Creepy experiences in the backcountry

[Bratch]

This did not happen in the backcountry, but might be the spookiest thing that happened in my life. I was in college sitting on a plane next to my mom. We were getting ready to take off and for some reason I can’t explain I had taken a pen and was coloring in the left eye of someone in my magazine. All of the sudden my mom said she had started to sweat and didn’t feel well. I looked over and a blood vessel in her left eye had broken making the white part of her eye completely red.

I had gi burn on my eye from BJJ that busted a blood vessel and had my eye all red and bloody like yours moms. I work at a Fortune 500 company and for about a week I’d be in meetings and someone would notice my bloody eye and I could see the look of shock and disgust on their face.

 

[rclouse79]

I had gi burn on my eye from BJJ that busted a blood vessel and had my eye all red and bloody like yours moms. I work at a Fortune 500 company and for about a week I’d be in meetings and someone would notice my bloody eye and I could see the look of shock and disgust on their face.

It was not a pretty sight. I have not thought about that for a long time, but it still gives me the chills.

 

[BzoneBryan]

I had a scary experience in the woods I'll share. It wasn't creepy or spooky, but it definitely got my adrenaline flowing. My then-wife and I were camping with our 9 month baby out in the Mendocino National Forest (California) at Howard Meadows near Howard Lake. The first night we camped there was another group at the choice campsite so we took another that had shade. We sent our tent up on a nice flat that happened to have a game trail going through it. That night I woke up to the sound of footsteps in the night. Whatever it was had some weight to it, so I was listening with interest. All of a sudden whatever it was decided to go for it, and bolted right by the tent at a gallop. I sat and laughed realizing that we blocked some large deer's path (it sounded like it could have been an Elk, but I don't think there were any of those around there then).

The next day the other group left and so we picked up our tent and moved to the choice site for our second night. We had a nice time that evening and I put down enough beers to sleep soundly, apparently. In the middle of the night my wife wakes me up and says "there's something barking outside the tent." I didn't think much of it and told her it was probably coyotes howling at the moon. I was just about back to sleep when I heard the sound of an animal that had to be right outside the tent. It was sort of a barking sound, but my immediate thought was "Cat!" I had never heard a cat make a sound like that, but I was sure there was a mountain lion right outside our tent. I immediately sat up wide awake, grabbed my hunting knife and mag light and prepared for a claw to come through the wall of the tent, while cussing myself for leaving my pistol home. I sat there and listened intently for a few minutes and didn't hear a sound except the blood pumping in my ears. I was convinced that the cat, or whatever it was, hadn't moved off or I would have heard it. So I shined the light through the screened top portion of the dome tent all around, but didn't see anything. So then I unzipped the door and stuck my head out (maybe not the best decision) and shined the light to look around. Just as I shined the light towards the road that led to the lake I saw the hind end and long tail of a mountain lion going over a little rise in the road on its way to the lake. I don't think I slept much the rest of the night.

The next morning we heard the same barking cat sound down at the lake and some splashing and the ducks making a ruckus. I figured it was trying to catch a duck. It was weird lion behavior. It was the smallest of the five lions I've seen in person, and my impression at the time was that it was perhaps a young lion whose momma had just given it the boot. It didn't seem like it really knew what it was doing.

 

[BzoneBryan]

Another scary moment I had at that same lake was when I was in junior high and deer hunting with my brother. My dad had dropped us off and we planned to hunt our way to another location where he would pick us up. We got half the way to the lake when some dude started shooting down at the lake. Like, a lot. When we were able to get a look, we saw that he was shooting at what looked like paper plates about ten to fifteen from the shore. We got to the other side of the lake and the shooting stopped. My brother decided to hide in a bush and scope him to see what he was doing (I now realize this was a bad idea). My brother said "he's loading his gun", and then says "he's pointing it at us". Just then I saw a splash in the middle of the lake near some ducks and shortly after I heard the bullet pass through the trees over our head. It seemed like it was only ten feet over our heads, but I don't know. The bullets were skipping off the water and continuing toward us. That guy got a few more shots off that crashed through the trees all around us before he heard us yelling at him. He could have killed us. My brother tried to chase him down and I was really worried what he would do if he caught him. When we caught up to him he was 50 yards up a steep hill from us apologizing profusely. My brother cussed him out pretty good, which was a good outcome, considering we were all armed and my brother was a hot head.

