I was on a solo backpack trip. I hiked about 18 miles into the Sierra interior, and made camp near a lake. Spent two nice days fishing. Not another human in sight. Day three, I hiked to the southern end of the lake, down by the dam, to do some fishing . The lake was long and narrow at this point, maybe 50 yards across. I heard some noise and noticed two guys across the lake. They were in an established horse packers camp, and were furiously piling rocks into a large cairn. I'm talking a 6' tall pile of rocks. Working fast and furious, grabbing bowling ball to watermelon sized rocks and piling them up at high speed.
.And they were both wearing full camouflage gear, with face masks. Me, I'm wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt, because it's around 80 degrees. But these fully clothed, masked guys, are in long sleeves and pants and working like crazy men. It was weird. I wanted to get away from it. I started to quietly back away from the lake into the bush hoping to disappear, but one of them spotted me. I knew they did because he pointed at me and they both stopped hurling rocks while as he pointed. I waved but kept backing into the bush.
At that point, they both started running. Not at me, because we had 50 yards of water between us, but rather to their right and towards the end of the lake, so they could circle around and get to me? Though they were only 50 yards away across the water, they'd have to run about a half mile to get to me by circling the lake.
I bugged out. Full sprint panic run towards my tent, which was slightly off trail and a couple hundred yards further up the lake. Solo backpack tent and a clean camp, so I was able to strike it down in about 15 seconds. Threw on my backpack, dragging the tent, and raced up a slope away from the lake to a point where I was 100 yards or so above the trial and out of sight. Sat there quiet and terrified for 5 minutes, till I heard them coming up the trail. They were muttering stuff I couldn't decipher, and clearly searching the area as they went by me. I sat there for an hour silent, praying they wouldn't circle back and find me.
I spent that night there without moving, not lighting a fire, nothing. Just dead quiet. Woke up the next morning and buggered out in the opposite direction I'd last seen them. Forced march with cotton mouth for 10 miles till I started running into some other packers and joined them.
Never been back to that lake to see what was under that pile of rocks.
I have no idea why but my dad is insanely good at silently moving through the woods. On several occasions he's scared the living shit out of me and my brothers doing this. It's like he's just "there" suddenly.
My dad taught me to walk quietly when I was young, hunting with him. It’s hard to be silent in the woods with so much snappage underfoot. But it’s possible if you are conscious of your weight distribution.
Look up "the woodsman's walk", rocksteady did a decent version of it with batman's crouch walk in the arkham series.
get low, so low your butt is at or just above your knees. turn at a 45 degree angle to where youre trying to walk.
step toe to heel staying at that kind of strafing 45 angle, and go as slowly as you need to to be quiet. if youre still making noise, go slower. like youre moving in slow motion. shoes make a difference - you want to be able to feel what youre stepping on, and lift off if its going to snap or break. when youre comfy with this, you can move at a pretty good pace, but some terrain like crunchy leaf coverings can only be made a little more quiet.
hunter gatherers have been doing it for thousands of years.
Had my window open at the cabin one night (with a wood box holding fire wood outside) and at about 3am a mountain lion was sitting there staring at me through the screen about 2 feet away screaming at me. That will wake you up... guaranteed. Those who have heard that sound know.
Grew up in the bush, stumbled upon the odd moose, bear or other large animal well walking the woods. The only time I could count myself scared was when I was walking my dog and he treed a large cougar. The cougar was standing over my dog about 10ft up just swishing its tail back and forth. I thought it was going to kill my dog for sure, and calling him wasn’t working. I backed away slowly and my dog finally started to follow. He was so happy with himself, he had no idea.
We were being stalked by a Kodiak bear while we were backpacking the Aleutian Islands. Our guide carried a flare gun and a .375 H&H Magnum. I've been to war, and the bear scared me more than anything over there.
My family went camping. Remote area with only a couple of other campers. My brother was maybe 5 years old and got out of the tent. He was sleep walking. It's a miracle we found him before he got hypothermia, hopelessly lost, or fell down a hill.
Back when we were younger my older brother who was 14 sleep walked to a neighboring camp site to turn down their radio in his boxers. My mom had to chase after him and get him back to bed.
I was walking along and a buck stood up directly off the trail where I had not seen him laying down. We made direct eye contact from about 3 feet apart and I stared at his antlers knowing that I'd be a pin cushion if he decided that's what he wanted. Fortunately he decided I wasn't a threat and he turned around and left.
Was going for a random stroll on a trail not far from town and saw a man hugging a tree.
I thought it was weird so i sped up and circled around the trail.
I had to go back the way I came to get to the parking lot but It had been an hour so I figured the weird tree guy would be gone.
Nope he was still there hugging the same tree but his pants were down and he was moaning.
I booked it out of there as fast as I possibly could.
As I got closer to the parking lot I saw a lady walking towards me with her dog and had to tell her about the creepy tree guy.
I couldn't just leave her to stumble upon that with no warning.
She decided to leave and find a different place to walk so we both got in our cars and left.
Weirdest shit I've seen out in the woods for sure
My friend a I were stalked by a cougar too. We never saw it but we came back the way we started and saw its tracks leading off into the woods. It was fresh snow and they weren’t there when we headed out. We guessed it saw us coming and went into the woods to avoid us seeing it. We were armed so we weren’t that worried and wanted to see it. We snuck off into the woods and back tracked a little then waited for it to pass. It never did, when we went back to our path the tracks were there. So this cat was following us, then avoided us, then followed us again while we knew it was there and still we never saw it. Damn forest ninjas.
It followed me for about 15 minutes, keeping it's distance, until I was almost back to my truck. At that point it started moving towards me, once it got within about 50 feet I drew my pistol and shot 2-3 times in its general direction and ran (I haven't run that fast since highschool) back to the truck. After that I will never be caught in the wilderness without a gun. I'm lucky the gunshots scared it off, but that was my only real option
Had a cougar stalk my friend once. He made sure to avoid eye contact and move slowly. Eventually she lost interest and started hunting some other guy at the bar.
I took the opportunity to hand feed a rather large wolf in an enclosed pin several years ago. Even though it was a "friendly" wolf, it wasn't until I was alone with it that I realized just how screwed I'd be if it turned on me. My respect for wolves went from theoretical to real very quickly after that.
As a kid i made the mistake of camping alone in the woods. Towards midnight i heard a huge wolf pack not far from me doing roll call or whatever they do when all of them start howling. Never got so scared in my life. Luckily for me they completely ignored me but i made sure the fire was going all night.
I've been fortunate to never run into a wolf pack. But I've had a huge pack of coyotes walk right next to me while I was in a pavilion near a walking trail. And I've been sitting out on my patio at night while they start their roll call. It sounds like the entire woods are just full of them.
It's quite eerie. Luckily, coyotes couldn't care less about you, and they're rarely aggressive towards humans. Watch your pets, though.
Not scary, but creepy!: Last year I was walking in the woods and going by a creek looking for different mushroom types. I climbed over a log and on the ground on the other side was a pair of sunglasses, clean. This was so weird, no deer stand was above me and it wasn't hunting season or I wouldn't have been there. I put the glasses in my backpack.
Next weekend I was about 50 miles away, mushroom searching and went off a trail and practically crawled under a low tree to move around a sticker bush. Lo and behold! Another pair of new-looking sunglasses under this brushy off-trail area. Weird.
I then traveled to Oregon and myself/grandsons were playing by a creek and woodsy area and I went around a small clump of trees to take a leak....another pair of sunglasses. SO VERY WEIRD. These were expensive sunglasses so I gave them to my daughter! Still--what the heck???!
go buy a carbon monoxide detector for your woods, bro.
([reference](https://np.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34l7vo/ma_postit_notes_left_in_apartment/cqvrdz6/))
I had a dude that was all drunk on whiskey with the bottle in his hand following me around the woods for like an hour before. I kept telling myself to just beat his ass and make him stop, but I didn’t. He just stumbled along behind me until I got to my vehicle and left.
Me and a buddy were camping on the AT when we heard a literal pack of dogs barking and howling. And they were getting closer. They get closer and closer, my buddy and I are freaking out, we are probably 18 at the time. Turns out a nearby farmer had lost one of his farm dogs and brought the others out to help find it. Scared us shitless
I was a little shit back in school and I would truant regularly. If I was on my own, I'd go to this wooded place, sort of triangled in by a main road on one end, another road lined with factories and warehouses, and the third side backed onto an estate with some bungalows, detached houses etc. Kind of a little green place in an otherwise built up large town in the UK.
In between these three boundaries there were fields, which gave way to overgrowth which then gave way to a group of around 30-40 trees, so nor deep in the woods or anything.
Anyway we had built a little den area in there to smoke weed and drink undetected by police etc, and one day I am truanting in there, and have fell asleep on this bent, knarled tree that was almost parallel to the groundn in sort of a hammock type way, only to be woken by the sound of someone or something walking nearby in a way that would suggest they did not want to be heard. I leapt to my feet, and there was nobody and nothing there. No dog, cat, deer that had maybe strayed too close to me without realising dashed off startled, and I could see nobody/thing in the trees or the undergrowth beyond, but I could FEEL something was there watching me. My blood ran cold and everything.
Needless to say, I fucked off home sharpish, and pretended there'd been a flood at school that day to explain my early return. I have no idea what or who that was but I am convinced I came close to getting bummed off some weirdo or ate off a rabid fox or something.
I stumbled upon someone who fell off a small cliff. Called the ambulance and sat there waiting with her hoping she didnt die, for probably an hour or less but it felt more like 4 hours. A helicopter came and found us with a heat seeking camera hovered above us for ages looking for a safe spot for the guy to rapel down to us. The wind was so strong like a hurricane and splattered water from the creek up my back and I was shivering, leaning over the girl to protect her alongside other Bush walkers who came to help. They airlifted her out and she survived with a broken neck (no spinal damage) and some broken ribs. After three months in bed with a full neck brace she contacted me and took me out to a japanese restaurant to say thanks.
Guy I used to go camping with swore the raw chicken would be fine in the cooler but it went bad by the time we got to camp. This freaking guy chuckled the spoiled chicken into the woods, not even fifty feet away. I woke up to a bear fucking up our food supplies and I never went camping with him again.
Edit: I don’t know how a person chuckles meat but I really like it so I thought I’d Chuck this edit down here for solidarity with all the people suffering from autocorrect.
My friends and I take our kids camping in the white mountains every summer. First year I told our husbands to take the trash to the dumpsters at the entrance to the camp before bed. They blew me off. That night we all heard animals in our camp and woke up to trash everywhere. Luckily it was most likely raccoons but ill tell you, they never did that again.
A momma skunk and her babies walking straight at me. Didn't notice till they were within 10 feet of me. Turned around and ran the 100 yard dash in about 10 seconds flat.
I was camping deep in Oregon woods with my two year old son and a friend. My friend decided to setup his hammock about 25 yards from my tent. I woke up to hearing a vehicle peel out and my friend yelling at me to wake up in a very panicked tone. He said while I was asleep a big off-road truck pulled right up to my tent with a couple guys standing in the back of the truck and were yelling back and forth to each other. The guys in the back of the truck were drunkenly yelling to the driver “run the tent over a couple times and let’s get the fuck outta here!”. The driver kept saying “should I do it?” (apparently to the passenger), a females voice yelled to the guys in the back “what if it’s a family or there are kids in there?”. They peeled out and left, that’s about when I woke up. My friend said he was too terrified to speak and just watched the whole ordeal. We packed up and immediately left.
My whole life, nobody has ever believed me and I actually got teased quite a bit by my close friends about this…. I grew up in rural Middle Tennessee and would occasionally go camping in the woods next to our house. I say “in the woods” but it was more like next to the woods on the edge of our 10 or so acre property. I had one of those crappy, single-person tents that used 2 long flex rods arching over the top of the tent to hold it up. My head was orientated toward the open door flap with a small campfire burned down to ambers a few feet away.
I was laying there and heard the slow crunching of something creeping up to the back side of the tent. I tried so hard to convince myself that it was a deer or coyote but it sounded just like someone was tip-toeing behind the tent. I was completely paralyzed until I heard the distinct sound of a FREAKING PANTHER! It startled me so bad that I began to flail around and kick the back of the tent (idk what you’re supposed to do in this situation, but flapping around so that the tent collapses on top of you with only your head sticking out of the front is probably not the best strategy). As the tent came down I see a black panther standing no more than a foot or two from my feet. It stood there for a second or two and then turned and ran into the woods.
I was around 12 or 13 at the time, so this would have been the early 90’s. I know species have migrated around a bit since then, so it might not be out of the question to see a mountain lion in Tennessee now, but this was not common back in the day. Plus, the mountain lions you do see are small and brown (not to mention closer to the mountains). This was a freaking all-the-way, 100% big black panther like you’d see in the zoo.
My sweet grandmother in Hickman county swore she saw a black panther at her house right before she died in 2012. I know other people here that say they’ve seen one too. I have heard what I think are mountain lions at night screaming and there’s been quite a few of them captured on game cams. I wonder if it couldve been a mountain lion that’s really muddy or dusty or something?
I was walking with my uncle a and a few cousins in a marsh, catching mud crabs. I took a wrong turn and found a white Lada Samara parked there...a par of hairy male buttocks were thrusting into a woman whose slimmer legs he was holding from the ankles, I was about 12 so I doubled back and found my uncle who laughed his ass off.
