Creepy experiences in the backcountry

[jaredg]

They are not my stories, but they were told to me by one of the participants. Believe them or not, I was just trying to keep this awesome thread alive.

Anyone who thinks I like creative writing should see how many bullshit posts I have made.

But yeh, I probably would have done things differently. Next time I talk to him I'll ask him a few of these "why didn't you guys....) questions.

 

[jaredg]

Funny thing is, when he was telling me the stories I was enthralled. While I was writing them I had a few of the same questions myself...

 

[CorbLand]

Funny thing is, when he was telling me the stories I was enthralled. While I was writing them I had a few of the same questions myself...

My step grandpa had that ability. He could tell a story and you would be all into it and a couple days later you would be like “wait a second?”

 

[Nickofthewoods]

Neither of those stories are particularly believable, but they are both creepy. What do you want from the guy? Definitive evidence of Bigfoot in a forum post? When someone tells a campfire story you just gotta eat your marshmallow and take it at face value. Its more fun that way.

 

[TheACGuy]

Following

 

[Montucky]

I’ve been following this thread since I joined almost 2yrs ago, we’re getting close to spring bear season so I’m gonna share my creepiest backcountry experience thus far……

2009 Backpack archery elk hunt , early September NW MT. My buddy & I were packed in like 7 miles. Saw a ton of black bear tracks on muddy trail hiking in, bear spore everywhere! Hunted elk for 3 days & broke camp to return home. We’re hoofing it downhill on main trail spread probably 10ft apart. Temperature is 70 degrees & blue sky slight breeze. We are moving through extremely thick timber with probably 40yd visibility. We both instantly stopped in our tracks the second the smell hit our nostrils…..something was dead & rotting fairly close to our vicinity. Immediately sparks our interest so we dump packs & begin investigating the crime scene. Get probably 30ft off the trail & find the kill site. It’s probably a 10ft circle of vegetation that is uprooted from an obvious sign of struggle,battle, & death. Dried blood everywhere in soil & vegetation. On the far end if this 10ft radius of death is a very distinct trail of something obviously being dragged to a different location deeper into the timber. With hands on our sidearms we follow this drag trail for probably 80 yards. Continuing down the swath of blood over every downfall tree & jagged branch in the way there are clumps of blood soaked black hair everywhere. 80 yards later with neck hair at full erection we arrive to a 3ft tall mound of soil & debris. Half way up from the heeping mound is a black bear paw, claws still attached sticking straight out stiff as a board. Towards the front of the pile we then saw the head of the bear slightly burried but sticking out far enough to observe that the entire side of it’s face was ripped off down to raw fleshy face bone. There was honestly 5 piles of mounded Grizzly spore surrounding this cache. The smell was horrible but the scene was haunting! We both agreed that it was time to GTFO immediately! I took a picture with my old droid phone so it’s on a hard drive somewhere in gun safe. I’ve killed a a few bears & I would say this black bear was probably a 5 footer…..

It was that day that I first hand experienced the absolute brute force that a Grizzly Bear is capable of executing. We never saw him, glad we didn’t. I know he was there & I know we shouldn’t have been there, but all parties walked away unharmed. That scenerio will forever be implanted in my memory as the Creepiest Backcountry Experience

 

[Lionhound1975]

I had two eerie experiences out in the bush while working in Colombia and Africa. I was not hunting either time, but it was definitely wilderness, so I guess that qualifies for this thread. When we lived in Bogota, Colombia, I traveled to the Amazon on several occasions for work. On one occasion I took the family to the river town of Leticia which is on the Amazon River where Colombia, Peru, and Brazil all meet. (Leticia was one of the safest towns in Colombia since it is so far from anything even the FARC and ELN guerrillas didn't have much of a presence in the area). Leticia is kind of a frontier town like I imagine St. Louis was in the 1830s. Within 3-4 hours by boat from Leticia you still have tribes in the Javari Valley that have had none to very limited contact with the outside world. Men from the Ticuna, Huitoto, and Yagua tribes come into town to trade, sell skins on the black market, etc. There are some men who are both fluent in Spanish/Portuguese and the many indian languages of the area and they act as a go between and often travel for weeks into the forest to trade.

