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There are few things that are better for your mental health than getting out into nature. Breathing in crisp, fresh, forest air and stepping on crunchy leaves can give you an instant dopamine boost. Plus, going for a hike is great exercise, and it’s even better when you get to do so with friends.
But because hiking and camping are so much fun, it’s easy to forget how dangerous they can be. Safety should always be your utmost priority, otherwise you might not make it out of the woods. Redditors have been recalling the most terrifying experiences they’ve had in the forest, so we’ve gathered some of their tales below. We certainly don’t mean to scare you, pandas, but let these stories be reminders that you should exercise extreme caution while exploring the wilderness.
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#1
My family used to go camping with a few groups of friends when I was a kid. I remember one Christmas when I was about 5 we were camping out in the bush. There were 9 kids in total at our campsite. We were allowed to wander through the bush. The parents would give us a walkie talkie to tell us when to come back to camp (we never wandered far).
Anyway, out of nowhere an unfamiliar voice came over our walkie talkie. It was a man's voice. He said he was Santa and that he was trying to find us to give us our presents and asked us to look for him. We all ran back to our campsite all excited that Santa had talked us.
The walkie talkie was taken off us and we weren't allowed to go anywhere for the rest of the trip. We were pretty devestated at the time. But I understand the seriousness and creepiness of it now looking back as an adult.
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#2
Walking a section of the Appalachian Trail with a couple of buddies when we happened across a bundle of sticks. The sticks were made into a figure, kinda similar to the ones from the Blair Witch Project. It was obviously placed there by someone, as it was dead-center on the middle of the trail, leaning against a rock. I thought it was cool, so I grabbed it and put it in my backpack.
Anyway, we finished the hike and set up for the night in our camping spot. We were all pretty wiped out from the long day, so after dinner we retired to our respective tents and conked out for the night.
The next morning, I was the first one awake, so I got up to make the coffee, and what did I find? An identical bundle of sticks to the one we'd found, sitting atop the pile of charred wood from the previous night's fire.
First thing I did was check my pack, and sure enough the one I'd picked up was still there.
Each of my friends swore they didn't put it there, and I obviously said the same. It was weird because we were all adamant about not putting it there, but I can never be sure one of them wasn't messing with the other two of us.
The thing that messes with me is the bundle I found in the morning was almost an exact replica of the one we found on the trail earlier. And, I find it hard to believe one of the other guys could have made such a close replica without being able to model it after the one in my pack. And it's not like either would have placed the one on the trail beforehand for us to stumble upon, as it was FAR out in the middle of nowhere.
I want to believe one of them pulled a prank on the other two because the alternative scares me.
#3
Guide camp in Victorian bushland. Girl guides are a paramilitary exercise in the British tradition.
My troop was competing in a camp competition. We were the futherst from the mother house, down the hill and put of sight of every other camp site.
One night we were all dead asleep in our tent. 8 pre teen girls. We heard snuffling and loud grunting around the tent. Then the tent started to move and shake. This was a ex army 8 person tent. Wooden beams and something was shaking the tent.
One beam started to some loose and 2 girls made a run to the mother house. The rest of us tried to keep out tent up. We then heard a louder thud and screaming "get up get up get up".
By now we'd woken half the camp site.
Turns out a family of wombats was upset we were on prime grazing area and was pushing the annoyance away. One of the girls had tripped over a wombat.
#4
I thought I heard a bear so I go to chase it off. I grab my hatchet and run towards it screaming "Aiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiai!" Then suddenly I'm surrounded with 2 large animals 1 between me and the camp and one still deeper into the woods. Then I hear the most haunting sound I've ever heard. It was a banshee sound that sounded human but not quite and I heard it traveling very fast in the same direction as one of the large animals. I didn't sleep well that night. I checked for prints in the morning and saw some deer tracks but no idea what made that sound. Then 9 years later I was nearby and shouted "Aiaiaiaiaiai" to scare away the bears before going to bed. Then I heard the sound again. I'm alone, armed to the teeth against anything with claws but this sounds like some humanoid cryptid. Then I'm hearing it surround me, whatever it is it's circling me and it's close. Suddenly I realize the sound is slightly above me. It was a mocking bird.
#5
The scariest situation is when I thought I was having a heart attack. Was hours away from help, and I had to walk there. Was just a panic attack.
#6
Here late, but the scariest thing I have had happen so far was a Moose came crashing through my campsite in the middle of the night. It sounded like a freight train crashing through trees. Woke me up in the middle of the night. Found out in the morning it had ran right by my tent. They don't have great eyesight and I was about 2 feet from being trampled by 1,000lbs of moose.