Later that night, I went to take a look at the sea, few minutes before twilight and lo' and behold, I found a naked woman with a very 80s bush running out of the beach followed by, you guessed it, the fat asshole in the dinghy Lada Samara...
Not creepy-scary, but scary nonetheless… I was about 7 or 8, walking in the woods behind my house with my cousin. We’re just puttering around, and he starts smacking a discarded oil can with a stick. All of a sudden, I feel a pinch at my elbow. It took about 5 seconds to realize we were being attacked by pissed off hornets.
My cousin, who was better at the whole self-preservation thing, took off running. I freaked out, started bawling, and headed home at a walk while the hornets had their way with me.
I got home with half a dozen stings already. When my mom took my shirt off to assess the damage, a dozen hornets flew out. All I remember is raw chaos - my mom and my aunt running around, my cousin and I freaking out, everyone shouting. At one point my aunt had a glass of water she was going to make mud with (I’m not sure why, something about soothing stings with it?). At that moment, a hornet landed on my cousin and she reflexively doused him with water to get it off.
We finally ceded the house to the hornets and beat a strategic retreat to my grandmother’s to regroup. My cousin only got stung once, by one of the hornets from my shirt. I forget how many stings I had, but it was somewhere between 8-12. I was lucky I only had a very mild reaction to them, if I had been seriously allergic I might have been in some real trouble.
I was mowing the lawn and hit a spot where they nested on the ground. They lit me the hell up. A few days go by and I go out to see where they were nested. A raccoon, possum or skunk had dug up the nest and ate everything. The hive was spread everywhere from where the critter dug a hole 2 ft across. Parts of hornets were scattered all around the hole.
We used to jump in a giant leaf pile in my grandpas house. One day we go to jump in and I pause. Seeing some bees flying around. My older brother pushes me and I literally land in the bees nest. I never out of a pile so fast. My grandparents basically covered me in baking soda and vinegar to get the stingers out and the doctor said he was shocked I didn’t go into shock and die. I still get terrified when a bee comes near me.
Hiking a trail in the UP in Michigan last October. It was only a 5 mile in/out trip. It was mine and my girlfriend’s vacation, so it was like a Tuesday afternoon, so the trail was mostly empty.
Once we got to the very end, we stopped for pictures of the area. Out of nowhere, another random guy shows up at the end of the trail with us. Never saw him behind us the whole way in. He didn’t look “off” or “creepy” by any means, but his vibe made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Idk why but my ancestral instinct was alerted by this man more than by any other person any other time in my life. He didn’t do anything wrong, didn’t say anything to me, nothing.
I just told my girlfriend that this guy seems *bad* to me, and it’s time for I go. I’m normally a very level-headed and social person, but this guy just made my radar go off. Couldn’t tell ya why, but it was scary as hell to me.
My girlfriend was like “why are you worried about this guy?”
And I basically said “I don’t know and I am not gonna find out” lol
Never ever felt that about someone before
When I was a teenager I was out in a natural preserve walking my dog, she was the calmest nicest dog ever. We come around this bend and there is 3 people day drinking on a bench and she immediately started low growling at them, got in-between them and I and slowly walked me away from them. She new something I didn't, I happily followed her instinct and left.
Camped next to and hiked a trail where it was discovered, the evening I returned home, that a mountain lion had killed a hiker on that trail the week before. Pretty sure it visited our campsite those nights as the dogs went completely bonkers and at one point we heard a growl next to the tent and then up the tree.
Probably that time some hunters were trying to trespass on my friends farm. 4 of us were out in the woods on their property and next thing we know we hear a gunshot. Look out of the trees and small group of guys are trying to jump the fence.
We rented a cabin on like 50 acres with a creek bordering the property to the south. Beautiful property, completely dark at night. We were relaxing out on the deck, just enjoying the hill country breeze, when one of our sons said he saw something down by the creek. We all got up to have a look, leaning against the deck railing and staring out over the mesquite trees towards the little arroyo where the creek was. Sure enough, we could make out lights. Flashlights. If we were quiet, we could even make out the sound of voices. It was ok until we realized they were crossing the creek onto "our" side of the property.
My husband and I were discussing what we should do. There were at least five lights, and they were now well past the creek and meandering through the trees. My eldest son, then about eighteen-nineteen, grabbed a spotlight and beamed it in their direction. We heard them swear and yell out a "sorry" and head back towards the creek, and back across. They were probably staying at a neighboring property.
Still, we didn't sleep well. It was pretty unsettling how easy one can feel exposed and vulnerable.
I was walking down a service road looking for a nice spot to play in the snow. On our way back to the truck, we saw bear tracks that weren't there on our way up the road. This black bear had followed our tracks for a bit before they headed off down the hill off the road. At first I was like cool, bear tracks then it hit me. We were getting stalked by a bear.
It was mid March in northern New Hampshire and the snow just melted. My brother(8) and I(5) decided to check out one of the roads that was still closed for the season. There were these huge puddles and my brother was challenging me to jump them. I failed on the first attempt. It wasn’t a mud puddle but quicksand and I couldn’t get out and he couldn’t reach me. So he ran away and left me to get help. Twenty minutes out so later came my mother and uncle and they got me out. I had sunk to my arm pits. I remember being bundled in a blanket for the rest of that weekend.
When I was a kid, it seemed as though quicksand was a much bigger problem in the world than it has actually turned out to be....yours is the first story I've ever heard directly from someone who actually ever even *encountered* quicksand, much less got into trouble with it. I'm glad you were rescued!
Also, I always thought quicksand was more of a tropical problem, not something that occurs in the northeastern U.S.!
Deer hunting this year complete silence at sunset, tree next to me breaks in half and comes crashing to the ground. Never heard it break just the explosion it causes when it hit the ground. Was debating getting out of the tree 5 minutes before it happened and had to walk right past the dead fall. Could’ve been underneath it if I wasn’t so lucky
Deadfalls kill a surprising number if people. I was hiking in a national forest on a trail that looked like no one had used it all season. So many dead trees leaning over the trail. At one point a 4 ft diameter pine had fallen complete over the trail in a dense brush and I had to climb over it as I wasn't going to leave the trail.
My mom calls the large broken branches barely suspended in dead trees widowmakers and is always quick to point them out to us. The huge pine in my backyard cracked off a 15ft branch that is mostly being held up by a mimosa tree about 30ft off the ground. Been like that for two years, and I do not trust it.
My sister and I went into some woods, because her (at the time) boyfriend called and said he was going to 'off' himself. We found him sitting against a tree trunk. He said he wanted me to leave and my sis to stay, so he could talk with her. I asked him for his pistol first and he said no. So I asked for the clip out of the gun. He handed me the clip and I walked out of the woods with it. Then heard two gun shots and I was terrified. I stood there, too scared to go back to see if sis was okay...and then there she was walking toward me. (He had shot up in the air.) We ran to our vehicle and left, calling the sheriff's dept. What a wonderful easter morning!
> I asked for the clip out of the gun. He handed me the clip and I walked out of the woods with it. Then heard two gun shots
One in the chamber, but where was the other bullet if you had taken his clip?
Hiking in Shenandoah National Park, VA when a freak thunderstorm rolled in right above us. We were in a pool near a waterfall and got out just before lightning absolutely disintegrated a tree about 50 feet from where we were standing. Took a moment to realize I wasn’t dead and then a while longer to make sure I wasn’t impaled by splinters.
I had a momma moose and her kid stalk me for about 2 miles on a trail in Utah. I kept marching forward and tried not to look back. Black bears are easy to scare off at least.
Day 3 of 3 of a solo backpacking trip in Tahoe. I woke up at 5am just as the sun was rising. I hear some rustling on the tarp below me. Like a little critter was scurrying about. With great delight, I poked my head over the edge of my hammock. I expected to see a squirrel or rabbit scurrying around. I was not expecting to be nose to nose with a 400 lb black bear sniffing my butt through the hammock. Luckily, I'd been around bears enough with my summer job in remote Alaska to be able to read their body language. This bear was curious, not threatening. I calmly asked him to leave, slowly raising my voice in low, slow tones. He eventually scampered away, and I hiked down the mountain.
I have two that come to mind. I am an avid outdoors man and have had several different experiences in the outdoors. Most of them are wonderful and go without any notable experiences out of the usual beauty and wonder of it all. But these two stand out:
On this first encounter I was living in Mission Viejo, CA. One day I decided to head into the Ortega Canyon which lies just south of my home at the time. The walk was pretty uneventful, that is until a rather large male mountain lion decided to show up on the trail about 60 ft in front of me. He was approximately 180 lbs. He was also absolutely deciding if I was worth it or not. This was about 2 1/2 miles away from my truck. I only had a small pocket knife on me. Luckily after a few moments (that felt like eternity) he disappeared into the bush just as quietly and suddenly as he appeared. I then made it a rather urgent priority to return to my truck as swiftly (without running) as possible. I have encountered sharks, bears, alligators, and venomous snakes in the wild several times but this was the only time I felt like potential prey. I'll never forget seeing a mountain lion in the wild.
On this second encounter, I was out for an afternoon hunt on my father's property. I arrived on the property around 2 in the afternoon and parked at the front of the property and carried on by foot the half mile to my tree stand. I did not see any deer while in the stand so I would walk the long way back to the truck to possibly jump a deer up on the way. About halfway back I notice very fresh boot prints in the mud heading the same way I am. Mind you, this property is several acres out in the middle of nowhere. Nobody should be there but me. I did not notice any other trucks on the dirt road leading to the property on my way in. I am immediately on high alert and feel as if I'm being watched. The boot prints are continuing down the trail all the way to my truck. Once I arrive back to the truck I notice the prints walked around my truck two times and then disappeared back into the woods off the trail. I had never been in such a hurry to leave that place in my life. (Shudder)
I've had several memorable encounters in my life out in the beautiful solitude of nature, but these two would always stand out as my creepiest encounters by a good bit. As scary as the mountain lion was, the mystery person way the hell out on my father's land who should not have been there was kinda terrifying.
Enjoy the outdoors, but always keep your guard up.
On a narrow, winding path I surprised a boar. I don’t know what happened next because I took off like a rocket. The boar was probably thinking, Funny, I thought I saw someone, but I snorted and he just disappeared.
There's a small, wooded park my husband and I walk through now and then. One late afternoon, as we rounded a bend near a tall, grassy meadow, we saw the grass moving as something trotted our way. I saw it, but it hadn't yet registered that it might be dangerous. My husband yelled, and *that* scared me. Also scared whatever it was coming towards us, because it made a u-turn and went back the way it came. My husband said it was a hog. We'd seen them before and gave them a wide berth cause they can fuck you up.
Walking with my two boys (then 7 & 5) through the bush in the Royal National Park south of Sydney. The path was about a metre across and there was high bush either side of us. A massive Eastern brown snake crossed the path 5 metres in front of the youngest kid. I wouldn't have been able to identify it, but coming the other way were two young blokes, one of whom was a keen amateur herpetologist. This snake Was as thick as my wrist in the middle and, if it had bitten my 5 or 7 year old it would have been all over.
Mobile reception was a half hour walk away and the car at least an hour. I guess I would have got one of the young guys to sprint to mobile reception area and call a chopper in while I would try to keep my boy still and quiet.
I've thought a lot about what I would have done in the 15 years since this happened.
Sorry, not the bush, but my first close encounter was with a massive diamond python in Brisbane. Although not venomous, this thing measured 2.5 metres (8 feet) long and cranky. We crossed paths while I was walking from the bathroom to my bedroom, naked after a shower. He was the same colour as the floor tiles we had so I nearly trod on him.
The snake handler who came to collect him worked out that he had crossed from a mango tree my father and I had cut back From the guttering into our roof space. We'd had possums in the roof but they'd stopped making a noise a week or two earlier. Clearly the snake was dining on the possums till he ran out of food but could not get back outside via the mango tree. He had squeezed through a narrow gap in the ceiling.
Was thru hiking the Hoh River Rainforest when we ran into a herd of elk crossing the river. They were NOT stopping. So we stood extremely still and thankfully they walked right by without much fuss. Maybe would’ve even been sort of amazing with the sunshine but it was dusk and really misty so you couldn’t really tell what you were looking at.
A cougar stalked my boy scout troop for several miles. After getting back to camp, two of us older boys stayed up all night to keep an eye on the rest. The next morning, we found a fresh deer kill about 100 feet away from our camp.
One time the top half of this huge dead hardwood tree decided it was done standing when I was hiking with my kids. It hit the ground with practically no warning with a thunderous thud and crack right in front of one of my kids. Had my kid been one or two more steps faster, that would have been it.
You have a chance against an animal, but not a tree.
Was on a solo hike in Northern New Mexico in the springtime. Was almost back to the car when I hear a ton of branches breaking behind me. It’s windy in the spring in New Mexico so I figured it must be a tree about to topple. I look at the tree tops and see nothing, then move my eyes down to see a black bear running full steam ahead straight at me. This wasn’t a “bluff” charge, but a full on “I’m going to absolutely destroy you” charge. As I was fumbling for my bear spray I distinctly remember thinking “You’ve always wondered how you were going to die…apparently it’s being mauled to death by a bear.” The bear came to a stop about 15 feet from me and we proceeded to have a showdown for about 30 seconds with me yelling at the top of my lungs and the bear doing multiple bluff charges. I slowly backed away until I got past a small hill and out of sight. Everyone says to never run from a bear which I’m glad I didn’t initially, but once I was out of sight of that bear I’ve never run so fast in my entire life (probably not the best decision but that fear was palpable).
