Scariest Moment in the Woods?

[jdenkevitz]

Had a few 'fun' moments.

-When I was a teenager me and a buddy went to Assateague Island and a band of wild ponies snorted and stomped around our tent in the middle of the night. I started laughing and pissed off my friend in the process. The next morning a large pile of manure was against the side of our tent.

-Catoctin Mountain Park (Camp David where the POTUS goes occasionally) has 2 remote Adirondack Shelters which you can reserve. I was fast asleep in one last year when around 3am a loud CRACK woke me up. I thought someone lit an m80 firecracker next to my head. Pretty sure it was a dead branch hitting the top of the shelter, it took me an hour to get back to sleep.

-On the AT in Maryland - Camping in a tent and a brutal thunderstorm rolled in. A massive lightning strike on top of me (it seemed). The second after I was expecting a tree to plant on top of me. Closest I've ever been to a strike. I waited out the storm (drenched) in the shelter.

[Rolloff]

I'm sitting in my office today, and I found a hornet crawling up my leg and he's heading north rapidly. I'm a courteous guy, so I walked him outside, hoping he didn't reach my face by the time I got him outside. Once outside, he flew off. Crisis averted!

SS..... always living on the edge

[Chard]

I lived on a relatively small island in the Caribbean for about 6 years back in the late 80's early 90's.

Instead of drinking my weekends away like most of my friends, I used to do a lot of hiking around the island, exploring it like a modern day Robinson Crusoe. On one particular jaunt I found myself waking Sunday morning on the remote windward shore, without any water and running low on provisions. I knew there was a spring up along the coast and by mid morning had worked my way to the little oasis: a lush green oasis hidden in a narrow ravine just inland from the dry rocky shore of the coast. After refilling my water I now need to get back to civilization. The walls of this ghaut (ravine) were too steep to climb so I worked my way back to the coast and explored another ravine further north. I saw a small local fishing boat about a kilometer off shore and waved to them but they just kept on going.

By climbing up over a series of dry waterfalls I made my way deeper into the ravine, but before long climbed so high that I couldn't practically climb back down to the coast. Forced further inland I continued to climb in and up. I had expected the ravine to open out into a hillside that I could get up out of to a trail somewhere, but instead the ravine just dead ended with vertical cliffs rising 60'-90' above me.

As far as I knew, no one had a clue as to where I was. I had a topo map and knew exactly where I was, to the metre, but was stuck. I spent an hour in that little space pondering my options. To retreat to the coast meant scrambling back down some pretty high dry falls - pretty dangerous. Going forward meant going upwards. I could see a narrow fissure in the wall with vines that I could use to get half way up, and saw some thin lines of grass and scrub that might indicate narrow (2-3" narrow) ledges heading up to the top where thick grasses hung over.

I was in the best shape of my life from years of TaeKwonDo and hiking the island, so I told myself that I'd try the fissure and decide what I'd do after checking out the "ledges". Now let me explain that on the volcanic island I was exploring, the surrounding "rock" is little more than firmly packed ash and pebble; very crumbly and definitely not the thing for secure climbing, that's for sure; especially without any ropes. There wasn't a single shred of firm bedrock anywhere for a thousand miles.

Getting to the top of the fissure I saw that the ledges did look possible, although I'd have to inch my way along, belly to the wall, gripping the cliff face for dear life. Every step, every handhold was tested and slowly I inched my way over and up all the while looking down was a 50'+ fall beneath me. More than once I cursed myself for being an idiot at getting into this predicament, fully expecting to fall to my death and not have my corpse discovered for a century.

Eventually I managed to make it to the top edge of the cliff. I tested the thick, yard long sword grass and found it would support my weight so I hauled myself up over the lip only to discover that the hillside beyond rose up at at least a 45 degree angle into the forest far beyond. I had expected a 90 degree angle where I could get up and brush myself off like they do in the movies. Instead I found myself still desperately working my way slowly up the grass covered hillside.

After what seemed like forever the hill gradually leveled out and I was able to walk into the forest and onto a narrow farmer's trail. I literally fell onto and kissed the dirt track. A little way down I found a water pipe and beyond that a tiny village where I was able to walk back out to the main road and get a ride home.

Later I discovered that the news had spread that some local fishermen had seen "that big crazy white guy" hiking along the east coast.

Bar none, that was the closest I've ever come to real disaster.



Epilogue: A few years later the island's volcano erupted again. The swath of grey going from the peak to mid left has covered the ghaut I climbed, although in the background you can see similar ghauts for reference. Had things gone poorly for me, my bones would be buried beneath hundreds of feet of volcanic ash and I would have truely vanished from the face of the earth, never to be seen again!