#7
Was somewhere in the middle of the White Mountains in the summer when I walked into what looked like a scene from a horror movie.
A person with zero hiking, camping, or other experience had gotten themselves in trouble - big trouble. It was around 7am when I found the campsite. First thing that hit me was the eerie stillness, until I noticed the shredded tent under a tree, and the desperate looking human figure covered in blood, whimpering quietly. I put my bag down, grabbed my kit and went over to the person - they looked like they had just lost a knife fight with a 4 armed man. Deep slashes from one shoulder to hip, single punctures up and down his back, and hands and forearms full of what looked to be defensive cuts. I patched him up the best I could, gave him water, checked my map and high tailed it to the closest road (this was before cell phones were super prevalent and barely worked in the mountains). Thankfully, the road was very close by - less than 2 miles, and I was able to flag someone down. They took off and I waited for assistance to arrive. It took about an hour until rescue arrived, and I led them to the still unidentified individual (he was not very conversive when I helped him out) - I was sure he wouldn't be alive anymore, but was wrong. I assisted rescue bringing him out, and took them up on their offer to head into town and get cleaned up. After cleaning up and getting myself situated at their station, I went on my way, leaving them my number to call to let me know what was up with the person we helped out.
I got home 3 days later, and there was a message on my machine. The story was that the guy I found decided to go camping one day and heard that he had to keep food hung from a tree to keep bears away. Well, he did that, but put it almost directly over his tent, and not high enough. The night before I happened upon the site, a bear had used the tent, and it's occupant, in attempt to climb the tree to get to the food. The guy had woken up to four black bear paws sinking into his body, shifting to reach up. Dude survived, and swore to the hospital staff that he was "moving to the city and never going into the woods again.".
#8
This happened to some friends of mine in Sydney, Australia. When we wanted to go underage drinking we would buy a case of beer or bottle of spirits and hike about 4kms into the bush to the middle of no where to drink without worrying about getting into trouble. Would sleep in a sleeping bag under the stars in summer and be fine.
So one afternoon my friends, without me this time, headed off with beer to the usual camp spot we'd use. Being young and stupid no one checked the weather forecast otherwise they'd have know heavy rain was on the way.
In the middle of the night 5 drunk teenagers left the camp site to shelter in caves near by. The caves sit high up overlooking a large fork in the Hawksberry River. Soaked from the rain and cold, they started to dig a fire pit. Unfortunately they dug up human remains, were too drunk to return home so spent a miserable night in the rain waiting for dawn. Didn't dare stay anywhere near the caves.
The police investigated and discovered the remains were an very old aboriginal burial site and were relocated to avoid being accidently disturbed again.
#9
10 years ago when I was a skinny little 17 year old I was hiking the rural side of a levee with a friend who was even scrawnier than I was. It was a long, long, walk Into the woods and for about an hour or more we hadn't seen anyone else. Just trees and foliage. We finally stumbled upon a huge *nest* looking area. It was so random and out of place so we investigated. There was paper and cloth everywhere, torn magazine pages, old clothes, cans, everything piled into one huge mess. We assumed maybe people drove their truck out here and dumped their trash, so we just turned to leave but in that very moment we saw a tall rugged man wearing all black staring right at us. He was maybe 6ft3, had shaggy unkept hair, and looked dirty and disturbed. He stood 15 feet away, and he was just staring and silent. My friend didn't say something so I said "Hi. Do you live here....is this your stuff?" And he only nodded yes and then we slowly backed away and left. He just stared at us until we could no longer see him anymore and then we picked up speed to get back to civilization.
#10
Me and a group of 20 others were hiking in a 2 person side to side line through thick woods at around 1am. We managed to find a muddy road which we continued to walk over for miles before going back into the woods.
While walking on the muddy road, I held a conversation with one of my friends that was to the right of me. After a while of talking, I noticed that my group was further ahead of me then before so I picked up the pace. As I got closer, I noticed something odd. The friend I was talking too was already with the rest of my group. I asked him how did he get back so quick and he turned, looked at me and said, “I was wondering where you were, you disappeared for a good 5 minutes.”
Let’s just say I didn’t feel alright after hearing those words. I know for a fact I was speaking to him earlier, and if not him, then someone exactly the same with all the same gear... luckily nothing happened after that, but I was pretty shook for the rest of the hiking night.