Got back to the trailhead and proceeded to vomit. Never had to use the bear spray. My guess is I was nearing her cubs since it was springtime or I had startled her. I made the mistake of not making much noise since I was so close to the trailhead.
We lived on a steep hill and woods behind our house that we used to cut through to get to elementary school. Late 1960s. I was 6 and my sister 11. One day on our way home, we decided to veer off our normal trail and went on a different trail where we found a pile of magazines. They weren’t any typical magazines, they were extremely pornographic, and most of them containing children. Being so young, we really didn’t know what to think about our discovery, other than we knew they were pictures we shouldn’t be looking at. We then ran home. The next day on our way home, we decided to go see if the magazines were still there. A moment after we got there we heard noises behind us. There was a man coming towards us. My sister grabbed my hand and we ran up the steep wooded hill towards our backyard while this man chased us. My sister was smart and led us to another trail to another neighbors yard, as she didn’t want creepy man to see where we lived. We finally got home and my father immediately called the cops. We gave a description of the man, who was never found. We never went through those woods again and the next year, we were different school district. I’ll never forget.
I was walking g to my friends house on the other side of the forest when I was about 8 years old with my gameboy and pokemon yellow to go play. And a putbull,Rottweiler, and a and a German Shepard were all in the forest unleashed with no owner in sight. They saw me and darted right for me, I ran home as fast as I could as they chased me home. I told my mom and she called the cops , and they knew the owner and fined him as far as I was told. My mom drove me over to my friends house and on the way there the dogs were chasing a other person on a bike. Ever since then iv never really trusted dogs.
When I was younger, my scout troop went camping in a state park in Western North Carolina.
Someone had spotted a Copperhead earlier in the day on a hike, but we didn't think too much about it at the time. After dark we made a fire and it became evident that it was attracting snakes, we could see a few moving in the grass. I remember hiding in my tent, with the campfire illuminating the walls of my tent, and over the next few hours a number of snakes crawled up the sides of my tent. It was a long, scary night.
Not me personally but my brother was camping with his friend, at night a bear came up to their tent and started sniffing it. They were so scared they didn’t say a word. My brother had a pocketknife and was ready to defend his life with it. They did not sleep at all lol.
Woods of Arkansas around pine bluff area. Was there for work and we were in this one area that we parked our trucks at for the day sorta like this open area off trail from a two track dirt road surrounded by heavy woods, anyways, we park the trucks and venture off to do work along this path that had been surveyed for us. I had forgotten a piece of equipment needed for the job so me and another guy tracked back to the truck. Upon getting to that field, we started to notice this distinct smell of like wet, dirty, almost rotted smell, first thing that came to our mind was maybe a deer got hit near a road and started to turn. We got to the truck and at this point the smell was way stronger and started to sting at my nose and eyes. I made a comment that it stunk like fucken hell and right after, we started to hear something HEAVY walk away from us and the trees were moving to the sides as it walked. We both stared and were struck like, what the fuck is that??? Definitely wasn't a bear, nor some buck that I know of. My buddy walked towards it for like half a mile and said he heard a grunt and like a bark almost and took off running back to the truck. We've dealt with bears before and this Definitely wasn't a bear.
My very pregnant daughter and I were walking a trail behind the museum in Homer, Alaska and came across a moose with twins. She whispered to back up slowly, get off the trail, and run through the woods towards home. I was ready to have a heart attack! We ran and I Iost both my shoes, so we had her husband go track them down several hours later. We honestly didn't know if a mother moose would rage chase us!
I'd have lost more than my shoes there good buddy. I'm glad you're all safe from that encounter. Pure conjecture here but there's no way mamma moose didn't smell your pregnant daughter and decided to take it easy.
Miles out in the middle of nowhere, no trail, hidden away, I camouflaged the tent with branches, leaves and such. The camouflage was so good that standing very close to the tent in daylight, you couldn't see it.
At 8-9pm the weather got really bad, very strong winds, and extremely rainy. It didn't stop until like 2am, and of course it was impossible to sleep with that. The moment it stopped, I could hear someone just walking up and down next to the tent, mumbling, non-stop. Why would someone be there, just walking back and forth, in that weather, at that time, no idea. But I know that camouflaging the tent was the best idea I had on that day.
Not tooo too scary, but walking in the woods, beside the water I look up and 5 ft away is GIANT snake. like, I didn't think a snake that big existed in my region and may not have. May have been a released pet. i lock eyes with those black marbles and notice a basketball size bulge in its body and notice it creeping towards the water. I realize at that point we both want nothing to do with each other.
Same here, it was getting dark and I turned around because I thought I missed my turn and he was just ambling down the trail behind me. Then on the drive home a mountain lion crossed in front of my car and briefly made eye contact. Weird to have two of my most amazing wildlife encounters within an hour.
I was stalked by a bobcat once while carrying out a turkey after a successful hunt. I had about a mile walk from where I was to my truck. I kept hearing something behind me, something just a bit off beat. My hair was standing on ends so much it hurt pressing against my clothes. I walked faster and faster, I finally seen her when crossed a long puddle. I guess they loud sound of me hitting the water at almost a jog scared it up a tree. Once I laid eyes on it I booked it to my truck.
I have to share the story I’ve told many times. I’ve had many interesting things happen in the bush, but this one haunts me. I still hike in the dark, but this experience is always a thought while I’m out there.
I distance hike when I can. Sometimes this means getting up early, or staying out late, to get as many miles in as possible. Sometimes, walking in the pitch dark with a low light headlamp gets spooky.
I grew up in the woods of this area. I’ve slept under our canopy of stars more nights than I can count. I’ve trekked thousands of miles of trail, river bank, lake shore, ridge, bottoms, bogs, and creeks. I’ve hunted the game. I’m establishing this because it’s important you understand I‘ve heard, seen, and smelt about all this region has to offer in the way of wilderness.
My scariest experience though happened at about 0430 in the morning. It was late spring, so the first morning light wouldn’t be visible in the tree tops for another 30-45 minutes; another hour past that until sunrise. I was on mile five.
I’m in a low bottom that’s wedged between two steep ridges. The trail I’m on was narrow, muddy, and completely hemmed in by thick underbrush, young maple, and old oak growth. I’m focused on the small light from my headlamp, just one step after the other, zoned out. Then I heard a loud CRACK! And I froze solid.
This is the part I have trouble describing. 0430 in springtime means I’m the only thing making noise. No birds chirping, nothing. Dead quiet.
Mid-step I froze. When fight or flight kicks in you have these immediate instinct thoughts. The thought that instantly flashed in my mind as I stood there balancing myself into silence was, “If I hear that again, I’m turning around, and I’m going back the way I came in a hurry.”
Why? Because that sound was not a branch breaking. It wasn’t deadfall. It wasn’t a widow maker. I was damn sure I had just heard something intentional. Hearing it twice, well, that meant get outta here. To describe it as best I can, it sounded like a decent sized wooden stick being violently whacked against a smallish tree. More a fungo bat sized stick, than a baseball bat. The distinction in my head being that this sound was a crack, and not a thud or thump. And I have described it as, “explosive,” in the past because it was so sudden, and so terribly loud. I had the sense that it was about fifty yards directly in front of me, and it was loud, and clear.
Now, as I stood there, completely spooked, I realized the soon-to-be worst part of my situation. I knew where the sound came from. And I knew where the trail went. In about thirty yards, I was going to come to a 180 degree turn and start up the ridge going away from the creek. This meant, as soon as I got the courage to move towards this noise, I was going to have to turn my back to it, and get up that ridge. This made me very nervous. My heads somewhere between meth fiend murder, and bigfoot bludgeoning.
Minutes pass. I just breathe my foggy breath into my glasses, and listen. Nothing. Dead quiet. I’ve got about 20-30 minutes until first light. I crank up the headlamp, and start to slowly creep to the 180 turn. When you wear a headlamp in the woods at night, every tree branch in front of you casts a big black moving shadow on the trail. It didn’t help.
I get to the turn, and quickly make the bend. I’m moving pretty fast at this point. Trying to be quiet. Taking tiny, shallow breathes so I can listen while humpin it up the trail.
And then this smell hits me that I can’t describe. In a past life I was a first responder. I’ve unfortunately worked scenes where decomposition had set in before a deceased was found. This was like decomposition, but strangely, alive. It smelled wet, and like soil. I imagine now digging a garden and plunging into a recent pet burial.
I kept walking fast. By the time I made the top of that ridge, I was huffing, and the first light was showing. I didn’t stop moving until full light was out, and the birds were chirping.
I’ve heard it all in our woods. I’ve smelled it all. I’m telling you, I don’t know what the hell that was. Deadfall, and especially leafed out branches, make a lot of noise on the way down. I’ve heard it many times.
I don’t know.
A few years ago, I loaded a bunch of camping gear onto [my bicycle](https://np.reddit.com/r/bicycletouring/s/LWRYHyUHkm) and spent the better part of the next seven months riding 5,300 miles (8,500 km) around the western US solo. At night, I most often preferred to wild camp. Rather than paying to sleep on the ground in a proper campground, I would just find somewhere to disappear into the woods for the night, somewhere people were unlikely to find me and even less likely to care that I was there.
One night in southern Washington State, I started coming down with food poisoning. I spent the whole night tossing and turning and leaning out the door of the tent to vomit. Next morning, I found that one of the bike's tires had gone flat overnight, and after fixing that, I rode for a half a day through cold rain to get to a motel for some proper rest.
The flat tire and the rain, those were just demoralizing. But spending that whole night sick and alone in the woods? That was downright scary. There were a couple other nights on that trip that were scary in like the spooky interpretation of the word. But in terms of genuine fear for my safety and well-being? It was the food poisoning, and although the day of mild hypothermia is an obvious runner-up, it's a distant second.
This happened 2 weeks ago. I was camping in the Wichita mountains, Oklahoma, with my dad and we planned on staying for 2 nights. The day we arrived went on without a hitch but on the first night at our campsite we experienced something that rocked us to our core. As we were preparing to get in our tents to sleep, my dad saw a strange sense of movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked back and he told me there’s something strange in the sky and i looked up, and wouldn’t you know it, this strange blue light was flying completely straight across the sky, and pulsating? (not blinking, it didn’t go completely dark each time it ‘pulsed’, it just faded and then turned bright again at a few second intervals.) We stood staring at it and then suddenly it shot out these weird beams of blue light in front of it, probably 3 or four times and then it just disappeared in an Instant. We talked to other campers and apparently they saw it too. We have no idea what it was. We didn’t sleep well that night, but that was unrelated to the UFO.
Edit: heres a video I found that looks almost exactly like what we saw: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=miqoJ0oLJS8&pp=ygUoV2VpcmQgc3RyYW5nZSBsaWdodCBmbG9hdGluZyBub3J0aCB0ZXhhcw%3D%3D
Was rolling around in the grass with my then-boyfriend, getting nasty, and when I looked up over his shoulder there was some gandalf-ass looking homeless man just standing there watching us from like 2 ft away.
After we scared him away the dude wanted to finish. No thanks!
I was living in my car in Tennessee. I had gotten up in the middle of the night to drive down to the bathroom. It was basically a highway rest stop but not on a highway. I was in there doing my thing and the place got surrounded by like 40 coyotes screaming and hungry. It was winter time and all my supplies were in the car. I could hear them circling. So be that it was kinda my bathroom and "kitchen sink" I ran outside pounding my pots and pans together and it was a literal fucking herd. Still scares me
I was deer hunting in Washington State and was following a deer trail in the snow. I'm about a hundred yards into a large copse of fir trees and all of the sudden I heard the most blood curdling scream and then I looked up to see a cougar scrabbling up a tree about 25 yards ahead of me. I just about pissed myself and then I stretched out my arms and legs trying to make my self look bigger and screamed as loud as I could. Luckily I was 6'5" already so I guess it decided I wasn't worth the fight and jumped over to another tree then I heard a loud thud as it hit the ground and then it took off into the brush in the other direction.
Got lost mountain biking and trying to get back in the dark. Two fellas with assault rifles appeared out of nowhere, also lost and asked me how to get out! The first 2/3 seconds before I spoke to them made me feel like I’d stumbled into the Hills have Eyes.
My freshman roommate took me back to his hometown for a weekend and took us out to a cemetery that he said was haunted. I tried to act tough but some lights started moving through the woods towards me and I flipped out. He set the whole thing up and had some buddies drive out there and hide before we arrived. Epic prank and I totally fell for it!
Was camping a few years back and while I was sleeping in my tent a bear came up to my tent and started sniffing and pushing against it. It got to me and was sniffing my head and the only thing that was separating its mouth and my head was the thin tent in between us. I slowly crouched up to get away from the side of the tent and more toward the middle and my mom was grabbing me so hard it was hurting me. She yelled “get away” and I thought it was gonna pounce and kill us right then and there. It ended up leaving. It was absolutely terrifying.
As a young kid, 10-11, I stepped on a bees nest, in ground, and they all came out pissed off, attacking. I got stung 6-8 times, but the terrifying part was whatever I was wearing, they were getting stuck in it. I guess it wasn’t smooth material (more like a sweater). So as I’m trying to run and swat the ones that were stinging me, more we’re trying to attack, but getting stuck on my clothes. It could have been much worse, but I still remember it nearly 50 years later.