One one trip we took a boat up river about 2 hours to Puerto Narino and I found a Ticuna indian (since the area north and west of there is Ticuna land) with a canoe with an outbound motor who agreed to take us north on the little tributaries and fish, do birding, etc. He told us about a tree that kills other trees so we decided to go check that out and see if it was real. There were certain areas of the forest that he was very leery about and said that we could not stop as there were evil spirits in that part of the forest. The Ticuna we talked with also described a lot of animals that are not recognized by science and were not in any of the field guide books I have. It was interesting because they didn't exaggerate these animals as being special or unique. For example, when I asked about what cats there were, they described a jaguar, puma, ocelot, margay, and a cat about the size of a puma but with much longer canine teeth that the rest. Both Ticuna I talked with spoke about this cat just as matter of fact they did about a jaguar, peccary, snakes, etc. without sounding excited or trying to get me interested.

On the same trip, we also spent some time with a Huitoto guide in the area due north of Leticia. We got to a small village where they had just killed a jaguar that had attacked a hunter. The Huitoto also believe in a lot of the same animals that the Ticuna guy told me about but they are adamant about being out of certain areas by dark when they believe El Dueno de La Selva (Lord of the Forest) walks around. They described it as a dwarf-like being that has feet pointing backwards and can imitate any voice. They give a small offering anytime they hunt to pay safe passage in order to hunt and kill an animal. This being will often lure children out into the forest by imitating the voices of their parents telling the child to go deeper and deeper into the forest until they are lost and even their best trackers would lose the kid's sign at a certain point, as if the tracks suddenly disappeared and there were only a set of human like tracks that appeared to be walking backwards.

I know that a lot of indigenous tribes are very superstitious and believe in things that we think are strange (just like they think some of the stuff we believe is crazy) but it was interesting to see experienced hunters that had just killed a jaguar with spears be absolutely terrified about a small dwarf-like creature that lures children away to their deaths. But there were a few times out there when the hair on your arms would stand up and you would feel that you were being watched. Most of the area is triple canopy so it is fairly dark even during the day and your eyes get tired and play tricks. Sometimes it would look like there was a man up ahead but when you got there it was some twisted vines. GPS didn't work because of the canopy and all the creeks look the same except where there is occasionally a fallen log to cross over on. But it was weird because that haunting feeling only occurred at certain times even though the entire trip was in similar terrain and vegetation. We also saw jaguar prints on top of our tracks that we had left 2 hours before. So I know there were lots of sets of eyes watching us. But that didn't phase the Huitoto we were with, it was that other thing that they feared.

 

[Mojave Kid]

Great story Lion Hound. I have been/worked in Venezuela -Colombia-Ecuador and Bolivia and the country folks especially the indians believe in Duendes in the highlands of the Andes. Duendes are described as hairy evil like trolls and I know someone very close to me who as a kid saw one starring at him through the window at his family farm at night. In Bolivia, the miners claim that Duendes inhabit the interior of the mines.

 

[gabenzeke]

I had two eerie experiences out in the bush while working in Colombia and Africa. I was not hunting either time, but it was definitely wilderness, so I guess that qualifies for this thread. When we lived in Bogota, Colombia, I traveled to the Amazon on several occasions for work. On one occasion I took the family to the river town of Leticia which is on the Amazon River where Colombia, Peru, and Brazil all meet. (Leticia was one of the safest towns in Colombia since it is so far from anything even the FARC and ELN guerrillas didn't have much of a presence in the area). Leticia is kind of a frontier town like I imagine St. Louis was in the 1830s. Within 3-4 hours by boat from Leticia you still have tribes in the Javari Valley that have had none to very limited contact with the outside world. Men from the Ticuna, Huitoto, and Yagua tribes come into town to trade, sell skins on the black market, etc. There are some men who are both fluent in Spanish/Portuguese and the many indian languages of the area and they act as a go between and often travel for weeks into the forest to trade.

One one trip we took a boat up river about 2 hours to Puerto Narino and I found a Ticuna indian (since the area north and west of there is Ticuna land) with a canoe with an outbound motor who agreed to take us north on the little tributaries and fish, do birding, etc. He told us about a tree that kills other trees so we decided to go check that out and see if it was real. There were certain areas of the forest that he was very leery about and said that we could not stop as there were evil spirits in that part of the forest. The Ticuna we talked with also described a lot of animals that are not recognized by science and were not in any of the field guide books I have. It was interesting because they didn't exaggerate these animals as being special or unique. For example, when I asked about what cats there were, they described a jaguar, puma, ocelot, margay, and a cat about the size of a puma but with much longer canine teeth that the rest. Both Ticuna I talked with spoke about this cat just as matter of fact they did about a jaguar, peccary, snakes, etc. without sounding excited or trying to get me interested.