This all happened in Poland when I was a teenager part of what I call “survivalist camp”
Tldr:
I went hiking with a group of 20 people, fell behind due to slow pace, thought I was talking to my friend that was next to me but turns out he was with the rest of the group and not with me.
#11
I was was camping alone on a beach a few years ago. At just after three am, I woke up to a strange sound, like something was gently brushing up against the tent. The waves were pretty loud, so I wasn’t sure. As I started to fall back asleep, I heard it again. This time, I sat up. Suddenly, the sides of my tent were getting pushed in. I could see the shapes of hands pushing it in on all sides. No sounds came from outside other than the ocean. I was too terrified to even say a word. I’ve never been that scared in my life. After a few seconds that felt like an hour, it suddenly stopped. I waited for a few minutes, then unzipped the tent and poked my head out and flicked on a flashlight. There were shoe prints all around the tent. I figure it was probably just some kids messing with me...
#12
Backpacking with 15 year old daughter. 6 miles in we had climbed over a plateau and down into a canyon. We were filling up water bottles when she slipped on a wet rock and obliterated her ankle. No cell phone signal, no means to contact the outside world. As I watched her ankle swell, all I could think about was how stupid I was to get my kid into this situation. I quickly gained my wits, stopped panicking, made camp, and distributed anti-inflamatories. The next morning I made a makeshift splint and decided we would be better off following the creek out because climbing out of the canyon did not seem like a feasible option. It was in the upper 30s and we had to cross waist deep water multiple times. Took a whole day to get out but we made it, daughter was a trooper every step of the way. It turned out to be more of a bonding and learning experience than I ever could have imagined and now we have a great story. Ankle was badly sprained but she recovered after about 6 or 7 weeks.
#13
At first it looked like fly tipping, but as me and my bf got closer, it was an abandoned campsite. There must have been 3 people, and one of them was a child because of the random kids toys left around, and they left suitcases full of leftovers and rubbish. The creepiest thing was the backpacks which were just filled with rocks!! And not just random rocks they found in the woods either, these were rocks from a train line. Someone had snuck on a train line, filled up several bags full of rocks, and dumped them here. Why? I don’t know.
Near the campsite up a tree was a seagull skeleton that had recently been picked apart because the bones were still bloody and the feathers still attached to the wings. It just added to the eerie nature.
#14
A few years ago a new hiking buddy climbed up a waterfall, slipped on some pine needles on the top and fell 40 feet down onto rock. I was the first person there, blood pouring out of head, broken spine, shine broke thru the skin. He bit below his mouth and pretty much had a second mouth. It took an hour or 2 for medics to get to us and another 2 hours to use ropes to lift him out of the valley to a helicopter. Miraculously, he was out of the hospital after a few months and eventually regained full movement. All medical experts were shocked he made a full recovery. Most traumatic event of my life by far.
#15
Someone’s backpack, jacket, and wallet left on the edge of a two thousand cliff in a popular national park. Rangers found the body at the bottom the following day.
#16
I was hiking across Newfoundland, following an old railway that was long ago disassembled and turned into a giant trail, sleeping wherever I found myself at night.
One day I ran into a small cottage town, except everything was abandoned. Trailers falling apart, bus conversions burnt out, small cabins all shuttered up. It was creepy but interesting at the same time. The sun was waning so I decided to set up camp in a mostly empty lot that had an abandoned truck slowly falling into a ravine near it. Cooked up some food and crawled into my tent to sleep.
I wake up sometime in the night and I hear footsteps outside my tent. At first I think its an animal but the steps sound like someone walking, a human. The steps get closer and go around my tent. I slowly and quietly pull out my knife, if he tries to get in my plan is to stab first and ask questions later. Anyone trying to get into my tent at night in the middle of nowhere is looking to do some kind of harm. My heart is racing at this point but I try to just be quiet.
Luckily the steps start moving away from the tent until I can't hear them anymore. I wait a bit to see if they'll come back but I don't hear anything. I slowly get out of my tent, I don't see anything. Without turning on my flashlight I quickly take down everything and stuff it into my bag. After that I just started walking down the trail to get the hell out of there. I walked until daytime, came across a road and flagged down a truck. That guy was nice and drove me to town where I got a hotel.
The creepy thing, when I think back to it, was that whoever that was likely watched me walk into town from one of the abandoned structures. I'm guessing a squatter. I'd like to think he was just curious but I'm glad I didn't stay and wait to see if he'd be back.
#17
Woke up after camping in the Rockies to find cat prints the size of softballs encircling my hammock. I never even heard a single noise that night and the prints were no more than fifteen feet away. Luckily, I didn’t have any food that piqued it’s interest.