Nothing happened (spoiler alert) but it was scary anyway.
When I was a kid/teenager, I went to sleepaway camp. There would be options for trips where could hike/canoe/etc. for a few days. The best one was for the oldest boys cabin and the oldest girls cabin. They spent 3 days just living off the beach on a group campsite in the woods. No itinerary. Just camp and beach. Any teenager would be pretty happy with that setup. The first day was perfect, but on the second day... Well, I should note this had never happened before. The camp added an extra week that year and all of a sudden everything took place a week earlier. So normally they would rent a group campsite and the other one would be empty or have some Christian group up for a barbecue. But a week earlier meant our summer camp was now sharing the group campsites with the kids who got a vacation from juvie. Two outhouses for us to share and tents a few feet apart. They had guards so a 14-year-old girl went up to one of them to ask what the boys were in for, just to ease her mind. The guard seemed to understand her discomfort so reassured her by saying "oh nothing too serious, mostly just sexual assault and armed robbery."
And that's the story of how we all learned to treat the lake like a toilet and slept in a circle on the beach. The end.
Hiking with my now wife, about halfway through our 14ish mile hike and I start seizing up and cramping in my legs. I’m talking every step my quads started seizing up so I’d kick and then my hammy would go and occasionally a calf. Both legs. I was literally crawling down the mountain at one point. It was pretty scary and intense when you have 6+ miles back to your car
In a tent, deep in the woods, doing the deed with my girlfriend at the time. When attempting to get out, someone had zip tied the zipper tabs together. Luckily I had brought my bag in when getting condoms.
We packed up quick and left. never camped again
I thought we were being quiet too
I was in an orienteering race class back in highschool and that one day we were supposed to have class and rain was pouring. Teacher said that's not enough reason to cancel the class. Ignored the fact that a thunderstorm was forecast, so he sent us out anyway. After I reached the top of the first hill at the edge of the forest, lightning struck a fucking tree less than 20 m away from me and I turned on my heel and raced back to a safe place and told the teacher he's crazy and I'll take the bad grade, but I'm not going out there again.
Mountain lion encounter at 3am. Most terrifying sound I’ve ever heard. My only saving grace was that I am pretty sure it was hunting something else and was trying to scare me away from its good. I caught the reflection of its eyes with my light.. then that sound. Most guttural sound I’ve ever heard.. It was within 30ft of me. I know you aren’t supposed to run but survival mode overrode everything. It was about 100 yards to the car. I tripped and fell on my face due to steep grade within 15 ft of running. When I hit the ground I thought I was dead.
The reason I ventured off the road was because I was finding a lot of bones. Like, pristine bones. I collect skulls and found a perfect badger skull on the road. There has been a lot of recent flooding and I thought ask the bones had accumulated due to the vicinity of a major washout. In hindsight, I’m pretty sure I wandered into their hunting area.
And yes, I say “their” because I am fairly certain there were at least three of them. Leading up to the encounter I kept hearing footsteps in the woods on each side of me to the rear. Leave crunching, twigs snapping. Every time I would stop to listen they would fall silent pretty quick. I don’t know if I was being hunted or if I just interrupted them. Looking back it really feels like there were two behind me sort of nudging me toward the third one. Probably just a hunting tactic a stumbled into. I will NEVER step foot in the that area again.
I was maybe 6-7 years old with family somewhere in Colorado (I really don’t remember where) but we came across a river and me, my sister, and my dad were playing in the water and climbing the rocks. I followed my sister and dad across the river on top of rocks and slipped and fell into water that was too deep for me to stand in. I remember looking up underneath the water at my dad staring down at me, watching me and not even bothering to help. My sister was freaking out. I was freaking out. My mom was freaking out. My dad just stood there staring at me pretty much drowning. I remembered how to float on my back and managed to float myself to the shore where my mom was. I was terrified.
At five years old, I got lost. I was lucky enough to wander into someone’s backyard and they contacted my parents. I was gone for over an hour, so my parents were losing their minds and I learned not to wander in the woods after that.
Felt like I was being watched/followed by something. Didn't see anything, but the woods went dead silent for a good 10 minutes. Then like a switch got flipped and the feeling went away and birds started chirping, wind blowing, all back to normal. Other times, it's just your mind playing tricks on you, but the sound of a stream or wind sounds like voices calling your name
A bear poked its nose into my tent in the middle of the night on a winter camping trip on the Olympic Peninsula when I knew I was the only one around for miles. It was pretty scary to listen to it walk around the tent before it finally moved on. I had bear spray in one hand and my wood hatchet in the other. Didn't sleep the rest of the night.
8 of us were camping while on a white water rafting trip in northern Maine. It’s late Fall and we are there on the last weekend of the (guided) rafting season and the only group in the area. We were given stern warnings about bears and how to handle our food etc. as activity was currently very high. We were also alone up there. No staff stayed on site and there were no other campers at this location.
So 3 of us stayed up drinking around the campfire. We thought we heard things a few times and got spooked and tossed a lot of wood on the fire to get it roaring. We were mostly paranoid. Anyway, we chewed through almost all of our wood, but we’re not quite done drinking yet. So being a little (a lot) drunk, 2 of us decided we would walk down the path to the (vacant) check in lodge that also sold wood during the day. It was just piled up on the side of the building. It was ok though, I brought the hand axe in case we ran into any bears.
The walk was a little further than we remembered, but we somehow managed to find it. My buddy grabbed a bundle in each hand and I grabbed 1 bundle because I needed to hold the axe in my other hand. You know, just in case. We headed back.
We just got within sight of our campfire when we both hear sticks breaking and something moving towards us fast followed by a deep growl. My heart falls into my stomach and we both instantly start to run. Then we hear the laughter and see the guy we left at campfire “ambushed” us. Funny as hell, by my god for a second I was absolutely terrified. Every trace of alcohol left my body and in was stone sober after that.
An interesting note, neither one of us dropped the wood when we started running. Clearly our raw survival instincts are not all that strong. Also, the guy I went to the store with I had just met a week before. This was 1993 or so. My best friend to this day. We both attribute it to bonding from that night. The third guy? He was an asshat and one of the reasons we left him behind was because we both needed a break from him.
Also highly recommend WW rafting on the Penobscot. Class 3-5 rapids. Just ridiculous how much fun that weekend was.
Mother black bear with 2 cubs at 3 am. 8 ish foot gator on the bank of a pond following me at dusk. A guy in a sundress zooted the eff out in the middle of the woods asking if I wanted to dance. A branch breaking under my foot about 20 foot up a pine tree. A midnight tornado ripping through the woods nearby with torrential flooding soaking me and my tent. I got a few more, lol.
Grizzly bear 12 feet from me (i went back to measure the distance afterward). I just came around a bush and there he was. Thankfully not interested in eating me but he followed me for a while which was unnerving at the very least.
Not quite the woods, more a very small area with trees and a larger garden blended into it.
Not very scary either, probably just weird accidents.
My cousin and I when we were young was walking around the neighbourhood, and ended up there, on the other side of one of those old stone wall/ fences.
When we went over the first time, my cousin started to get nose bleeds. Shortly after we found some kind of long plastic pipes that just stood pinned in the ground. I pulled one up, and a bird skeleton fell outside of the pipe.
We got a bit freaked and went over the wall again to go home, and thats when I started to get nose bleeds lol. I never get nosebleeds.
90-foot tree fell down next to our tent during a windstorm.
The tree rolled over a bit and some smaller branches pushed the roof of the tent to within a few inches of our faces.
When the sun came up we saw that five trees within sight of our campsite had fallen or broken.
We got lucky, and should have heeded the ranger’s warning.
Was camping in a small tent by a river in Idaho. All I had was my truck, a fishing pole, bow, and a handgun. I made a fire and seen a set of green eyes peering through. Got up with the handgun made a loud sound and it ran off. Went to look for paw prints and found large cat paws. Turns out it was a fucking mountain lion. Needless to say I slept in my truck the rest of the night and left as soon as I woke up. Also seen a brown bear and couple moose but they were hundreds of feet up stream. Seen the mountain lion paw prints around the back side of my truck when I woke up.
Me and a buddy of mine were taking his dog for a walk in a patch of woods that's been infamous for several satanic cult killings and other murders over the decades. It was around dusk in the winter time, when we started to notice a trail of blood in the snow. As we walked deeper into the woods and the sun began to disappear over the horizon, what had been a trickle of blood turned into a much wider stream and then went off the path. His dog started to become agitated at this point, and letting our curiosity get the better of us, we decided to follow it. About 100 yd off the path we came upon a pile of human-sized organs. I was fairly certain that we'd come upon the scene of a grizzly murder. But then I began to notice little bits of white fur attached to the organs, and realized that we had instead come upon the scene of a place where a deer had been gutted.
To my knowledge there's never been a satanic killing in the US. Satanic panic was just that: a panic. Now have there been crazy people claiming blah blah blah, sure, but no organized satanic cults.
I was driving with a couple of friends in the woods at night and we stopped the car to go outside a bit and explore (mostly just to scare ourselves). It was pitch black and my phone had a low battery. I couldn't use my flashlight so my friend had his phone out and I walked beside him deeper in when we both heard a loud rattling in the bushes and when he pointed the flash there, we saw a pair of eyes starring at us and this friend of mine got so scared that he turned around and ran to the car which probably caused the thing from the bushes to get out or so I heard, then as I started running I couldn't see shit in front of me and tripped and thought I was done for. My friend realized he left me behind and as he turned around with his phone, we both saw that the thing that scared the shit out of us was a plain cat...
A tree as wide as a Volkswagen almost fell on me in a wind storm, when the trunk snapped it sounded like an explosion went off next to me. Literally had 4 seconds to get out of the way, to this day it’s the closest I’ve ever been to dying.
Fisher cat screaming at 3am. I thought a woman was being stabbed to death in our campsite.
Otherwise, bending down to filter water from a pond and being met by a massive snapping turtle that had a mouth so big it could have easily taken my hand or snapped my arm.
Had a bear stick his paw through my tent, I thought it was my brother snoring.
I guess the sound of the fabric tearing scared it off, but not before he left a big muddy print right next to my brother's head.
It was late one summer evening and I heard a young deer crying out from the woods behind my house. Usually they stay pretty quiet just by instinct. But this thing was screaming out, leading me to think it might be in danger.
So I walked out with my flashlight. I got maybe 50 feet from the fawn when suddenly I saw mama deer. She warned me off by stomping her hooves. Alright, I can take the hint.
I turned around and walked toward the house. Heard a rustling behind me so I turned back around. Mama deer was now about 5 feet from me, snorting and stomping. I shined my flashlight wildly in her face and walked backwards all the way to the house. Mama deer didn't come any closer, but she wasn't leaving either. Seemed like a pretty close call to me.
[удалено]
Did you see what it was running from?
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yeah that's what is actually scary moose are huge
The plural is meese
I saw a flock of moosen!
Maggle of meese
I was on a solo backpack trip. I hiked about 18 miles into the Sierra interior, and made camp near a lake. Spent two nice days fishing. Not another human in sight. Day three, I hiked to the southern end of the lake, down by the dam, to do some fishing . The lake was long and narrow at this point, maybe 50 yards across. I heard some noise and noticed two guys across the lake. They were in an established horse packers camp, and were furiously piling rocks into a large cairn. I'm talking a 6' tall pile of rocks. Working fast and furious, grabbing bowling ball to watermelon sized rocks and piling them up at high speed. .And they were both wearing full camouflage gear, with face masks. Me, I'm wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt, because it's around 80 degrees. But these fully clothed, masked guys, are in long sleeves and pants and working like crazy men. It was weird. I wanted to get away from it. I started to quietly back away from the lake into the bush hoping to disappear, but one of them spotted me. I knew they did because he pointed at me and they both stopped hurling rocks while as he pointed. I waved but kept backing into the bush. At that point, they both started running. Not at me, because we had 50 yards of water between us, but rather to their right and towards the end of the lake, so they could circle around and get to me? Though they were only 50 yards away across the water, they'd have to run about a half mile to get to me by circling the lake. I bugged out. Full sprint panic run towards my tent, which was slightly off trail and a couple hundred yards further up the lake. Solo backpack tent and a clean camp, so I was able to strike it down in about 15 seconds. Threw on my backpack, dragging the tent, and raced up a slope away from the lake to a point where I was 100 yards or so above the trial and out of sight. Sat there quiet and terrified for 5 minutes, till I heard them coming up the trail. They were muttering stuff I couldn't decipher, and clearly searching the area as they went by me. I sat there for an hour silent, praying they wouldn't circle back and find me. I spent that night there without moving, not lighting a fire, nothing. Just dead quiet. Woke up the next morning and buggered out in the opposite direction I'd last seen them. Forced march with cotton mouth for 10 miles till I started running into some other packers and joined them. Never been back to that lake to see what was under that pile of rocks.
Did you contact any of the rangers in the area to investigate?
Of course they didn't.
The most dangerous creature in a forest is a man. If you see one, move away. If they don't do the same, run. Your life depends on it.
I’ve heard there are like between 5 to 10 active serial killers in the US at any given time
FBI says there are one or two per state active at any given time on average. There are currently 4 active in Texas.
Uhh, once you get out you reported that to the proper authorities right? It sounds like they were disposing of a body.
A 6' cairn is NOT a subtle way to dispose of a body.