On the same trip, we also spent some time with a Huitoto guide in the area due north of Leticia. We got to a small village where they had just killed a jaguar that had attacked a hunter. The Huitoto also believe in a lot of the same animals that the Ticuna guy told me about but they are adamant about being out of certain areas by dark when they believe El Dueno de La Selva (Lord of the Forest) walks around. They described it as a dwarf-like being that has feet pointing backwards and can imitate any voice. They give a small offering anytime they hunt to pay safe passage in order to hunt and kill an animal. This being will often lure children out into the forest by imitating the voices of their parents telling the child to go deeper and deeper into the forest until they are lost and even their best trackers would lose the kid's sign at a certain point, as if the tracks suddenly disappeared and there were only a set of human like tracks that appeared to be walking backwards.

I know that a lot of indigenous tribes are very superstitious and believe in things that we think are strange (just like they think some of the stuff we believe is crazy) but it was interesting to see experienced hunters that had just killed a jaguar with spears be absolutely terrified about a small dwarf-like creature that lures children away to their deaths. But there were a few times out there when the hair on your arms would stand up and you would feel that you were being watched. Most of the area is triple canopy so it is fairly dark even during the day and your eyes get tired and play tricks. Sometimes it would look like there was a man up ahead but when you got there it was some twisted vines. GPS didn't work because of the canopy and all the creeks look the same except where there is occasionally a fallen log to cross over on. But it was weird because that haunting feeling only occurred at certain times even though the entire trip was in similar terrain and vegetation. We also saw jaguar prints on top of our tracks that we had left 2 hours before. So I know there were lots of sets of eyes watching us. But that didn't phase the Huitoto we were with, it was that other thing that they feared.

One of the best posts in this thread. Very cool.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

 

[Magua]

Colombia, Nice ^ Ive been on fishing and hunting trips in the Amazon and its a very wild and powerful place. Spent some time going deep into the other world with shamans before a hunt, having Rape' blown through a snuff cane into my nose to induce a vision quest.... talking with animal spirits that I was later hunting. Lots of strange creatures and supernatural forces in that jungle.

My most erie story was actually in Northern California. I was setting up camp one evening in the summer on a remote logging trail. It was hot and muggy so I decided to walk down to a stream wearing nothing but a towel and go for a dip to cool off.

on my way back to camp as I was walking up the trail I saw what looked at first like a doe walking towards me. I stopped and watched it getting closer to and as it came into focus I noticed a big circular head and thick black tail that swung to the side.... "OH SH*t" I said out loud as I realized it was a mountain lion, and a big one. Just then It looked up at me and we stared at each other for a moment. I raised my hands up to try and look bigger, realizing I had no weapon and was half naked. The cat looked at me and in one hop jumped into the scrub oak. I made some noise, collected myself, and continued on back to camp after waiting a few minutes.

I got back to my camp about an hour later and the sun had gone down. I was lighting my camp stove to cook dinner. I turned on my headlamp and kind of stared at the ground, thinking about what had happened earlier. I even thought it was kind of cool to be able to see such an elusive animal. It was at that moment I felt a chill go up my back ... some primal instinct from deep in my brain was telling me something was very wrong. I turned around and looked into the tree above me. About 15 feet away was the shadowy figure of that same circular head I saw earlier. The eyes were locked on to me and glowed bright yellow. The cat knew I saw it and crouched into a pouncing position. I felt absolute terror, and I was now being hunted. This cat had been stalking and watching me the entire time, deciding when to make its move.

In one leap I made it into the back of my pickup truck and slammed the topper down. I could have won an olympic medal for the distance I covered in that one move. It still gives me the shivers every time I think about it. The cat had me fair and square. One second later and it could have had the back of my neck in its mouth and it would have been over for me.

The eire part is that I was no longer a hunter, but was stalked for almost an hour without ever realizing it.

 

[505Wapiti]

Bumping a good thread…. Again.

 

[RufusB.Marion]

This might be a long one...