So there you go, once again the two-legged animals in the woods proved to be the most dangerous.

 

[Yarak]

One more but not a spooky one
Back in February I was running a trapline and the president of the lease I hunt wanted to tag along
He's a great guy and pastors a church in town so I saw no problem with him riding the line with me
We were having a great morning having caught several Yotes and numerous coons and a bobcat
As we approached the end of the line where I one DP set up I noticed the trap was gone and the ground was tore up all around where the trap had been
we get out of the sxs and walk down there trying to figure out what happened to the trap
I always cable my DP's off to trees
We're standing where the trap was discussing what may have happened when I noticed some bark skinned off the tree the trap was anchored to
Well I look up and find myself nose to nose with a angry coon
The stream of words that came out of my mouth in front of preacher were less than holy but he got the point rather quickly that I meant to move and move NOW
We stumbled over each other crossing the creek to get away from that angry critter
I'd say the best part of the whole ordeal was not getting scolded for using foul language that a rarely ever do
We're still laughing about this as its very fresh in our minds and will probably laugh about in the years to come

 

[bgipson]

Had an experience a few years back that wasn't creepy to me (who knew what I was hearing) but it was for the rookie coworker hiking with me. We got off work at 6pm, drove a couple hours out to a trailhead and started hiking up the mountain in the pitch dark so we'd be in position to hopefully find a buck in the morning. As we're about a half mile in there's this long, low call followed by some grunts that starts coming from just below us on the hill. I see my buddy start looking around him nervous as hell cuz he has no idea what he's hearing and hasn't spent much time in the woods so hiking in the dark already has him on edge. He keeps walking but I know he's got visions of Sasquatch snagging him up running through his head with every step. I let him wallow in his discomfort for a minute more as we kept going and the sounds started coming up the hill towards us. About the time we hit the next switchback I finally asked if he knew what it was. He was slightly relieved I was hearing it too but said no. I chuckled at this point and told him it was just a cow moose I had seen in the headlights just before we parked. She had been wallowing around in a spring at the base of the hill munching on aquatic veg and must have got her fill because she was working back up the hill to darker timber. The rest of the hike was quiet and unfortunately we didn't turn up a buck on that trip.

 

[Blowdowner]

Since there is a hound story, I'll add to it:

About 15yrs ago I was running cats in January and there was a hard to get to block that if the river was frozen the cats and hounds would cross and end up in no man's land that was really tough to access if you didn't want to go swimming in January. I had been in this spot once before a couple years earlier and the chase broke up and I was able to call my dogs out, it was always pretty rare that they ended up crossing the river. They came running back out, one had a minor injury from what looked like a stick but I didn't think too much of it as they get beat up a little running through the brush.

Fast forward a few years later and I have a great race going but they went cross country like a bat out of hell and right to the river, I can tell they crossed into no mans land and I hike in to make sure. I look and the ice is really terrible so I can't follow. I give it about an hour and the dogs go out of hearing and are sort of circling one spot but not treeing. This goes on for another 30min or so and I decide I need to go in. I get to a hill and call friend who lives nearby to see if I can borrow his snowmobile to save me about 5mi of walking and time if something weird is going on, he says no problem so I grab the sled and go in coming from another direction that is an old logging road. I'm able to get within about 1/2mi of the dogs and get to hiking in closer to where the dogs are. As I snowshoe in I could tell one of my dogs ran to the snowmobile right away which is fine, I knew he would stay with the machine. I hike into the other two and they are running all over but not really doing anything but I see them covered in blood. I call them over and both dogs have single puncture wounds about as big as my finger and perfectly round, one dog has it in her chest and the other in the rear part of her ribcage. I call them over and we start hiking back to the snowmobile, I can hear my 3rd dog howling where the machine is parked. I get closer and I can see my male dog standing on the snowmobile seat and blood running out of his chest....he also has a perfectly round puncture. I get all three dogs to sit on the snowmobile and I ride out back to my truck. They are bleeding like crazy all over the machine and the front of my hunting coat and pants is also now soaked from having a dog riding on my lap. I get the snowmobile back to my buddy and he sees the dogs and is wondering what the hell happened and his snowmobile has blood everywhere. I give the dogs what antibiotics I have, plug the holes a little, and get them to the vet wondering if they have been shot or what the hell happened! The vet looks the dogs over and is clueless, just says they were obviously punctured with something, but whatever it was didn't break off inside or stay put and it was clean so something likely man made. I tell my buddy about it and that I'm really clueless but something weird went on back there. Drove me nuts, we got significant snow that night so it covered up most of their tracks but I was able to track where they went and found nothing obvious that they would have run into and no human tracks anywhere. There is however deep snow so there is a pretty deep trough where the cat and dogs ran & it would be easy for tracks to blend into that with fresh snow covering them.