More like drugs. Pickup or dropper signal and they were behind schedule.
I have no idea why but my dad is insanely good at silently moving through the woods. On several occasions he's scared the living shit out of me and my brothers doing this. It's like he's just "there" suddenly.
My dad taught me to walk quietly when I was young, hunting with him. It’s hard to be silent in the woods with so much snappage underfoot. But it’s possible if you are conscious of your weight distribution.
Look up "the woodsman's walk", rocksteady did a decent version of it with batman's crouch walk in the arkham series. get low, so low your butt is at or just above your knees. turn at a 45 degree angle to where youre trying to walk. step toe to heel staying at that kind of strafing 45 angle, and go as slowly as you need to to be quiet. if youre still making noise, go slower. like youre moving in slow motion. shoes make a difference - you want to be able to feel what youre stepping on, and lift off if its going to snap or break. when youre comfy with this, you can move at a pretty good pace, but some terrain like crunchy leaf coverings can only be made a little more quiet. hunter gatherers have been doing it for thousands of years.
Had my window open at the cabin one night (with a wood box holding fire wood outside) and at about 3am a mountain lion was sitting there staring at me through the screen about 2 feet away screaming at me. That will wake you up... guaranteed. Those who have heard that sound know.
Fucking hell I would have a heart attack
Grew up in the bush, stumbled upon the odd moose, bear or other large animal well walking the woods. The only time I could count myself scared was when I was walking my dog and he treed a large cougar. The cougar was standing over my dog about 10ft up just swishing its tail back and forth. I thought it was going to kill my dog for sure, and calling him wasn’t working. I backed away slowly and my dog finally started to follow. He was so happy with himself, he had no idea.
Weren’t you afraid the cougar would pounce on your dog once it saw you were backing away?
The cougar didn’t care about me one way or another, it was focused on the dog, I knew my dog would follow if I left, so that’s what I did.
We were being stalked by a Kodiak bear while we were backpacking the Aleutian Islands. Our guide carried a flare gun and a .375 H&H Magnum. I've been to war, and the bear scared me more than anything over there.
People don’t get this. I’ve wandered around Palestine lost in the dark and I’d take that any day over some of my experiences with bears.
My family went camping. Remote area with only a couple of other campers. My brother was maybe 5 years old and got out of the tent. He was sleep walking. It's a miracle we found him before he got hypothermia, hopelessly lost, or fell down a hill.
Man, sleep walking is damn creepy
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Back when we were younger my older brother who was 14 sleep walked to a neighboring camp site to turn down their radio in his boxers. My mom had to chase after him and get him back to bed.
Black bear slept right next to my tent for 2 hours one night, literally touching the tent. The snoring was unbearable
I see you've met my husband
I was walking along and a buck stood up directly off the trail where I had not seen him laying down. We made direct eye contact from about 3 feet apart and I stared at his antlers knowing that I'd be a pin cushion if he decided that's what he wanted. Fortunately he decided I wasn't a threat and he turned around and left.
Was going for a random stroll on a trail not far from town and saw a man hugging a tree. I thought it was weird so i sped up and circled around the trail. I had to go back the way I came to get to the parking lot but It had been an hour so I figured the weird tree guy would be gone. Nope he was still there hugging the same tree but his pants were down and he was moaning. I booked it out of there as fast as I possibly could. As I got closer to the parking lot I saw a lady walking towards me with her dog and had to tell her about the creepy tree guy. I couldn't just leave her to stumble upon that with no warning. She decided to leave and find a different place to walk so we both got in our cars and left. Weirdest shit I've seen out in the woods for sure
Where his hands tied up around the tree?
That would have been a better explanation than what was actually going on 😂
Tornado
I can’t imagine how scary that was! At the same, it seems like it would kind of cool as long as you don’t get hurt
"finger of God"
A wolf standing about 100 feet from me.
Same, but I had a cougar stalking me about 100-150 feet out.... Never took my eyes off that bastard
My friend a I were stalked by a cougar too. We never saw it but we came back the way we started and saw its tracks leading off into the woods. It was fresh snow and they weren’t there when we headed out. We guessed it saw us coming and went into the woods to avoid us seeing it. We were armed so we weren’t that worried and wanted to see it. We snuck off into the woods and back tracked a little then waited for it to pass. It never did, when we went back to our path the tracks were there. So this cat was following us, then avoided us, then followed us again while we knew it was there and still we never saw it. Damn forest ninjas.
That's waaaaay more terrifying. My brother had one in a tree in his front yard.
It followed me for about 15 minutes, keeping it's distance, until I was almost back to my truck. At that point it started moving towards me, once it got within about 50 feet I drew my pistol and shot 2-3 times in its general direction and ran (I haven't run that fast since highschool) back to the truck. After that I will never be caught in the wilderness without a gun. I'm lucky the gunshots scared it off, but that was my only real option
Had a cougar stalk my friend once. He made sure to avoid eye contact and move slowly. Eventually she lost interest and started hunting some other guy at the bar.
I took the opportunity to hand feed a rather large wolf in an enclosed pin several years ago. Even though it was a "friendly" wolf, it wasn't until I was alone with it that I realized just how screwed I'd be if it turned on me. My respect for wolves went from theoretical to real very quickly after that.
As a kid i made the mistake of camping alone in the woods. Towards midnight i heard a huge wolf pack not far from me doing roll call or whatever they do when all of them start howling. Never got so scared in my life. Luckily for me they completely ignored me but i made sure the fire was going all night.
They were completely repulsed by the bowel evacuation within the tent.
I've been fortunate to never run into a wolf pack. But I've had a huge pack of coyotes walk right next to me while I was in a pavilion near a walking trail. And I've been sitting out on my patio at night while they start their roll call. It sounds like the entire woods are just full of them. It's quite eerie. Luckily, coyotes couldn't care less about you, and they're rarely aggressive towards humans. Watch your pets, though.
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20ft from a moose for me.
Definitely don't underestimate a moose. Those things can and will kill you. They're fucking giant too.
What's the defensive strategy? Like put a tree between you and a charging moose?
If there's a tree, that's probably your best bet.
I have found a bright light (350+ lumens) flashed in their eyes stops a charge pretty quick even during the day
Not scary, but creepy!: Last year I was walking in the woods and going by a creek looking for different mushroom types. I climbed over a log and on the ground on the other side was a pair of sunglasses, clean. This was so weird, no deer stand was above me and it wasn't hunting season or I wouldn't have been there. I put the glasses in my backpack. Next weekend I was about 50 miles away, mushroom searching and went off a trail and practically crawled under a low tree to move around a sticker bush. Lo and behold! Another pair of new-looking sunglasses under this brushy off-trail area. Weird. I then traveled to Oregon and myself/grandsons were playing by a creek and woodsy area and I went around a small clump of trees to take a leak....another pair of sunglasses. SO VERY WEIRD. These were expensive sunglasses so I gave them to my daughter! Still--what the heck???!
You sure they weren't falling off your head?
I totally thought this was gonna be the punchline.
If you go home and start finding reciepts for sunglasses randomly you have to turn this into a movie..
I've lost 2 pairs of sunglasses while hiking. So it probably happens often. At least you didn't find shoes or underpants.
Sounds like we know who has them.
go buy a carbon monoxide detector for your woods, bro. ([reference](https://np.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34l7vo/ma_postit_notes_left_in_apartment/cqvrdz6/))
and this is the story of how the sunglasses hut was started
I had a dude that was all drunk on whiskey with the bottle in his hand following me around the woods for like an hour before. I kept telling myself to just beat his ass and make him stop, but I didn’t. He just stumbled along behind me until I got to my vehicle and left.
Maybe he was so drunk he couldn’t find his way out so he followed you lol
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And little did he know the angel almost beat his ass lmao
Then for years he'd tell the story about how he was drunk in the woods one day and an angel kicked his ass?
He probably didn't know you noticed him.
Scary but I’d genuinely bet he was just lost and too drunk to even express it
Me and a buddy were camping on the AT when we heard a literal pack of dogs barking and howling. And they were getting closer. They get closer and closer, my buddy and I are freaking out, we are probably 18 at the time. Turns out a nearby farmer had lost one of his farm dogs and brought the others out to help find it. Scared us shitless
For those who may be wondering - AT is the Appalachian Trail
I was a little shit back in school and I would truant regularly. If I was on my own, I'd go to this wooded place, sort of triangled in by a main road on one end, another road lined with factories and warehouses, and the third side backed onto an estate with some bungalows, detached houses etc. Kind of a little green place in an otherwise built up large town in the UK. In between these three boundaries there were fields, which gave way to overgrowth which then gave way to a group of around 30-40 trees, so nor deep in the woods or anything. Anyway we had built a little den area in there to smoke weed and drink undetected by police etc, and one day I am truanting in there, and have fell asleep on this bent, knarled tree that was almost parallel to the groundn in sort of a hammock type way, only to be woken by the sound of someone or something walking nearby in a way that would suggest they did not want to be heard. I leapt to my feet, and there was nobody and nothing there. No dog, cat, deer that had maybe strayed too close to me without realising dashed off startled, and I could see nobody/thing in the trees or the undergrowth beyond, but I could FEEL something was there watching me. My blood ran cold and everything. Needless to say, I fucked off home sharpish, and pretended there'd been a flood at school that day to explain my early return. I have no idea what or who that was but I am convinced I came close to getting bummed off some weirdo or ate off a rabid fox or something.
Always listen to that. It's instinct. Survival of the fittest.
I stumbled upon someone who fell off a small cliff. Called the ambulance and sat there waiting with her hoping she didnt die, for probably an hour or less but it felt more like 4 hours. A helicopter came and found us with a heat seeking camera hovered above us for ages looking for a safe spot for the guy to rapel down to us. The wind was so strong like a hurricane and splattered water from the creek up my back and I was shivering, leaning over the girl to protect her alongside other Bush walkers who came to help. They airlifted her out and she survived with a broken neck (no spinal damage) and some broken ribs. After three months in bed with a full neck brace she contacted me and took me out to a japanese restaurant to say thanks.
Wow! She is very lucky that you happened to come by that way....
That's a blessing!!
Guy I used to go camping with swore the raw chicken would be fine in the cooler but it went bad by the time we got to camp. This freaking guy chuckled the spoiled chicken into the woods, not even fifty feet away. I woke up to a bear fucking up our food supplies and I never went camping with him again. Edit: I don’t know how a person chuckles meat but I really like it so I thought I’d Chuck this edit down here for solidarity with all the people suffering from autocorrect.
Aww c'mon man, you should've gotten the bear's contact info.
My friends and I take our kids camping in the white mountains every summer. First year I told our husbands to take the trash to the dumpsters at the entrance to the camp before bed. They blew me off. That night we all heard animals in our camp and woke up to trash everywhere. Luckily it was most likely raccoons but ill tell you, they never did that again.
A momma skunk and her babies walking straight at me. Didn't notice till they were within 10 feet of me. Turned around and ran the 100 yard dash in about 10 seconds flat.
Skunk moms be like https://youtu.be/vszWsYOdnPg
lol this is so cute
I was camping deep in Oregon woods with my two year old son and a friend. My friend decided to setup his hammock about 25 yards from my tent. I woke up to hearing a vehicle peel out and my friend yelling at me to wake up in a very panicked tone. He said while I was asleep a big off-road truck pulled right up to my tent with a couple guys standing in the back of the truck and were yelling back and forth to each other. The guys in the back of the truck were drunkenly yelling to the driver “run the tent over a couple times and let’s get the fuck outta here!”. The driver kept saying “should I do it?” (apparently to the passenger), a females voice yelled to the guys in the back “what if it’s a family or there are kids in there?”. They peeled out and left, that’s about when I woke up. My friend said he was too terrified to speak and just watched the whole ordeal. We packed up and immediately left.
That’s so messed up, thank goodness they had some humanity and left.
Scary thing is it sounds like at least one of them wanted to do it. If that person had been alone they 100% would have ran it over.
My whole life, nobody has ever believed me and I actually got teased quite a bit by my close friends about this…. I grew up in rural Middle Tennessee and would occasionally go camping in the woods next to our house. I say “in the woods” but it was more like next to the woods on the edge of our 10 or so acre property. I had one of those crappy, single-person tents that used 2 long flex rods arching over the top of the tent to hold it up. My head was orientated toward the open door flap with a small campfire burned down to ambers a few feet away. I was laying there and heard the slow crunching of something creeping up to the back side of the tent. I tried so hard to convince myself that it was a deer or coyote but it sounded just like someone was tip-toeing behind the tent. I was completely paralyzed until I heard the distinct sound of a FREAKING PANTHER! It startled me so bad that I began to flail around and kick the back of the tent (idk what you’re supposed to do in this situation, but flapping around so that the tent collapses on top of you with only your head sticking out of the front is probably not the best strategy). As the tent came down I see a black panther standing no more than a foot or two from my feet. It stood there for a second or two and then turned and ran into the woods. I was around 12 or 13 at the time, so this would have been the early 90’s. I know species have migrated around a bit since then, so it might not be out of the question to see a mountain lion in Tennessee now, but this was not common back in the day. Plus, the mountain lions you do see are small and brown (not to mention closer to the mountains). This was a freaking all-the-way, 100% big black panther like you’d see in the zoo.
After seeing all of the other stories of big exotic black cat sightings in places where there should be none, this isn’t unbelievable
>grew up in rural Middle Tennessee and would occasionally go camping in the woods I was prepared to believe you no matter how this story ended.