#18
I posted this on another thread back in August, but figured I’d share again. Of the countless hours I’ve spent in the woods, it’s the one time, the only few seconds, that I can’t explain.
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 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.
Minutes pass. I just breathe my foggy breath into my glasses, and listen. Nothing. 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 I smell it. A stench hits me that I can’t describe. I just imagined wet, rotten. I’ve actually worked scenes where humans have expired in a past life as a firefighter. This was like days old decomposition, but it just smelled, strange.
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.
#19
Walking out to a deer blind pre-dawn in the texas hill country, hunted the same area for 25 years, got the big spook, to the point I drew my pistol and turned on the weapon light, scanning the area around me, walking backwards at times etc. Crawled up in my tree blind and got settled in. But I just could not shake the spook. Sun finally rose and my tension started to ease off. Saw something big and low moving in the brush about 70 yards out but couldn’t see it clearly because there were still deep shadows. Little while later I see something weird walking across the sendera about 150yds out. I scoped it and the only mountain lion I have ever seen in the wild was very causally crossing the sendera, stop for a few seconds and I swear looked right at me, then moved along. I stayed up that tree a long long time and I finally came down late in the afternoon while the sun was high and I had been seeing game move around me for a while.
#20
I was camping in Northern California, like at the very tippy top of california, deep in the woods at a reservoir. I had to go poop really bad early in the morning before the sun was up and there were no bathrooms.
So I walked down a trail and found a little spot isolated away from the trail next to a blackberry bush and an outcropping of water from the reservoir. I heard some crashing in the tree line and it just started to become slightly light outside. I peeked over the blackberry bush and not 40 feet from me was a huge bear, around 500 pounds. I tried to sneak away but as I was stepping backwards I kid you not, I stepped on a twig that snapped. This bear and I instantly both turn our heads toward one another and lock eyes. I attempted to make myself look big and make noise. Bear didn’t budge. In fact he started to walked towards me. So many things were racing through my mind, the number one being, there is no way I’m curling up into a ball and allowing this monstrously giant bear mess me up, so I crouched down as low as I could behind the blackberry bush so he couldn’t see me, and started running as fast as I could whilst crouched/squatting down. My thought process was that if he couldn’t see me run, maybe he wouldn’t chase if I was already kind of far away before he actually saw my running over the blackberry bush.
It worked, he pursued around the bush for maybe 20 feet and decided it wasn’t worth it and allowed my escape.
I honestly thought I was going to be breakfast for this bear and that would be the end of me.
#21
So not necessarily a "deep woods" camper but when I and my wife first met we did a lot of "off the trail" camping to get away from people. We would always go to the same spot, nothing strange ever happened until one time we woke up to the most beautiful native flute music, it was so peaceful that I wasn't as afraid as I feel I should have been.
We eventually got up and started moving around and the music stopped. We never heard it again and always joked that it was bigfoot serenading his mate.
#22
My boys and I were dry camping on a plateau above one of the many canyons in the Snake River Wilderness in late summer. The first night, at about 1am we saw several lights rise into the sky what seemed to be about 10 miles away. We immediately thought it was just drones and thought nothing of it. Then we started seeing flashing amber lights reflecting off of the canyon walls. So, naturally my curiosity compelled me to see what was going on. We got in the truck and started driving down the only road in the area hoping that we could get close enough to see. After about 30 minutes, everything went dark and we never saw any more lights. We never did find out what it was.
On the second night, we had just gotten to sleep when I was woken up by wolves howling. At that point I wasn't scared at all and was kind of fascinated by the sounds. They seemed pretty far off and it was cool to listen to. I drifted back to sleep then some time later was woken up by the sounds of running animals. I bolted upright just in time to see several animals that looked to be wolves (hard to tell by moonlight through a tent screen) running right past our truck. They never stopped. Just ran past us. It is the only time I have ever seen wolves in the wild and it was intimidating to see just how big they really are. But even with all of that excitement, that wasn't the scariest part of the night. About two hours after the wolf event, I had to get up to pee. I didn't even want to get out of the tent but the bladder kind of forced the issue. I worked up the courage to get up. slung my gun around my shoulder, and stepped outside. I was about mid-stream when a thud and the sound of footfalls came from the area just to my right. I spun in a full panic only to realize it was a cow rubbing against a small pine tree about 40 yards away. I have never been so relieved to see a cow in my life.
tl;dr: I saw a couple of UFOs and almost pooped myself because of a cow.