Fast forward a year and a half later, my buddy who let me use his snowmobile is hunting bear in that same area with some friends. The bear crosses the river into no man's land and the dogs end up deep into the woods there in exactly the same area, circling all over but not treeing. They figure out a way to hike into the dogs, get in there and 6 bear dogs are running around with perfectly round puncture wounds bleeding everywhere. Take them to the vet, vet says no idea what happened, clean hole like somebody just ran up and speared them.

Bear with only one canine?

 

[Coldtrail]

Bear with only one canine?

Solid assessment, but wouldn't explain the winter event? Deer antler came to mind, but seemed like a stretch. Another component to this was that around the same time frame the Forest Service had a small wildfire back in that block that appeared to be caused by an escaped campfire, but no actual "campsite" remnants nearby.

 

[marcbateman]

Recently watched a movie available on Amazon Prime Video called Missing 411-The Hunted. It is about a series of unexplained missing hunter stories from different areas in the US. It was actually pretty good...and a little creepy. Based on a book from a series of missing person stories by investigative author Dave Paulides. He is a former police detective and has researched hundreds and hundreds of missing person cases in depth. I was googling each of the missing hunter stories as I was watching the movie and they are all bona fide unsolved cases. If you’re a twitchy person when it comes to stuff like this, I don’t recommend watching it until after your upcoming solo hunt...

Yikes

 

[4cMuley]

Following. Great thread!

 

[DrHogfan]

Slipped out after work for a quick bowhunt on a crispy October afternoon just after moving to the Ozarks. Climbed down at dark and made my way up to the ridge to walk out. I hear the most God awful guttural bellows coming up out of the holler. Sounded like 300 yards away at most. Being a man of reason I sat and went through the list of possibilities; cat-no, bear-no, hog-no, owl-no; the hair stood up on my back and I made my way quickly to the truck. After freaking the wife out by seeing how confused I was, we did our research. We looked up all sorts of animal noises, and after searching "big cat moaning" I come across a video of an African lion caroling on the Serengeti. I exclaimed "that's the sound I heard!" To which she replied "do mountain lions do that?" Of course, I didn't think so. After losing interest and just googling Arkansas mountain lions, a video pops up of a big cat preserve; and then it dawns on me, I pull up the cat preserve on the map, and of course, it was just under 2 miles from where I was hunting. I was in fact hearing African lions caroling after sundown. We've since gone to the preserve and watched them do this in person, and it is LOUD. Now I hear them all the time, and chuckle about the time I thought I would have to finally admit that all those guys on the Discovery Channel were right about bigfoot.


Just for reference here is a good example of what it sounds like. Imagine unexpectedly hearing this echo through the mountains.

 

[def90]

Solid assessment, but wouldn't explain the winter event? Deer antler came to mind, but seemed like a stretch. Another component to this was that around the same time frame the Forest Service had a small wildfire back in that block that appeared to be caused by an escaped campfire, but no actual "campsite" remnants nearby.

Bears are not true hibernators and will come out of their dens all the time in the winter. I've seen them in dumpsters in downtown Steamboat in the middle of January.

 

[49ereric]

Bears are not true hibernators and will come out of their dens all the time in the winter. I've seen them in dumpsters in downtown Steamboat in the middle of January.

They hibernate here and they don’t come out of the den here in northern MN until spring after the den gets water in it.

 

[def90]

They hibernate here and they don’t come out of the den here in northern MN until spring after the den gets water in it.

Bears are not true hibernators, they will wake and leave their den if they feel the need. The climate in Steamboat Springs is about the same as the northern 3rd of Minnesota. Steady below zero nights through January and February and snow that is measured in tens of feet. I've seen them out in the middle of January.

Do Bears Really Hibernate?

