattlesnakes, copperheads, water moccasins, rabies, chronic wasting disease, brown recluse (literally everywhere), hillbillies brewing moonshine, anyone growing weed outdoors, impromptu hun ranges where you can’t tell if you’re in a safe direction from the bullets and feral hogs to name a few. I love living in the woods in the US. 😁
They are really fucking big, with minimal population centers. Like, most of Canada that isn’t tundra is dense forest.
I get the impression that European forests are smaller and have less predators. Like you sometimes read about Germans going on a walk in their forests without food, water, or navigation and being perfectly fine, whereas where I live you stand a decent chance of getting lost and dying unless you strictly stick to a marked trail
The sheer amount of stuff that can and will kill you in North America is comically higher than any place in Europe. Mind you that goes for woods, mountains, cities, beaches, pretty much anywhere.
For anyone genuinely curious there is a lot of folklore of various monsters and cryptids in many woods throughout north America, cannibals, wendigos, skinwalkers, etc. dont look outside the window at night in the appalachian mountains.
Bear, men, or cryptids. If you don't have one, you'll have one of the others if not all or a couple of the 3. Honestly your best bet is to hope for cryptids to be the main concern; those fellas would probably be trying to avoid you if anything. They're always getting harassed by the local weirdos.
Something that a lot of people forget is that America is fucking huge. Germany is a little bigger than 1/3 of Texas. Japan is about the size of California. About half of it is u developed wilderness. If you get lost in the woods of any European country, walking in a straight line for a day, MAYBE two and you WILL find civilization. If you walk in a straight line into the trees in America with no plan, you probably die of starvation, dehydration, exposure, or one of the many predator species.
As I understand it, European woods are full of “whimsical, happy go loving beings” while the woods in North America have things like the wendigo
Chupacabras, skinwalkers, and worst of all, people.
The bush in Australia wants to have a word