#23
Was out with a friend a few miles from Pikes Peak in Colorado.
We were hiking on this trail and up ahead I see a blue windbreaker in the middle of the trail. We hadn't seen anybody else out walking all day (its pretty remote where we were staying) so it was weird it was placed right in the middle of the path, but hey things happen and people drop things so maybe it fell out of a backpack and nobody noticed.
The windbreaker was just a piece of this entire campsite we ended up coming across that was absolutely torn to shreds. There was a tent, a hammock, a cooler, and a backpack. Various articles of clothing thrown about as well. The tent had broken poles, was shredded, and looked like it was from the early 2000s with the fading that was apparent and the old style of it. Think of a basic 4 person Walmart tent, not a nice fancy lightweight backpacking tent.
The hammock was still hanging. Empty. The cooler was open and empty. A few shirts and shorts were scattered, and the backpack was empty.
We told ourselves it must be some homeless shelter and that was a good enough excuse for us to leave everything how it was and continue back to the cabin we were staying in.
#24
My partner and I were deep in Mt. Adams wilderness area (Washington State, U.S) and there were no other campers around. We had spent the day fishing and exploring the creek around our camp.
Around 2am, he wakes me up and tells me to be quiet. Our little dog is quietly growling and looking in one direction. About 15 yards north of the tent, I can hear rustling and a woman’s voice speaking quietly to herself (couldn’t discern any words). There is no light, just the voice and the walking noise. It goes quiet and then picks back up on the other side of the tent (which is even deeper woods) then it faded off into the dense forest.
The fact that there was someone alone wandering around talking to themselves in the middle of the night without a light or camp is soo freaky and I still get chills whenever I think about it. The next morning we investigated and didn’t find any tracks, but there was a really haphazardly lit fire (charred remains) in the middle a forest/logging road about a mile up. It was still kind of warm.
I know there is a small town (about 150 people) about 10 miles south from where we were camped.. so maybe it was a drunk teenager? We were almost touching the Yakima Indian reservation also, and the logging roads were still actively used. But still, so bizarre. Sorry for formatting also, I’m on mobile.
#25
Was hiking solo in the White Mountains, attempting to summit Mt. Adams via the Airline Trail. The Presidentials were totally socked in with fog, wind and some rain. Could not see more than a couple inches in front of me. I doubled back to the Madison Springs hut to review my options, and decided to climb to the top of Madison and go down the back side on the Watson Path to make my way back to my original trailhead. The Watson Path was tricky because a) it's all granite boulders at the top which were b) very slippery due to the weather and c) totally socked in from the fog and d) no one else is on the trail that day. And I start thinking, man, if I break an ankle or take a header on these slick boulders, no one is going to find me for a long time and I start to get the nerves, and I'm carefully picking my way through the fog, barely able to make out the next cairn... When all of a sudden there is a brief break in the fog and I see this giant black thing down the trail in front of me, inkily appearing and disappearing through the fog, and my mind immediately thinks bear.... It's not more than 150 feet from me... And I'm peering through the fog... And I edge closer and yell at the thing... And I'm squinting and trying to make out what is.... Ultimately a big upturned tree stump.
Yes, I had the bejeezus scared out of me by a tree.
That thing really got my adrenaline going. It was probably the best lesson I've had with how stress and adrenaline can really change your perception of your environs. I was absolutely convinced that thing was a bear. As I got closer to it, it was so obviously not a bear. But for those two minutes, I was seriously activated.
Epilogue: as I sat down, laughing and collecting myself, I encountered a small weasel living up in the rocks, not happy that I had stopped near its den. A very aggressive weasel as it turned out.
#26
I camped alone once in my life, though I have been in backcountry multi day treks about 3 dozen times with other hikers. I set up camp in the forest only a couple miles in but I was camping illegally so I went pretty far off the trail. Night was coming and I got a nice cozy fire going as the woods darkened. Around 11 I heard noises- purposeful, stalking noises in the undergrowth. I shone my headlamp out and saw at least 3 pairs of glowing eyes reflecting back. I know very well that coyotes almost never pick a fight with a grown woman. Yet they didn’t budge when I yelled and threw rocks. The circles just bobbed along, watching. Freaked me out. I packed my tent and walked to the road and asked my friend to pick me up (I’d biked). I’ll never do that again. I knew they would not attack, but being alone in the dark gives me such a primal fear of being eaten alive.
