Scariest Moment in the Woods?

[Clockw3rk]

Back around 2000 I was living in Summit County Colorado and would hike out with 2 friends with nothing except bags and pads. 2-3 miles out lay down our stuff talk for a while, crash, wake in the morning, hike in, and get breakfast. One night we traded bear stories, of which I had none at the time. Early the next morning I wake to my friends in a commotion, sleeping bag zippers jiggling, yelling: "Get up! Bear!!!
I thought they were B.S.ing because of the night before to get a reaction out of me. After another 10 seconds of yelling I put my glasses on and looked. A 3 foot across bear butt was walking away from me about 20 feet away in the creek bed we camped next to. I have since realized that creeks can act as a kind of highway for animal traffic. Duh right? The bear didn't even look back or run. He just lumbered at the same pace not interested and thoroughly unimpressed. Awesome.

[Clockw3rk]

Great thread idea! Great stories posters! Thank you.

[Deerfight]

My grand old story is pretty tame. Was hiking by myself on a cold and snowy winter morning, when a blue grouse jumped from 3 feet away. Both the dog and I had to take a breather

[Mumbles]

Hiking a few minutes ahead of my wife. Came around the corner along Constance creek, near the Mount Constance trail. Noticed a cougar, mid sized adolescent most likely. Looking at me, whilst drinking from the creek. I had been hiking quietly, and the rain was falling. I guess that cat was a bit surprised to see me round the bend.

Didn't let the wife know until we were on the road home a couple days later.

[Brady]

UA couple buddies I camo with and I were out going for a summit of Mount Sampson near the Pemberton Valley in B.C. The start of the trail in is an old logging road and had been unused for about 10 years so very overgrown. Early on the first day we had a bear spray mishap where one of the guys pulled his spray for a bear in front of us and about 30 minutes later he put it in his pocket and broke the pin off. At one point he crouched down and boom, spray release. After several hours of sitting in a glacier stream he no longer felt like someone was holding a blowtorch to his twig and berries but we decided to set camp early.

This was on my tarp camping days so I set up a lean-to style shelter and went to bed. At 3am according to my watch, I started hearing something on the back side of my tarp. Something big. In the moonlight I watched my tent bow in and immediately started hollering at whatever it was to beat it. The bear, based on the tracks the following morning made tracks down the trail. That was the end of the animal scare that trip, but a year later after failing to summit the first time we went back. Further up the valley in a meadow we setup camp and again in the tarp for me. On our way back from just short of the summit, we kept getting buzzed by a helicopter. The following day on the hike out we meet up with a team of biologists studying grizzlies. Apparently since the previous year, two different males had expanded their territories to overlap our camping area. They killed a few and scared off the remaining black bears in the area. The black was the likely culprit from my previous experience.

Anyway, they also told is they had buzzed us because one of the bears was only a few hundred meters away at one point. They tranquilized it for tagging but since it was on the other side of a morraine we didn't know.

I guess not the scariest but definitely a sobering reality to the bush. I think Mikeinajeep said it best "FEAR the brown."

Edit: I should also say fear the friend with bear spray. Especially now that he carries a gun because he thinks that's safer...for whom...

[G-Rat]

For me it was bears in Yosemite. I'd gone up by Half Dome w/ some friends and ended up hiking out alone. With the trash. Which included my buddy's empty sardine can. It was getting late as I hiked out so I decided to just get off the trail a few hundred yards and bivy for the night (pre-hammock days). I "thought" I was being careful and hung the food/trash sack before laying out the pad and crawling in the sleeping bag.

Unfortunately, without experience in real bear country I hung the food too close to where I laid down and I hung it too close to the tree trunk. I woke up a few hours later when Baby bear sniffed my head. I became aware just in time to watch Momma "bear hug" the tree and climb up to where the food was hung. It took her all of about 3/4 of a second. Or so it seemed. Amazing how fast such a large animal can climb a tree. She hung her head back, grabbed the food bag and tore it open. Food fell all around me as if from a giant pinata. I pulled my head inside my sleeping bag and told myself "This isn't happening".

Momma & Baby eventually had their fill and wandered off. I really have no concept of how long that took. Head back out of sleeping bag. Big sigh of relief. A moment later two more bears came in. They were obviously waiting in the wings for the leftover crumbs. Head back in sleeping bag saying "This isn't happening".

Bears 3 & 4 were not there long before leaving quite abruptly. I decided I didn't want to know why. I jumped up and stuffed everything into my pack in about 20 seconds. Thankfully I had been sleeping with my clothes on. I shoved my feet in my shoes without tying them and as I lifted the pack and walked away I saw why 3 & 4 left. A 5th, bigger bear was wandering in. I didn't look back. But I did take the time afterward to learn about the right way to hang food in the backcountry.

[Ryn8tor]

Some of these stories make me want to coin a new term, "shammock" for when you duece in your hammock.

[bearbaithangin]

Newbie back country hammock camper here. I just read this entire thread.... For sale: Explorer hammock, nice backpack and all the unused gear!!

[G-Rat]

Newbie back country hammock camper here. I just read this entire thread.... For sale: Explorer hammock, nice backpack and all the unused gear!!

Just change your screen name and all will be forgotten!

[oldpappy]

Newbie back country hammock camper here. I just read this entire thread.... For sale: Explorer hammock, nice backpack and all the unused gear!!

Things that scare you also teach you a lesson. It's nice of folks to 'share their scare' so others can learn from their lesson.
Also, at 150 posts no one actually claims to have died - they just got a good scare (but the dead just may not have bothered to post).