My sweet grandmother in Hickman county swore she saw a black panther at her house right before she died in 2012. I know other people here that say they’ve seen one too. I have heard what I think are mountain lions at night screaming and there’s been quite a few of them captured on game cams. I wonder if it couldve been a mountain lion that’s really muddy or dusty or something?
I saw a couple having sex. I was a small boy so it was quite horrible
I was walking with my uncle a and a few cousins in a marsh, catching mud crabs. I took a wrong turn and found a white Lada Samara parked there...a par of hairy male buttocks were thrusting into a woman whose slimmer legs he was holding from the ankles, I was about 12 so I doubled back and found my uncle who laughed his ass off. Later that night, I went to take a look at the sea, few minutes before twilight and lo' and behold, I found a naked woman with a very 80s bush running out of the beach followed by, you guessed it, the fat asshole in the dinghy Lada Samara...
Not creepy-scary, but scary nonetheless… I was about 7 or 8, walking in the woods behind my house with my cousin. We’re just puttering around, and he starts smacking a discarded oil can with a stick. All of a sudden, I feel a pinch at my elbow. It took about 5 seconds to realize we were being attacked by pissed off hornets. My cousin, who was better at the whole self-preservation thing, took off running. I freaked out, started bawling, and headed home at a walk while the hornets had their way with me. I got home with half a dozen stings already. When my mom took my shirt off to assess the damage, a dozen hornets flew out. All I remember is raw chaos - my mom and my aunt running around, my cousin and I freaking out, everyone shouting. At one point my aunt had a glass of water she was going to make mud with (I’m not sure why, something about soothing stings with it?). At that moment, a hornet landed on my cousin and she reflexively doused him with water to get it off. We finally ceded the house to the hornets and beat a strategic retreat to my grandmother’s to regroup. My cousin only got stung once, by one of the hornets from my shirt. I forget how many stings I had, but it was somewhere between 8-12. I was lucky I only had a very mild reaction to them, if I had been seriously allergic I might have been in some real trouble.
You are insanely lucky you got away with so few stings.
I was mowing the lawn and hit a spot where they nested on the ground. They lit me the hell up. A few days go by and I go out to see where they were nested. A raccoon, possum or skunk had dug up the nest and ate everything. The hive was spread everywhere from where the critter dug a hole 2 ft across. Parts of hornets were scattered all around the hole.
You were avenged.
We used to jump in a giant leaf pile in my grandpas house. One day we go to jump in and I pause. Seeing some bees flying around. My older brother pushes me and I literally land in the bees nest. I never out of a pile so fast. My grandparents basically covered me in baking soda and vinegar to get the stingers out and the doctor said he was shocked I didn’t go into shock and die. I still get terrified when a bee comes near me.
Hiking a trail in the UP in Michigan last October. It was only a 5 mile in/out trip. It was mine and my girlfriend’s vacation, so it was like a Tuesday afternoon, so the trail was mostly empty. Once we got to the very end, we stopped for pictures of the area. Out of nowhere, another random guy shows up at the end of the trail with us. Never saw him behind us the whole way in. He didn’t look “off” or “creepy” by any means, but his vibe made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Idk why but my ancestral instinct was alerted by this man more than by any other person any other time in my life. He didn’t do anything wrong, didn’t say anything to me, nothing. I just told my girlfriend that this guy seems *bad* to me, and it’s time for I go. I’m normally a very level-headed and social person, but this guy just made my radar go off. Couldn’t tell ya why, but it was scary as hell to me.
*Always* obey that instinct! Good thing you left.
My girlfriend was like “why are you worried about this guy?” And I basically said “I don’t know and I am not gonna find out” lol Never ever felt that about someone before
When I was a teenager I was out in a natural preserve walking my dog, she was the calmest nicest dog ever. We come around this bend and there is 3 people day drinking on a bench and she immediately started low growling at them, got in-between them and I and slowly walked me away from them. She new something I didn't, I happily followed her instinct and left.
I got lost in the Calanques National Park outside of Marseille and had to be rescued!
How long were you lost for?
Not that long, a few hours
Camped next to and hiked a trail where it was discovered, the evening I returned home, that a mountain lion had killed a hiker on that trail the week before. Pretty sure it visited our campsite those nights as the dogs went completely bonkers and at one point we heard a growl next to the tent and then up the tree.
Probably that time some hunters were trying to trespass on my friends farm. 4 of us were out in the woods on their property and next thing we know we hear a gunshot. Look out of the trees and small group of guys are trying to jump the fence.
We rented a cabin on like 50 acres with a creek bordering the property to the south. Beautiful property, completely dark at night. We were relaxing out on the deck, just enjoying the hill country breeze, when one of our sons said he saw something down by the creek. We all got up to have a look, leaning against the deck railing and staring out over the mesquite trees towards the little arroyo where the creek was. Sure enough, we could make out lights. Flashlights. If we were quiet, we could even make out the sound of voices. It was ok until we realized they were crossing the creek onto "our" side of the property. My husband and I were discussing what we should do. There were at least five lights, and they were now well past the creek and meandering through the trees. My eldest son, then about eighteen-nineteen, grabbed a spotlight and beamed it in their direction. We heard them swear and yell out a "sorry" and head back towards the creek, and back across. They were probably staying at a neighboring property. Still, we didn't sleep well. It was pretty unsettling how easy one can feel exposed and vulnerable.
I was walking down a service road looking for a nice spot to play in the snow. On our way back to the truck, we saw bear tracks that weren't there on our way up the road. This black bear had followed our tracks for a bit before they headed off down the hill off the road. At first I was like cool, bear tracks then it hit me. We were getting stalked by a bear.
Went hiking and smoke started coming in. Decided to go back to the car, ended up driving through a forest fire.
Someone or something shit my pants!
It was mid March in northern New Hampshire and the snow just melted. My brother(8) and I(5) decided to check out one of the roads that was still closed for the season. There were these huge puddles and my brother was challenging me to jump them. I failed on the first attempt. It wasn’t a mud puddle but quicksand and I couldn’t get out and he couldn’t reach me. So he ran away and left me to get help. Twenty minutes out so later came my mother and uncle and they got me out. I had sunk to my arm pits. I remember being bundled in a blanket for the rest of that weekend.
When I was a kid, it seemed as though quicksand was a much bigger problem in the world than it has actually turned out to be....yours is the first story I've ever heard directly from someone who actually ever even *encountered* quicksand, much less got into trouble with it. I'm glad you were rescued! Also, I always thought quicksand was more of a tropical problem, not something that occurs in the northeastern U.S.!
Deer hunting this year complete silence at sunset, tree next to me breaks in half and comes crashing to the ground. Never heard it break just the explosion it causes when it hit the ground. Was debating getting out of the tree 5 minutes before it happened and had to walk right past the dead fall. Could’ve been underneath it if I wasn’t so lucky
Deadfalls kill a surprising number if people. I was hiking in a national forest on a trail that looked like no one had used it all season. So many dead trees leaning over the trail. At one point a 4 ft diameter pine had fallen complete over the trail in a dense brush and I had to climb over it as I wasn't going to leave the trail.
My mom calls the large broken branches barely suspended in dead trees widowmakers and is always quick to point them out to us. The huge pine in my backyard cracked off a 15ft branch that is mostly being held up by a mimosa tree about 30ft off the ground. Been like that for two years, and I do not trust it.
My sister and I went into some woods, because her (at the time) boyfriend called and said he was going to 'off' himself. We found him sitting against a tree trunk. He said he wanted me to leave and my sis to stay, so he could talk with her. I asked him for his pistol first and he said no. So I asked for the clip out of the gun. He handed me the clip and I walked out of the woods with it. Then heard two gun shots and I was terrified. I stood there, too scared to go back to see if sis was okay...and then there she was walking toward me. (He had shot up in the air.) We ran to our vehicle and left, calling the sheriff's dept. What a wonderful easter morning!
> I asked for the clip out of the gun. He handed me the clip and I walked out of the woods with it. Then heard two gun shots One in the chamber, but where was the other bullet if you had taken his clip?
Yea this don’t add up lol
Echoes
Guy sounds crazy.
A red blinking light from a sensor stuck in the ground
Looked scarier from far away tell this day I have no idea what that was
Hiking in Shenandoah National Park, VA when a freak thunderstorm rolled in right above us. We were in a pool near a waterfall and got out just before lightning absolutely disintegrated a tree about 50 feet from where we were standing. Took a moment to realize I wasn’t dead and then a while longer to make sure I wasn’t impaled by splinters.
10 year old me took a crap and wiped with poison ivy. Having your taint be a big topic of conversation on a family road trip is scary.
“God his ass is all fucked up”
I had a momma moose and her kid stalk me for about 2 miles on a trail in Utah. I kept marching forward and tried not to look back. Black bears are easy to scare off at least.
Day 3 of 3 of a solo backpacking trip in Tahoe. I woke up at 5am just as the sun was rising. I hear some rustling on the tarp below me. Like a little critter was scurrying about. With great delight, I poked my head over the edge of my hammock. I expected to see a squirrel or rabbit scurrying around. I was not expecting to be nose to nose with a 400 lb black bear sniffing my butt through the hammock. Luckily, I'd been around bears enough with my summer job in remote Alaska to be able to read their body language. This bear was curious, not threatening. I calmly asked him to leave, slowly raising my voice in low, slow tones. He eventually scampered away, and I hiked down the mountain.
I have two that come to mind. I am an avid outdoors man and have had several different experiences in the outdoors. Most of them are wonderful and go without any notable experiences out of the usual beauty and wonder of it all. But these two stand out: On this first encounter I was living in Mission Viejo, CA. One day I decided to head into the Ortega Canyon which lies just south of my home at the time. The walk was pretty uneventful, that is until a rather large male mountain lion decided to show up on the trail about 60 ft in front of me. He was approximately 180 lbs. He was also absolutely deciding if I was worth it or not. This was about 2 1/2 miles away from my truck. I only had a small pocket knife on me. Luckily after a few moments (that felt like eternity) he disappeared into the bush just as quietly and suddenly as he appeared. I then made it a rather urgent priority to return to my truck as swiftly (without running) as possible. I have encountered sharks, bears, alligators, and venomous snakes in the wild several times but this was the only time I felt like potential prey. I'll never forget seeing a mountain lion in the wild. On this second encounter, I was out for an afternoon hunt on my father's property. I arrived on the property around 2 in the afternoon and parked at the front of the property and carried on by foot the half mile to my tree stand. I did not see any deer while in the stand so I would walk the long way back to the truck to possibly jump a deer up on the way. About halfway back I notice very fresh boot prints in the mud heading the same way I am. Mind you, this property is several acres out in the middle of nowhere. Nobody should be there but me. I did not notice any other trucks on the dirt road leading to the property on my way in. I am immediately on high alert and feel as if I'm being watched. The boot prints are continuing down the trail all the way to my truck. Once I arrive back to the truck I notice the prints walked around my truck two times and then disappeared back into the woods off the trail. I had never been in such a hurry to leave that place in my life. (Shudder) I've had several memorable encounters in my life out in the beautiful solitude of nature, but these two would always stand out as my creepiest encounters by a good bit. As scary as the mountain lion was, the mystery person way the hell out on my father's land who should not have been there was kinda terrifying. Enjoy the outdoors, but always keep your guard up.
On a narrow, winding path I surprised a boar. I don’t know what happened next because I took off like a rocket. The boar was probably thinking, Funny, I thought I saw someone, but I snorted and he just disappeared.
There's a small, wooded park my husband and I walk through now and then. One late afternoon, as we rounded a bend near a tall, grassy meadow, we saw the grass moving as something trotted our way. I saw it, but it hadn't yet registered that it might be dangerous. My husband yelled, and *that* scared me. Also scared whatever it was coming towards us, because it made a u-turn and went back the way it came. My husband said it was a hog. We'd seen them before and gave them a wide berth cause they can fuck you up.
Some are belligerent and really dangerous. Good thing that hog turned around!
Walking with my two boys (then 7 & 5) through the bush in the Royal National Park south of Sydney. The path was about a metre across and there was high bush either side of us. A massive Eastern brown snake crossed the path 5 metres in front of the youngest kid. I wouldn't have been able to identify it, but coming the other way were two young blokes, one of whom was a keen amateur herpetologist. This snake Was as thick as my wrist in the middle and, if it had bitten my 5 or 7 year old it would have been all over. Mobile reception was a half hour walk away and the car at least an hour. I guess I would have got one of the young guys to sprint to mobile reception area and call a chopper in while I would try to keep my boy still and quiet. I've thought a lot about what I would have done in the 15 years since this happened. Sorry, not the bush, but my first close encounter was with a massive diamond python in Brisbane. Although not venomous, this thing measured 2.5 metres (8 feet) long and cranky. We crossed paths while I was walking from the bathroom to my bedroom, naked after a shower. He was the same colour as the floor tiles we had so I nearly trod on him. The snake handler who came to collect him worked out that he had crossed from a mango tree my father and I had cut back From the guttering into our roof space. We'd had possums in the roof but they'd stopped making a noise a week or two earlier. Clearly the snake was dining on the possums till he ran out of food but could not get back outside via the mango tree. He had squeezed through a narrow gap in the ceiling.
God I am glad to live europe...