[Benson Burner]

I hiked into a place where native Americans used to gather for millennia during the summer months collecting roots and berries and collecting salmon from the nearby river waterfalls. Here under an ancient crater-style-lake, there was a cobalt blue lake. At the western end there is a peak with scree all down to the waters edge hiding a couple springs. A few years back 3 years, I start reading some ancient Native American stories and legend about the lakes around our volcanoes. Me and my hammock buddy fall asleep somewhat early. We awoke ~ 2 hours later hearing what sounded like rocks being hurled off the peak, some 700 feet above us, actually landing in the water. I will try to post a picture, but given the slope these rocks did not just fall down the slope, they were hurled, had to have been, seem to have been. Me and my friend heard some of them hit the water, some not. I feel back asleep but considered reaching for some weapon, as I am one of those guys. But I do not. I awoke later and so did my friend to hear what sounded like hand washing down by the waters edge, or perhaps a foul cleaning themselves??? At that point I wanted to unzip My bug net to reach for some protection, but the sound was so close I thought unzipping would alert the "Whatever it was" to our camp, as we were stealth hanging (as best we could, noobin' it big time), but I had to, I unzipped and brought a knife into the hammock and rezipped the bug net. I heard a snap closer, than a quitter snap but still closer. I don't know how long I waited, but I must have fell back asleep. The next thing I remember is pressure near my ribs (I'm sleeping right lay and turned a bit to my left I feel my left come into contact with a broad side of something. This is where it gets wierd:
The pressure overcomes me and I am now being pushed (like a swing or held up) my position goes from my butt pointing down (at a 6:00 position to a 7 or 8:00 position) and I was being help perfectly in that position: I simply froze. I was locked in a processing moment which seemed like an eternity. I was processing: Fight or Flight. I finally arrived on thrashing about, screaming all cuss words I knew like I'm going to blah, blah blah sailor language. I heard a snap and another snap father away as whatever it was ran off. I did not go back to sleep, And it was forever it seemed until the morning came! Never found out what it was, I seen coyote tracks near the lake but didn't seem fresh nor plausible. I was reading the stories of how some of the legends say that during the night and right time of the season that strange Elk and small children come out of the lakes and sometimes draw on the sand, leave footprints, or leave things on the rocks. These are taken from stories I read from ancient natives stories. They intrigued me. I reckon I was a might scared, as things are scary when you can't explain them sometimes.

[Benson Burner]

There were stories about the back side of that peak too, but more recent ones, there also were some old stories about different places within this Wilderness area

[carolinasbackpacker]

[Chard]

Respect carolinasbackpacker. You've got my respect and I'm glad you're on the mend.

[DWEpic]

I've had a couple of interesting experiences, but two stick out the most in my mind. Both occurred in the Drury/Mincy wilderness area in southern Missouri. During college I treated this area as my own personal escape. Hiked all over it, swam in the creeks, camped. It was my favorite place to blow off steam.

1) I was day hiking along one of the fire roads, just enjoying the outdoors. I came around the corner and found the hind leg of a deer laying in the middle of the road. It was obviously fresh and had just been dropped. I have no idea what dropped it, but my imagination was running wild. Regardless, I turned and made record time back to my truck. The entire time clutching my pocket knife and wishing I had something more.

2) Some friends and I were cowboy camping around a fire in the primitive campground. We had arrived after dark, built a fire, and thrown our sleeping bags down. This campground was always deserted. We had heard a dog barking off in the woods, but didn't' worry about it. An hour or so later, a drunk redneck walks up on our fire holding a broad head crossbow bolt in his hand and accuses us of having been in his camp. He was very aggressive and threatening. It turns out the dog was his, he was camped about 75 yds away, and thought the whole place should be his. What made it the most memorable is he claimed to be "The Taney County Coyote Hunter". After threatening to unleash the dog on us or shoot us if we came near his camp again, he wandered off.

People are why i carry when in the woods.

[iconicflux]

In md where I live "Taney" is widely seen as a massive douche bag.


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[Polkster13]

My family was canoe camping in the Boundary Waters canoe area when I was in middle school. We were camped out on an island and had just finished dinner (fresh caught fish from the lakes grilled over a campfire). A black bear swam over to our island intent on joining us for dinner. My dad made us all (Mom, brother, sister and myself) go get in the tent. He then did a Tarzan yell and waved his arms and the bear decided he wasn't welcome and turned around and swam back over the way he came. I am really glad he didn't come over for a visit after we had gone to sleep for the night. Now that would have really been scary.