Was headed out early this past Saturday to enjoy the CO turkey opener. Planned on making a weekend out of it and was going to backpack in north of the Pouder river. As I was making my way down the winding road along the river, I saw a woman waving her arms frantically running down the side of the road.

To preface, there was an absolute lack of cell service, total dead spot, and it was pitch black - 4:15 am.

As I pull up alongside the woman and roll down my window I can see the blood on her face and what looked like a broken nose.

She starts screaming that her boyfriend is trying to kill her and she needs help getting away now. I make a panicked snap judgement and let her in the truck.

As we pull off and I look for a spot to turn around and head back into town she starts screaming again and points at a car sitting on the side of the road, "thats my boyfriend, you have to get me away from him". So I rip a Uturn and speed back into town.

He follows me for a mile or so, not like aggressively, just following behind. I reach a light that is red and just run that ******. He stays behind at the light.

She tells me that i can take her back to the hotel she was staying at, but I ask if her boyfriend knew that she was staying there, which she said yes, so obviously I can't take her there. I ask if she has any family in the area and it turns out her grandparents were about an hour away, which was no problem given the situation.

The next hour as we drive she details 3 years of absolute horror with this guy. Now I am 25 and have no children but it was bringing me to tears hearing what was done to her.

At the end we get to her grandparents house and her brother came out. Shook hands and told him what I saw, seemed that he was ready to murder the guy. Felt comfortable leaving her and went on my way.

Never know what you will run into away from the city before dawn...

 

[Clarkdale17]

Not necessarily creepy but rather one of those moments where the reality that you're not the baddest thing walking around the woods sinks in.

I was hunting solo in a high pressure otc unit four years ago. First time elk hunting and first time hunting the West. It was early September and I had been into elk the two days I had been hunting. I was sitting in a clearing around 5pm waiting for it to get closer to dusk and licking my wounds from earlier that day. I had blown an opportunity at a bull earlier cold calling. Grew impatient 20 minutes into the setup and got up to move and sure enough 30 yards away over a knoll was a bull that promptly got out of town. So there I was sulking in a clearing and decided to fix myself a snack to cheer myself up.

In typical poor early 20's fashion most of my meals and snacks were ramen noodles cooked in a ziplock bag. Halfway through boiling water for the ramen I start hearing cow calls. Great I thought some hunters came and set up near me worsening my mood. To my disbelief two cows and a calf stepped out of the woods less than 100 yards from me with a wooded draw in between us. I quickly shut off the stove and figured I could head down that draw and come out close enough to get a shot at one of them.

I started sneaking down the draw and about halfway there decided to stop and throw a few cow calls their way and see if I could get them to come up to me. The cows came to the wooded edge, but wouldn't come up to me and eventually lost interest and began feeding again so I decided I'd press on and see if I could get a shot as they were just over a knoll about 50 yards away. I started creeping along again when all the sudden the brush 10 ft in front of me exploded and a huge mountain lion went sprinting past me.

I can still vividly picture the muscle definition in the lions rear quarters and the thickness of its tail as it bounded away from me. I stood there in absolute shock and disbelief of what I had just seen and witnessed for a few minutes. Once I pulled myself together I proceeded 30 yards and ended up shooting my first elk. Due to work commitments I had to begin packing right away so ended up packing her out around midnight right back through where I had jumped the lion hours before.

If that experience didn't hook me for life I don't know what will. I now carry a pistol with me whenever I'm in the woods. I'm fairly confident that lion was stalking the young calf and was oblivious to me sneaking along until I began cow calling just feet away from it and it couldn't see me but that's just speculation.

 

[Rokbar]

I had two eerie experiences out in the bush while working in Colombia and Africa. I was not hunting either time, but it was definitely wilderness, so I guess that qualifies for this thread. When we lived in Bogota, Colombia, I traveled to the Amazon on several occasions for work. On one occasion I took the family to the river town of Leticia which is on the Amazon River where Colombia, Peru, and Brazil all meet. (Leticia was one of the safest towns in Colombia since it is so far from anything even the FARC and ELN guerrillas didn't have much of a presence in the area). Leticia is kind of a frontier town like I imagine St. Louis was in the 1830s. Within 3-4 hours by boat from Leticia you still have tribes in the Javari Valley that have had none to very limited contact with the outside world. Men from the Ticuna, Huitoto, and Yagua tribes come into town to trade, sell skins on the black market, etc. There are some men who are both fluent in Spanish/Portuguese and the many indian languages of the area and they act as a go between and often travel for weeks into the forest to trade.