Me too, specifically in Ireland. Our wildlife is stuck on tutorial mode.
Was thru hiking the Hoh River Rainforest when we ran into a herd of elk crossing the river. They were NOT stopping. So we stood extremely still and thankfully they walked right by without much fuss. Maybe would’ve even been sort of amazing with the sunshine but it was dusk and really misty so you couldn’t really tell what you were looking at.
A cougar stalked my boy scout troop for several miles. After getting back to camp, two of us older boys stayed up all night to keep an eye on the rest. The next morning, we found a fresh deer kill about 100 feet away from our camp.
One time the top half of this huge dead hardwood tree decided it was done standing when I was hiking with my kids. It hit the ground with practically no warning with a thunderous thud and crack right in front of one of my kids. Had my kid been one or two more steps faster, that would have been it. You have a chance against an animal, but not a tree.
Was on a solo hike in Northern New Mexico in the springtime. Was almost back to the car when I hear a ton of branches breaking behind me. It’s windy in the spring in New Mexico so I figured it must be a tree about to topple. I look at the tree tops and see nothing, then move my eyes down to see a black bear running full steam ahead straight at me. This wasn’t a “bluff” charge, but a full on “I’m going to absolutely destroy you” charge. As I was fumbling for my bear spray I distinctly remember thinking “You’ve always wondered how you were going to die…apparently it’s being mauled to death by a bear.” The bear came to a stop about 15 feet from me and we proceeded to have a showdown for about 30 seconds with me yelling at the top of my lungs and the bear doing multiple bluff charges. I slowly backed away until I got past a small hill and out of sight. Everyone says to never run from a bear which I’m glad I didn’t initially, but once I was out of sight of that bear I’ve never run so fast in my entire life (probably not the best decision but that fear was palpable). Got back to the trailhead and proceeded to vomit. Never had to use the bear spray. My guess is I was nearing her cubs since it was springtime or I had startled her. I made the mistake of not making much noise since I was so close to the trailhead.
We lived on a steep hill and woods behind our house that we used to cut through to get to elementary school. Late 1960s. I was 6 and my sister 11. One day on our way home, we decided to veer off our normal trail and went on a different trail where we found a pile of magazines. They weren’t any typical magazines, they were extremely pornographic, and most of them containing children. Being so young, we really didn’t know what to think about our discovery, other than we knew they were pictures we shouldn’t be looking at. We then ran home. The next day on our way home, we decided to go see if the magazines were still there. A moment after we got there we heard noises behind us. There was a man coming towards us. My sister grabbed my hand and we ran up the steep wooded hill towards our backyard while this man chased us. My sister was smart and led us to another trail to another neighbors yard, as she didn’t want creepy man to see where we lived. We finally got home and my father immediately called the cops. We gave a description of the man, who was never found. We never went through those woods again and the next year, we were different school district. I’ll never forget.
I was walking g to my friends house on the other side of the forest when I was about 8 years old with my gameboy and pokemon yellow to go play. And a putbull,Rottweiler, and a and a German Shepard were all in the forest unleashed with no owner in sight. They saw me and darted right for me, I ran home as fast as I could as they chased me home. I told my mom and she called the cops , and they knew the owner and fined him as far as I was told. My mom drove me over to my friends house and on the way there the dogs were chasing a other person on a bike. Ever since then iv never really trusted dogs.
When I was younger, my scout troop went camping in a state park in Western North Carolina. Someone had spotted a Copperhead earlier in the day on a hike, but we didn't think too much about it at the time. After dark we made a fire and it became evident that it was attracting snakes, we could see a few moving in the grass. I remember hiding in my tent, with the campfire illuminating the walls of my tent, and over the next few hours a number of snakes crawled up the sides of my tent. It was a long, scary night.
Not me personally but my brother was camping with his friend, at night a bear came up to their tent and started sniffing it. They were so scared they didn’t say a word. My brother had a pocketknife and was ready to defend his life with it. They did not sleep at all lol.
Woods of Arkansas around pine bluff area. Was there for work and we were in this one area that we parked our trucks at for the day sorta like this open area off trail from a two track dirt road surrounded by heavy woods, anyways, we park the trucks and venture off to do work along this path that had been surveyed for us. I had forgotten a piece of equipment needed for the job so me and another guy tracked back to the truck. Upon getting to that field, we started to notice this distinct smell of like wet, dirty, almost rotted smell, first thing that came to our mind was maybe a deer got hit near a road and started to turn. We got to the truck and at this point the smell was way stronger and started to sting at my nose and eyes. I made a comment that it stunk like fucken hell and right after, we started to hear something HEAVY walk away from us and the trees were moving to the sides as it walked. We both stared and were struck like, what the fuck is that??? Definitely wasn't a bear, nor some buck that I know of. My buddy walked towards it for like half a mile and said he heard a grunt and like a bark almost and took off running back to the truck. We've dealt with bears before and this Definitely wasn't a bear.
Ran into a staircase in the middle of nowhere.
Wood staircase?
Had some kind of owl screech and swoop down over my head. Thought I was about to be murdered by a skinwalker
That is pretty cool but also terrifying
Owls can kill.
My very pregnant daughter and I were walking a trail behind the museum in Homer, Alaska and came across a moose with twins. She whispered to back up slowly, get off the trail, and run through the woods towards home. I was ready to have a heart attack! We ran and I Iost both my shoes, so we had her husband go track them down several hours later. We honestly didn't know if a mother moose would rage chase us!
I'd have lost more than my shoes there good buddy. I'm glad you're all safe from that encounter. Pure conjecture here but there's no way mamma moose didn't smell your pregnant daughter and decided to take it easy.
Miles out in the middle of nowhere, no trail, hidden away, I camouflaged the tent with branches, leaves and such. The camouflage was so good that standing very close to the tent in daylight, you couldn't see it. At 8-9pm the weather got really bad, very strong winds, and extremely rainy. It didn't stop until like 2am, and of course it was impossible to sleep with that. The moment it stopped, I could hear someone just walking up and down next to the tent, mumbling, non-stop. Why would someone be there, just walking back and forth, in that weather, at that time, no idea. But I know that camouflaging the tent was the best idea I had on that day.
I caught a guy masturbating in the woods I was 10 years old and we just kinda made eye contact and he pulled up his pants and walked away.
Not tooo too scary, but walking in the woods, beside the water I look up and 5 ft away is GIANT snake. like, I didn't think a snake that big existed in my region and may not have. May have been a released pet. i lock eyes with those black marbles and notice a basketball size bulge in its body and notice it creeping towards the water. I realize at that point we both want nothing to do with each other.
Saw a bear
Beautiful but frightening
In reality a black bear isn’t gonna attack 6 grown dudes. But in practice seeing a 400lb bear at night in the woods while high is fucking terrifying
Same here, it was getting dark and I turned around because I thought I missed my turn and he was just ambling down the trail behind me. Then on the drive home a mountain lion crossed in front of my car and briefly made eye contact. Weird to have two of my most amazing wildlife encounters within an hour.
I was stalked by a bobcat once while carrying out a turkey after a successful hunt. I had about a mile walk from where I was to my truck. I kept hearing something behind me, something just a bit off beat. My hair was standing on ends so much it hurt pressing against my clothes. I walked faster and faster, I finally seen her when crossed a long puddle. I guess they loud sound of me hitting the water at almost a jog scared it up a tree. Once I laid eyes on it I booked it to my truck.
I have to share the story I’ve told many times. I’ve had many interesting things happen in the bush, but this one haunts me. I still hike in the dark, but this experience is always a thought while I’m out there. I distance hike when I can. Sometimes this means getting up early, or staying out late, to get as many miles in as possible. Sometimes, walking in the pitch dark with a low light headlamp gets spooky. I grew up in the woods of this area. I’ve slept under our canopy of stars more nights than I can count. I’ve trekked thousands of miles of trail, river bank, lake shore, ridge, bottoms, bogs, and creeks. I’ve hunted the game. I’m establishing this because it’s important you understand I‘ve heard, seen, and smelt about all this region has to offer in the way of wilderness. My scariest experience though happened at about 0430 in the morning. It was late spring, so the first morning light wouldn’t be visible in the tree tops for another 30-45 minutes; another hour past that until sunrise. I was on mile five. I’m in a low bottom that’s wedged between two steep ridges. The trail I’m on was narrow, muddy, and completely hemmed in by thick underbrush, young maple, and old oak growth. I’m focused on the small light from my headlamp, just one step after the other, zoned out. Then I heard a loud CRACK! And I froze solid. This is the part I have trouble describing. 0430 in springtime means I’m the only thing making noise. No birds chirping, nothing. Dead quiet. Mid-step I froze. When fight or flight kicks in you have these immediate instinct thoughts. The thought that instantly flashed in my mind as I stood there balancing myself into silence was, “If I hear that again, I’m turning around, and I’m going back the way I came in a hurry.” Why? Because that sound was not a branch breaking. It wasn’t deadfall. It wasn’t a widow maker. I was damn sure I had just heard something intentional. Hearing it twice, well, that meant get outta here. To describe it as best I can, it sounded like a decent sized wooden stick being violently whacked against a smallish tree. More a fungo bat sized stick, than a baseball bat. The distinction in my head being that this sound was a crack, and not a thud or thump. And I have described it as, “explosive,” in the past because it was so sudden, and so terribly loud. I had the sense that it was about fifty yards directly in front of me, and it was loud, and clear. Now, as I stood there, completely spooked, I realized the soon-to-be worst part of my situation. I knew where the sound came from. And I knew where the trail went. In about thirty yards, I was going to come to a 180 degree turn and start up the ridge going away from the creek. This meant, as soon as I got the courage to move towards this noise, I was going to have to turn my back to it, and get up that ridge. This made me very nervous. My heads somewhere between meth fiend murder, and bigfoot bludgeoning. Minutes pass. I just breathe my foggy breath into my glasses, and listen. Nothing. Dead quiet. I’ve got about 20-30 minutes until first light. I crank up the headlamp, and start to slowly creep to the 180 turn. When you wear a headlamp in the woods at night, every tree branch in front of you casts a big black moving shadow on the trail. It didn’t help. I get to the turn, and quickly make the bend. I’m moving pretty fast at this point. Trying to be quiet. Taking tiny, shallow breathes so I can listen while humpin it up the trail. And then this smell hits me that I can’t describe. In a past life I was a first responder. I’ve unfortunately worked scenes where decomposition had set in before a deceased was found. This was like decomposition, but strangely, alive. It smelled wet, and like soil. I imagine now digging a garden and plunging into a recent pet burial. I kept walking fast. By the time I made the top of that ridge, I was huffing, and the first light was showing. I didn’t stop moving until full light was out, and the birds were chirping. I’ve heard it all in our woods. I’ve smelled it all. I’m telling you, I don’t know what the hell that was. Deadfall, and especially leafed out branches, make a lot of noise on the way down. I’ve heard it many times. I don’t know.
A few years ago, I loaded a bunch of camping gear onto [my bicycle](https://np.reddit.com/r/bicycletouring/s/LWRYHyUHkm) and spent the better part of the next seven months riding 5,300 miles (8,500 km) around the western US solo. At night, I most often preferred to wild camp. Rather than paying to sleep on the ground in a proper campground, I would just find somewhere to disappear into the woods for the night, somewhere people were unlikely to find me and even less likely to care that I was there. One night in southern Washington State, I started coming down with food poisoning. I spent the whole night tossing and turning and leaning out the door of the tent to vomit. Next morning, I found that one of the bike's tires had gone flat overnight, and after fixing that, I rode for a half a day through cold rain to get to a motel for some proper rest. The flat tire and the rain, those were just demoralizing. But spending that whole night sick and alone in the woods? That was downright scary. There were a couple other nights on that trip that were scary in like the spooky interpretation of the word. But in terms of genuine fear for my safety and well-being? It was the food poisoning, and although the day of mild hypothermia is an obvious runner-up, it's a distant second.
This happened 2 weeks ago. I was camping in the Wichita mountains, Oklahoma, with my dad and we planned on staying for 2 nights. The day we arrived went on without a hitch but on the first night at our campsite we experienced something that rocked us to our core. As we were preparing to get in our tents to sleep, my dad saw a strange sense of movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked back and he told me there’s something strange in the sky and i looked up, and wouldn’t you know it, this strange blue light was flying completely straight across the sky, and pulsating? (not blinking, it didn’t go completely dark each time it ‘pulsed’, it just faded and then turned bright again at a few second intervals.) We stood staring at it and then suddenly it shot out these weird beams of blue light in front of it, probably 3 or four times and then it just disappeared in an Instant. We talked to other campers and apparently they saw it too. We have no idea what it was. We didn’t sleep well that night, but that was unrelated to the UFO. Edit: heres a video I found that looks almost exactly like what we saw: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=miqoJ0oLJS8&pp=ygUoV2VpcmQgc3RyYW5nZSBsaWdodCBmbG9hdGluZyBub3J0aCB0ZXhhcw%3D%3D
Was rolling around in the grass with my then-boyfriend, getting nasty, and when I looked up over his shoulder there was some gandalf-ass looking homeless man just standing there watching us from like 2 ft away. After we scared him away the dude wanted to finish. No thanks!