#27
Hiking in Maine around Moosehead Lake. I was hiking with my Uncle. I was a Boy Scout and I saw a spot where it appeared that someone had walked off of the trail and into the woods toward a clearing. As a kid I got curious and we walked through the woods for about a hundred yards.
We came to a small clearing where it appeared that a religious ritual had taken place. a small campfire, an altar made of stones and a large circle burned into the brush. After about a minute of exploring, my uncle said that "we shouldn't be here." I agreed and we hightailed it back to the main trail.
#28
I think this fits.. I was on a long hike in the Oregon Cascades to a small lake. I came across a a abandoned camp fire that was spreading out from the rock ring. The area was about the size of a small car. I rushed to dig a fire break and ran up and down the hill to the lake for water. Took me about a dozen trips with my sleeping bag stuff sack to extinguish it. I was 100% sure a forest fire would have broke out.
#29
Me and my Friend had just set up camp and chilled for a little bit not far from an pretty overgrown Trail that seem almost abandonded and forgotten. We were spooked by a noise and it was a mountain biker comíng down that steep and bad trail rather reckless, he than stopped, hastily pulled his shorts down and squatted down to spray diarrhea like crazy before he kept going, we were pretty camouflaged so he never noticed us watching.
#30
So about 5 years ago a friend and I were hiking in the Oregon Cascades in the mid spring. We were about 6 miles in from the road nowhere near a trail on about 6 feet of snow. We were going out for 5 days to attempt to summit a few peaks, so we looked like grizzly mountain men.
Around a tree comes two guys and a dog. Mid 50s, his son mid 20s, and fifi. They are wearing trail running shorts, running shoes and a running water backpack. AKA, nothing of real use.
“PCT OPEN?” they asked. Friend and I looked at each other, looked at them, tried not to laugh and explained. We are 5 miles from the PCT and 2000 feet lower in elevation, what are you trying to do? They planned on doing a 20 mile run along the pct starting on the other side of the mountains but got side tracked due to snow. Again we explain that they are done for. I tell them that there is a road with cell service 6 miles downhill along our tracks and if need be we can hike them out. They refused and asked if the PCT was open again. I flat out told them “Let me hike you out” they were like “nah, weve got this” and ran off in the wrong direction.
We camped there for the night and followed their tracks for a half mile the next morning. They disappeared, no signs of them. After a few stormy days and failed summit attempts we hiked out. I drove around to the parking area they mentioned and looked through the wilderness permit tags to try to find a name. Nothing.
It gets weird though. A few years later, my parents ran into the same nondescript people in the same area again asking about a trail loop, same conditions. Late winter, snowshoeing far from a road and they were lost. My dad also tried to hike them out but they denied and took off in the wrong direction. He followed their tracks for a half mile before he lost them.
So if anyone sees the ghosts of the oregon cascades, let me know.
#31
My wife and I were hiking on a remote trail. I had to pee, so I stepped behind an evergreen and started to do my business.
A ~60 year old woman came out of nowhere, dropped her pants and peed. Right next to me. As in my junk was ~30” from her face.
We strangely watched each other pee while chatting about the hike.
My wife saw this go down. 10 years later and she can’t bring it up without giggling.
#32
Wasn't technically hiking, but I think this fits. Once used a tree as a bridge over a little gap while I was exploring the woods behind my school. Didn't realize it was rotten until I was about halfway across, and the thing gave out from under me. I reached the botton (only about 10 feet, so no major injuries), looked up, and a few feet away from me was a deer carcass staring straight at me. It was like in a movie. Scared the heck out of me.
#33
This is more camping after a day of hiking but my husband and I decided to set up in a campground where no one else was. The gate to the area was open but weirdly deserted. We may have been too early in to the season (March) and we guessed the gate was accidentally left open but decided why not, enjoy some peace and quiet in a usually full campground. During the night we were woken up by noises and saw 2 trucks with their headlights on pulling in to the camp and people jumping out of the beds with flashlights. We were scared these people were going to find and hurt us. Probably sounds silly but we weren’t sure what these peoples intentions were. Sometimes humans are scarier than nature..after they looked around for a bit they got back in the trucks and left. Didn’t spot our tent in the trees towards the back of the camp but we were ready to go after that. They could’ve just been checking out the campground if they wanted to stay there but the vibe felt really creepy like they were looking for something.