One one trip we took a boat up river about 2 hours to Puerto Narino and I found a Ticuna indian (since the area north and west of there is Ticuna land) with a canoe with an outbound motor who agreed to take us north on the little tributaries and fish, do birding, etc. He told us about a tree that kills other trees so we decided to go check that out and see if it was real. There were certain areas of the forest that he was very leery about and said that we could not stop as there were evil spirits in that part of the forest. The Ticuna we talked with also described a lot of animals that are not recognized by science and were not in any of the field guide books I have. It was interesting because they didn't exaggerate these animals as being special or unique. For example, when I asked about what cats there were, they described a jaguar, puma, ocelot, margay, and a cat about the size of a puma but with much longer canine teeth that the rest. Both Ticuna I talked with spoke about this cat just as matter of fact they did about a jaguar, peccary, snakes, etc. without sounding excited or trying to get me interested.

On the same trip, we also spent some time with a Huitoto guide in the area due north of Leticia. We got to a small village where they had just killed a jaguar that had attacked a hunter. The Huitoto also believe in a lot of the same animals that the Ticuna guy told me about but they are adamant about being out of certain areas by dark when they believe El Dueno de La Selva (Lord of the Forest) walks around. They described it as a dwarf-like being that has feet pointing backwards and can imitate any voice. They give a small offering anytime they hunt to pay safe passage in order to hunt and kill an animal. This being will often lure children out into the forest by imitating the voices of their parents telling the child to go deeper and deeper into the forest until they are lost and even their best trackers would lose the kid's sign at a certain point, as if the tracks suddenly disappeared and there were only a set of human like tracks that appeared to be walking backwards.

I know that a lot of indigenous tribes are very superstitious and believe in things that we think are strange (just like they think some of the stuff we believe is crazy) but it was interesting to see experienced hunters that had just killed a jaguar with spears be absolutely terrified about a small dwarf-like creature that lures children away to their deaths. But there were a few times out there when the hair on your arms would stand up and you would feel that you were being watched. Most of the area is triple canopy so it is fairly dark even during the day and your eyes get tired and play tricks. Sometimes it would look like there was a man up ahead but when you got there it was some twisted vines. GPS didn't work because of the canopy and all the creeks look the same except where there is occasionally a fallen log to cross over on. But it was weird because that haunting feeling only occurred at certain times even though the entire trip was in similar terrain and vegetation. We also saw jaguar prints on top of our tracks that we had left 2 hours before. So I know there were lots of sets of eyes watching us. But that didn't phase the Huitoto we were with, it was that other thing that they feared.

Great post. It wouldn't be interesting if sometime you could make a seperate post and tell more of the Amazon and some African stories??? Be interesting knowing what kind of work you do as well, if permitted to tell. Very good short story though, thanks for sharing.

 

[RMM]

Looking back this story isn't so much creepy as it is funny, but at the time I was scared to death. I was probably 13 or 14 years old and my dad was taking me out turkey hunting. We start hiking down a road in the dark and as we get up to a field I see movement probably 30 yards away. I say "Whats that?" my dad said "It looks like bears."

Well dont the bears decide to come up on the road and cross in front of us. I can see one or two in the field to my right at about 2 o'clock, one on the road in front of us and the other had already crossed into the thick brush to our left. I said "Holy shit dad they're surrounding us!" And turned to start running back to the vehicle. My dad starts laughing and he says "They're running away from us dumbass."

 

[Nickofthewoods]

This might be a long one...

Was headed out early this past Saturday to enjoy the CO turkey opener. Planned on making a weekend out of it and was going to backpack in north of the Pouder river. As I was making my way down the winding road along the river, I saw a woman waving her arms frantically running down the side of the road.

To preface, there was an absolute lack of cell service, total dead spot, and it was pitch black - 4:15 am.

As I pull up alongside the woman and roll down my window I can see the blood on her face and what looked like a broken nose.

She starts screaming that her boyfriend is trying to kill her and she needs help getting away now. I make a panicked snap judgement and let her in the truck.

As we pull off and I look for a spot to turn around and head back into town she starts screaming again and points at a car sitting on the side of the road, "thats my boyfriend, you have to get me away from him". So I rip a Uturn and speed back into town.