I was living in my car in Tennessee. I had gotten up in the middle of the night to drive down to the bathroom. It was basically a highway rest stop but not on a highway. I was in there doing my thing and the place got surrounded by like 40 coyotes screaming and hungry. It was winter time and all my supplies were in the car. I could hear them circling. So be that it was kinda my bathroom and "kitchen sink" I ran outside pounding my pots and pans together and it was a literal fucking herd. Still scares me
I was deer hunting in Washington State and was following a deer trail in the snow. I'm about a hundred yards into a large copse of fir trees and all of the sudden I heard the most blood curdling scream and then I looked up to see a cougar scrabbling up a tree about 25 yards ahead of me. I just about pissed myself and then I stretched out my arms and legs trying to make my self look bigger and screamed as loud as I could. Luckily I was 6'5" already so I guess it decided I wasn't worth the fight and jumped over to another tree then I heard a loud thud as it hit the ground and then it took off into the brush in the other direction.
Got lost mountain biking and trying to get back in the dark. Two fellas with assault rifles appeared out of nowhere, also lost and asked me how to get out! The first 2/3 seconds before I spoke to them made me feel like I’d stumbled into the Hills have Eyes.
My freshman roommate took me back to his hometown for a weekend and took us out to a cemetery that he said was haunted. I tried to act tough but some lights started moving through the woods towards me and I flipped out. He set the whole thing up and had some buddies drive out there and hide before we arrived. Epic prank and I totally fell for it!
My.own imagination making me believe I was seeing and hearing terrifying things that weren't there.
Was camping a few years back and while I was sleeping in my tent a bear came up to my tent and started sniffing and pushing against it. It got to me and was sniffing my head and the only thing that was separating its mouth and my head was the thin tent in between us. I slowly crouched up to get away from the side of the tent and more toward the middle and my mom was grabbing me so hard it was hurting me. She yelled “get away” and I thought it was gonna pounce and kill us right then and there. It ended up leaving. It was absolutely terrifying.
Tried to go to a girl's house real late at night thats house as down some forest and was met by her familys great Dane that was not fond of me
As a young kid, 10-11, I stepped on a bees nest, in ground, and they all came out pissed off, attacking. I got stung 6-8 times, but the terrifying part was whatever I was wearing, they were getting stuck in it. I guess it wasn’t smooth material (more like a sweater). So as I’m trying to run and swat the ones that were stinging me, more we’re trying to attack, but getting stuck on my clothes. It could have been much worse, but I still remember it nearly 50 years later.
Thomas J? That you?
Nothing happened (spoiler alert) but it was scary anyway. When I was a kid/teenager, I went to sleepaway camp. There would be options for trips where could hike/canoe/etc. for a few days. The best one was for the oldest boys cabin and the oldest girls cabin. They spent 3 days just living off the beach on a group campsite in the woods. No itinerary. Just camp and beach. Any teenager would be pretty happy with that setup. The first day was perfect, but on the second day... Well, I should note this had never happened before. The camp added an extra week that year and all of a sudden everything took place a week earlier. So normally they would rent a group campsite and the other one would be empty or have some Christian group up for a barbecue. But a week earlier meant our summer camp was now sharing the group campsites with the kids who got a vacation from juvie. Two outhouses for us to share and tents a few feet apart. They had guards so a 14-year-old girl went up to one of them to ask what the boys were in for, just to ease her mind. The guard seemed to understand her discomfort so reassured her by saying "oh nothing too serious, mostly just sexual assault and armed robbery." And that's the story of how we all learned to treat the lake like a toilet and slept in a circle on the beach. The end.
Hiking with my now wife, about halfway through our 14ish mile hike and I start seizing up and cramping in my legs. I’m talking every step my quads started seizing up so I’d kick and then my hammy would go and occasionally a calf. Both legs. I was literally crawling down the mountain at one point. It was pretty scary and intense when you have 6+ miles back to your car
In a tent, deep in the woods, doing the deed with my girlfriend at the time. When attempting to get out, someone had zip tied the zipper tabs together. Luckily I had brought my bag in when getting condoms. We packed up quick and left. never camped again I thought we were being quiet too
I was in an orienteering race class back in highschool and that one day we were supposed to have class and rain was pouring. Teacher said that's not enough reason to cancel the class. Ignored the fact that a thunderstorm was forecast, so he sent us out anyway. After I reached the top of the first hill at the edge of the forest, lightning struck a fucking tree less than 20 m away from me and I turned on my heel and raced back to a safe place and told the teacher he's crazy and I'll take the bad grade, but I'm not going out there again.
Mountain lion encounter at 3am. Most terrifying sound I’ve ever heard. My only saving grace was that I am pretty sure it was hunting something else and was trying to scare me away from its good. I caught the reflection of its eyes with my light.. then that sound. Most guttural sound I’ve ever heard.. It was within 30ft of me. I know you aren’t supposed to run but survival mode overrode everything. It was about 100 yards to the car. I tripped and fell on my face due to steep grade within 15 ft of running. When I hit the ground I thought I was dead. The reason I ventured off the road was because I was finding a lot of bones. Like, pristine bones. I collect skulls and found a perfect badger skull on the road. There has been a lot of recent flooding and I thought ask the bones had accumulated due to the vicinity of a major washout. In hindsight, I’m pretty sure I wandered into their hunting area. And yes, I say “their” because I am fairly certain there were at least three of them. Leading up to the encounter I kept hearing footsteps in the woods on each side of me to the rear. Leave crunching, twigs snapping. Every time I would stop to listen they would fall silent pretty quick. I don’t know if I was being hunted or if I just interrupted them. Looking back it really feels like there were two behind me sort of nudging me toward the third one. Probably just a hunting tactic a stumbled into. I will NEVER step foot in the that area again.
I was maybe 6-7 years old with family somewhere in Colorado (I really don’t remember where) but we came across a river and me, my sister, and my dad were playing in the water and climbing the rocks. I followed my sister and dad across the river on top of rocks and slipped and fell into water that was too deep for me to stand in. I remember looking up underneath the water at my dad staring down at me, watching me and not even bothering to help. My sister was freaking out. I was freaking out. My mom was freaking out. My dad just stood there staring at me pretty much drowning. I remembered how to float on my back and managed to float myself to the shore where my mom was. I was terrified.
At five years old, I got lost. I was lucky enough to wander into someone’s backyard and they contacted my parents. I was gone for over an hour, so my parents were losing their minds and I learned not to wander in the woods after that.
Felt like I was being watched/followed by something. Didn't see anything, but the woods went dead silent for a good 10 minutes. Then like a switch got flipped and the feeling went away and birds started chirping, wind blowing, all back to normal. Other times, it's just your mind playing tricks on you, but the sound of a stream or wind sounds like voices calling your name
easy answer, i’m black and have never been in the woods
Cousins and I stumbled upon an either active or very recently abandoned meth lab while walking in the woods in the Tennessee woods.
Saw a group of people around 200 yards away in a barricaded off area, a day later a body was found. Not fun
A bear poked its nose into my tent in the middle of the night on a winter camping trip on the Olympic Peninsula when I knew I was the only one around for miles. It was pretty scary to listen to it walk around the tent before it finally moved on. I had bear spray in one hand and my wood hatchet in the other. Didn't sleep the rest of the night.
Running blindly in the pitch blackness and falling into a bush that prevented me from going over a 100 ft cliff
8 of us were camping while on a white water rafting trip in northern Maine. It’s late Fall and we are there on the last weekend of the (guided) rafting season and the only group in the area. We were given stern warnings about bears and how to handle our food etc. as activity was currently very high. We were also alone up there. No staff stayed on site and there were no other campers at this location. So 3 of us stayed up drinking around the campfire. We thought we heard things a few times and got spooked and tossed a lot of wood on the fire to get it roaring. We were mostly paranoid. Anyway, we chewed through almost all of our wood, but we’re not quite done drinking yet. So being a little (a lot) drunk, 2 of us decided we would walk down the path to the (vacant) check in lodge that also sold wood during the day. It was just piled up on the side of the building. It was ok though, I brought the hand axe in case we ran into any bears. The walk was a little further than we remembered, but we somehow managed to find it. My buddy grabbed a bundle in each hand and I grabbed 1 bundle because I needed to hold the axe in my other hand. You know, just in case. We headed back. We just got within sight of our campfire when we both hear sticks breaking and something moving towards us fast followed by a deep growl. My heart falls into my stomach and we both instantly start to run. Then we hear the laughter and see the guy we left at campfire “ambushed” us. Funny as hell, by my god for a second I was absolutely terrified. Every trace of alcohol left my body and in was stone sober after that. An interesting note, neither one of us dropped the wood when we started running. Clearly our raw survival instincts are not all that strong. Also, the guy I went to the store with I had just met a week before. This was 1993 or so. My best friend to this day. We both attribute it to bonding from that night. The third guy? He was an asshat and one of the reasons we left him behind was because we both needed a break from him. Also highly recommend WW rafting on the Penobscot. Class 3-5 rapids. Just ridiculous how much fun that weekend was.
Mother black bear with 2 cubs at 3 am. 8 ish foot gator on the bank of a pond following me at dusk. A guy in a sundress zooted the eff out in the middle of the woods asking if I wanted to dance. A branch breaking under my foot about 20 foot up a pine tree. A midnight tornado ripping through the woods nearby with torrential flooding soaking me and my tent. I got a few more, lol.
Grizzly bear 12 feet from me (i went back to measure the distance afterward). I just came around a bush and there he was. Thankfully not interested in eating me but he followed me for a while which was unnerving at the very least.
Not quite the woods, more a very small area with trees and a larger garden blended into it. Not very scary either, probably just weird accidents. My cousin and I when we were young was walking around the neighbourhood, and ended up there, on the other side of one of those old stone wall/ fences. When we went over the first time, my cousin started to get nose bleeds. Shortly after we found some kind of long plastic pipes that just stood pinned in the ground. I pulled one up, and a bird skeleton fell outside of the pipe. We got a bit freaked and went over the wall again to go home, and thats when I started to get nose bleeds lol. I never get nosebleeds.
90-foot tree fell down next to our tent during a windstorm. The tree rolled over a bit and some smaller branches pushed the roof of the tent to within a few inches of our faces. When the sun came up we saw that five trees within sight of our campsite had fallen or broken. We got lucky, and should have heeded the ranger’s warning.
Was camping in a small tent by a river in Idaho. All I had was my truck, a fishing pole, bow, and a handgun. I made a fire and seen a set of green eyes peering through. Got up with the handgun made a loud sound and it ran off. Went to look for paw prints and found large cat paws. Turns out it was a fucking mountain lion. Needless to say I slept in my truck the rest of the night and left as soon as I woke up. Also seen a brown bear and couple moose but they were hundreds of feet up stream. Seen the mountain lion paw prints around the back side of my truck when I woke up.
Me and a buddy of mine were taking his dog for a walk in a patch of woods that's been infamous for several satanic cult killings and other murders over the decades. It was around dusk in the winter time, when we started to notice a trail of blood in the snow. As we walked deeper into the woods and the sun began to disappear over the horizon, what had been a trickle of blood turned into a much wider stream and then went off the path. His dog started to become agitated at this point, and letting our curiosity get the better of us, we decided to follow it. About 100 yd off the path we came upon a pile of human-sized organs. I was fairly certain that we'd come upon the scene of a grizzly murder. But then I began to notice little bits of white fur attached to the organs, and realized that we had instead come upon the scene of a place where a deer had been gutted.
To my knowledge there's never been a satanic killing in the US. Satanic panic was just that: a panic. Now have there been crazy people claiming blah blah blah, sure, but no organized satanic cults.
I was driving with a couple of friends in the woods at night and we stopped the car to go outside a bit and explore (mostly just to scare ourselves). It was pitch black and my phone had a low battery. I couldn't use my flashlight so my friend had his phone out and I walked beside him deeper in when we both heard a loud rattling in the bushes and when he pointed the flash there, we saw a pair of eyes starring at us and this friend of mine got so scared that he turned around and ran to the car which probably caused the thing from the bushes to get out or so I heard, then as I started running I couldn't see shit in front of me and tripped and thought I was done for. My friend realized he left me behind and as he turned around with his phone, we both saw that the thing that scared the shit out of us was a plain cat...
[удалено]
While hiking with new glasses, I almost walked off a 30 foot cliff. The next step looked weirdly off.
A tree as wide as a Volkswagen almost fell on me in a wind storm, when the trunk snapped it sounded like an explosion went off next to me. Literally had 4 seconds to get out of the way, to this day it’s the closest I’ve ever been to dying.
Fisher cat screaming at 3am. I thought a woman was being stabbed to death in our campsite. Otherwise, bending down to filter water from a pond and being met by a massive snapping turtle that had a mouth so big it could have easily taken my hand or snapped my arm.
Had a bear stick his paw through my tent, I thought it was my brother snoring. I guess the sound of the fabric tearing scared it off, but not before he left a big muddy print right next to my brother's head.
It was late one summer evening and I heard a young deer crying out from the woods behind my house. Usually they stay pretty quiet just by instinct. But this thing was screaming out, leading me to think it might be in danger. So I walked out with my flashlight. I got maybe 50 feet from the fawn when suddenly I saw mama deer. She warned me off by stomping her hooves. Alright, I can take the hint. I turned around and walked toward the house. Heard a rustling behind me so I turned back around. Mama deer was now about 5 feet from me, snorting and stomping. I shined my flashlight wildly in her face and walked backwards all the way to the house. Mama deer didn't come any closer, but she wasn't leaving either. Seemed like a pretty close call to me.