#34
When I was a teenager we went away for a week of camping at the scout reserve. My dad was our scout master and we were mostly all friends from growing up. There was one kid Andre, the youngest, that we didn’t really know well and was definitely kind of weird - withdrawn and awkward, just kinda different, but still a sweet guy that everyone liked. Toward the end of the week we went out on an overnight, just the scouts without my dad or his buddy who was our other scouter. We took a boat across the lake and then hiked for hours into the bush. It was a really hot day and my older brother was leading us but not drinking any water and wearing a light jacket which made him extra hot. Eventually we found a sweet spot next to a huge cliff which we jumped off into the lake below for hours until we made a fire and cooked dinner. Eventually we all fell asleep under the stars.
Around 4:30am, just before sunrise, my friend Sean woke me up and asked if I knew where Andre was. I said no and that maybe he went to pee, but after 5 minutes he wasn’t back so we got up and started looking around and calling his name. Nothing. So we ranged a little further and then I saw his sleeping bag at the edge of the cliff. I freaked out and ran over to see if I could see anything at the bottom, but I saw nothing. We tried to get my brother up but he was pretty sick from heatstroke so I took charge of the situation. We started ranging out into the woods and calling his name. One fo the guy started doing the emergency whistle call, three short whistles - but we were really in the middle of nowhere. I started going deeper into the woods calling his name. Then I thought I heard something. I stopped and listened and heard a faint cry deep in the woods. So I started running, crashing through thick undergrowth, getting lashed in the face with branches and stumbling across fallen logs. His cries got louder and eventually I arrived to this huge clearing in the woods to find him sitting on a fallen tree, in his underwear and a tshirt. He said he’d been there for hours, having woken up on the ground in the dark and having no idea where he was so he just sat it out, waiting for dawn. It was really spooky. The craziest thing was that his watch had been reset so he didn’t know what time it actually was.
We all accepted that it was probably sleep walking, but he was so far in the woods and didn’t have a scratch on him, and this clearing was so bizarre because it was big and round in the middle of these really dense woods. To this day I wonder what really happened….
#35
Not really f****d up but scared the fuuuck outta me...
One time a buddy and I were camping around Diamond Lake in Oregon. I can't remember the exact name of the site but it was around that area.
This was the off season and we were the only ones camping around this lake area. It was pitch black out there with he exception of our camp fire. So around 1 in the morning we were just chillin.
The area we were at had a hill just above us with a lot of trees and bushes on it. We're sitting there and we start hearing a cracking sound then a HUGE CRASH and something sounding like it's rolling and then another huge smash!
We get the flashlight on looking up the hill and all we can see is dust and debris falling down. Were totally freaked out. We didn't know what happened. But we decided to go to bed.
Well the next morning when we woke up we notice a gigantic old tree that had fallen and started rolling down the hill. You could see where it broke off up the hill and rolled all the way down breaking smaller trees along the way.
It was probably 30 feet tall and was big and chonky. It was only stopped by 3 other trees that held it back up the hill. It would've rolled RIGHT through our campsite if the other trees hadn't stopped it!
I was freaked out the night before but seeing it in the light of day was way more terrifying.
#36
Me and a friend were hiking in the mountains and heard what sounded like a hose bib running. We were deep in the mountains so there should not be water running. We tracked the sound to a large depression in the side of a hill and looked in and there was a mass of rattlesnakes mating. The mass was HUGE and there had to be at least a hundred of them all intertwined.
Apparently that’s how they mate. Massive snake orgies.
Edit. Hose bib= spigot= faucet= silcock. It’s where you connect the hose to the outdoor water supply. Different names for the same thing across the country.
#37
This was two decades ago. They used to do donkey tours in the Grand Canyon. You ride the donkey and then hike. You can camp, but we did the day tour. A woman that was probably in her late 60's/Early 70's was in front of me and on an incline started to act strange. She was swaying left and right as on a steep cliff(which was very safe and wide). It swayed back and forth for maybe a minute and she was slumped over and then boom, it looked like she passed out and pulled the donkey to the left and fell over the cliff. I saw her tumble over and then they were just gone. I cant remember how far down the fall was, but it had to be over 100ft. Immediately the guide jumped off at the front ran over and let out and audible scream before stopping after realizing she had a tour with her. A few people got off their donkey and she stopped them from peering over. A few of the other guides looked over and they made some radio calls and then we proceeded. It was very obvious that something really serious had happened, but we never found out. I'm pretty sure I watched a woman and a donkey fall to their demise in the grand canyon.
#38
This summer i was hiking near old forge ny, and came about 30 ft of a 250-300 lb male black bear , i didnt realize there was an open dumpster nearby. Anyway he seemed pretty interested in me and started to stand up so i quickly backed away. Made my heartstop.