He follows me for a mile or so, not like aggressively, just following behind. I reach a light that is red and just run that ******. He stays behind at the light.

She tells me that i can take her back to the hotel she was staying at, but I ask if her boyfriend knew that she was staying there, which she said yes, so obviously I can't take her there. I ask if she has any family in the area and it turns out her grandparents were about an hour away, which was no problem given the situation.

The next hour as we drive she details 3 years of absolute horror with this guy. Now I am 25 and have no children but it was bringing me to tears hearing what was done to her.

At the end we get to her grandparents house and her brother came out. Shook hands and told him what I saw, seemed that he was ready to murder the guy. Felt comfortable leaving her and went on my way.

Never know what you will run into away from the city before dawn...

Interesting story! It does leave me with a few questions though. First, how would the boyfriend have known to follow you if he was in his vehicle farther along the road somewhere? She wanted you to take her to a motel she was staying at even though the guy was following you? Then to the grandparents house where you only saw her brother? I can't help but wonder if this was all staged in an attempt to rob you or whoever else came back to that area in the dark where there's no cell coverage but you didn't play along well enough so it didn't work.

Not saying you did anything wrong, you clearly have a good morals and went way out of your way to help somebody. The girl's actions and story are what I find odd about this story.

 

[Jstumbaugh]

Interesting story! It does leave me with a few questions though. First, how would the boyfriend have known to follow you if he was in his vehicle farther along the road somewhere? She wanted you to take her to a motel she was staying at even though the guy was following you? Then to the grandparents house where you only saw her brother? I can't help but wonder if this was all staged in an attempt to rob you or whoever else came back to that area in the dark where there's no cell coverage but you didn't play along well enough so it didn't work.

Not saying you did anything wrong, you clearly have a good morals and went way out of your way to help somebody. The girl's actions and story are what I find odd about this story.

I was thinking the same thing. That could have turned out much worse.

 

[scott85]

My cousin and I inherited some land and cabins from my grandfather a couple years ago. My grandfather was opposed to cutting any timber at all off the land. At my hunting cabin last spring with my buddy I were talking around the camp fire about plans that my cousin and I were planing to cut timber to improve habit for wildlife.
When we go back in to my cabin for the night all the lights completely turn off and turn back on. I don’t think much about it since the wiring in the cabin is old or something fell on the power line. Sleeping arrangements isn’t much; we just use cots. I think it was around 0200 and I’m being shaken violently awake, but my arms are in my sleeping bag and I can’t move them and they feel like they are being held down. Of course I come wide awake in a second and my buddy is still fast asleep on his cot snoring away. I didn’t feel scared because I knew “who” it was.
The following trail cam picture is unrelated but was taken on my land at an old cabin site.

 

[RufusB.Marion]

Interesting story! It does leave me with a few questions though. First, how would the boyfriend have known to follow you if he was in his vehicle farther along the road somewhere? She wanted you to take her to a motel she was staying at even though the guy was following you? Then to the grandparents house where you only saw her brother? I can't help but wonder if this was all staged in an attempt to rob you or whoever else came back to that area in the dark where there's no cell coverage but you didn't play along well enough so it didn't work.

Not saying you did anything wrong, you clearly have a good morals and went way out of your way to help somebody. The girl's actions and story are what I find odd about this story.

Yeah I'm not saying he was following following me, could have easily been coincidence, and that was only for the first few miles before I ran the red light.

As for the robbery I was freaking out about that initially, once I saw her face, and listened to her story I knew it was just a tragic situation that I stumbled upon. I spoke with the brother for a moment and to me it all seemed legitimate, she had also said she thought he would be staying there. Shook his hand and everything, if they were going to rob me it would have been a piece of cake at that point haha.

I think she was also in extreme shock, coupled with what seemed like definite battered women syndrome. So she definitely was not making much sense. I was just trying to get her somewhere safe and family sounded like the best place to me.

 

[RufusB.Marion]

I was thinking the same thing. That could have turned out much worse.

Totally agree. However, that morning I was headed into thick bear and cat country planning on making prey noises, so I was carrying a sidearm as well as my 12 gauge and I think that played a part in feeling comfortable stopping. In hindsight, was probably not the best decision to stop, but all in all glad I did.