#39
I was camping up in Heber, Arizona with my brothers and my dad. I was 15 or so at the time and we were deep in the woods, far from most other camps.
Me and my brothers had our own tent whilst my dad had a separate one not far off. He likes to give us our privacy while we were camping. We would usually run around a bit at night before going to bed, entering our camp to sleep at about 11:00pm.
One night we were playing hide and seek when we heard a branch snap a few yards from us. We assumed it was an Elk or something since they were pretty common in our area. We would typically go to our tent if we saw one in hopes of not agitating it.
So that’s what we did. I called for my youngest brother who was still hiding and he revealed himself to be hiding behind a branch pile not super far from where the noise originated.
We went to the tent and I decided since it was already pretty late that we should just go to sleep. The next morning I went to check the spot for Elk prints since I found them pretty fascinating.
Instead, I found large cat prints. I knew they were cat prints because they had the four toe pads and the large center pad as well as no claw marks. I was honestly kind of excited.
I had always wanted to see a Mountain Lion or a Bobcat in the wild but it never happened. Knowing that I was that close to either one was very thrilling. It then occurred to me that my youngest brother was hiding, separated from us scarily close to the paw prints location.
It occurred to me that if that was a hungry Mountain Lion and it had taken notice of my 6 year old brother hiding alone it could have possibly taken the chance.
We stopped doing hide and seek at night to avoid those types of situations and we actually set up a roll call system to ensure everyone was together at night.
Now I know a Mountain Lion likely wouldn’t have done anything had it seen him but still, the risk felt very real and I worry that had I not heard it I could have lost my brother.
EDIT: I’m glad my most upvoted post is about an animal that was apparently stalking my brother. That’s something I’ll forever have on my mind.
#40
Me and my family were once on a night walk at the sea, when suddenly some strange lights emerged from it. My brother and I were 12 and 10 and were scared as hell and my mother was also freaking out. So we steadily increased our pace until we were running.
When we were back at our cabin again we were speculating about all sorts of things: aliens, fish people, the thing from the swamp…
The next days, the locals told my mom, that this were some night fishers with their lamps. So this was the very anticlimactic end for my supernatural experience.
#41
Someone had pinned a Snickers candy bar wrapper to a tree using hypodermic needles, about 4 needles were used to do this.
#42
This didn’t happen to me but happened to my friends family/father and tbh should be made written down in a memoir somewhere.
So they were hiking in a pretty remote area (I feel like it was Alaska but I could be wrong) and were staying at a camp with some pretty basic cabins. My friend is like 7 or 8 at the time.
It’s the middle of the night and the campsite of a few cabins are woken up to someone calling for help. Into one of the cabins comes a teenager carrying his bloodied and mangled younger brother in his arms. They had been out in the absolute torrential deluge by themselves when a rock slide happened and a soccer ball sized Boulder fell down the mountain and hit his younger brother in the face. His face was basically a bag of bones, he was seizing and fading in and out of consciousness, and his brother carried him literal miles back to try and find help.
Extremely lucky for them that my friends father is a ENT reconstructive surgeon with a fellowship in facial plastics.
So basically this absolute chad of a surgeon (which you would never guess if you met him) set about trying to save this kids life. The kid is essentially hours from dying if he didn’t get emergency surgery. Mind you there’s a monumental storm happening outside, they are in the middle of nowhere, and it’s the middle of the night so there’s no way they can try to helicopter the kid out until later the next day at the earliest.
They gather some kitchen knives, a sewing kit, and a cordless drill and this dude proceeds to put the kid back together on a kitchen island. My friends mom (who is not good with blood) is assisting him as he sutures and stabilizes him to stop the bleeding but he keeps on seizing and slipping into a coma and it becomes evident that he has major intracranial swelling. My dude does a craniotomy in a backwoods kitchen with a cordless drill.
Just absolutely nuts. The kid survived. They suffered some deficits but understood what had happened to them and that they would almost definitely have died. From what I gathered is they lead a relatively normal life but unfortunately succumbed to a seizure some time later.
Just absolutely mental. I cannot imagine how messed up it was.
#43
My uncle's a trucker. He was once going up the mountains in south Queensland and had to stop on the side of the road to take a leak. This was around 11pm at night. It was quiet except for the occasional other car passing. Oh, and the giant thumping noise coming from the trees. Emus don't go up that high, and if it was a kangaroo, it would have run off before being heard, same as a wallaby. Cassowaries don't go that far south, so it was either a very fat mountain goat, or our version of bigfoot. these are my uncles words, not mine.
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