When we think about strategies animals use to survive the winter, we often picture birds flying south and bears hibernating in caves. However, not many animals truly hibernate, and bears are among those that do not. Bears enter a lighter state of sleep called torpor.

www.nationalforests.org

"The main difference between hibernation and torpor is during torpor, the animal is able to wake up quickly to avoid danger, or if the opportunity exists exit the den to feed."

 

[FlyGuy]

Slipped out after work for a quick bowhunt on a crispy October afternoon just after moving to the Ozarks. Climbed down at dark and made my way up to the ridge to walk out. I hear the most God awful guttural bellows coming up out of the holler. Sounded like 300 yards away at most. Being a man of reason I sat and went through the list of possibilities; cat-no, bear-no, hog-no, owl-no; the hair stood up on my back and I made my way quickly to the truck. After freaking the wife out by seeing how confused I was, we did our research. We looked up all sorts of animal noises, and after searching "big cat moaning" I come across a video of an African lion caroling on the Serengeti. I exclaimed "that's the sound I heard!" To which she replied "do mountain lions do that?" Of course, I didn't think so. After losing interest and just googling Arkansas mountain lions, a video pops up of a big cat preserve; and then it dawns on me, I pull up the cat preserve on the map, and of course, it was just under 2 miles from where I was hunting. I was in fact hearing African lions caroling after sundown. We've since gone to the preserve and watched them do this in person, and it is LOUD. Now I hear them all the time, and chuckle about the time I thought I would have to finally admit that all those guys on the Discovery Channel were right about bigfoot.


Just for reference here is a good example of what it sounds like. Imagine unexpectedly hearing this echo through the mountains.

Yeah, that would have had me pretty damn anxious and really confused too.


“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit.“

Chief Seattle

 

[long hunter]

Not spooky but funny as all get out, many years back during bow season my best friend and I decided to do a few days hunting, he ask if another guy who he worked with could go along no problem, We pack up and head out get to where we were going to hunt it was getting late, so we just throw out a tarp on the ground roll out the sleeping bags and prepare to get some sleep, so this new guy asks this is where your going to sleep we both say at the same time yep, he up and says I want in the middle. (city boy) we still rag him about it.

 

[Lionhound1975]

The below experience is not supernatural but was the spookiest encounter I have ever had involving an animal. It involved baboons. I have spent plenty of time in the African bush and had encounters with the Big 5 on foot. But this particular encounter felt much more similar to experiences I have had both hunting and being hunted by armed men in Afghanistan and Latin America. I know baboons are not human, but they are more human-like than the Big 5, crocs, snakes, big brown bears, etc. So it felt very different and much more like we were being hunted vs an animal acting in defense mode.

I worked for 3 years at the US Embassy in Swaziland (now called Eswatini) which is a small country in Africa located between Mozambique and South Africa. My wife, son, and I were hiking in the Malolotja mountains on the Swazi-SA border. We had cut down into a brushy canyon to get to some cool waterfalls. My son and I had crossed a creek but my wife was behind us taking a picture of something. Suddenly she screamed and pointed up in the rocks. I had seen fresh leopard sign and we had spooked a mamba on our last trip to the reserve so I grabbed my son and ran across the creek to where my wife was standing. I saw where she was pointing and after a few seconds saw a large male baboon about 30 yards away. I waved my arms but he didn't move. I then saw a second male baboon start approaching us showing his canines. I told my wife and son to walk slowly up the trail staying next to me. I drew my 9mm (I was allowed to carry in Swaziland) and pointed it at the baboons, hoping to scare them off. When hunting in other areas I had seen that baboons will run at the sight of a long gun but these two had probably never been shot at with a pistol because they kept following us. I then told my son to pick up a stick and hold it like a rifle but that didn't faze them either.

They trailed us about 400 yards, with my wife and son walking in front and me covering our back. What was spooky was how the two male baboons leap frogged, almost like using cover and concealment. They didn't just follow us up the trail like an elephant would do, but more like they were trying to get ahead of us while trying to stay concealed by the brush.

I knew if they rushed me, I would not have time for a mag reload so the 14 rounds (we carried Sig 229s back then) would have to count for both of them. But if they came at the same time it was going to be touch and go. Luckily, we got to the top of the canyon where it was wide open rolling country, and the baboons never came up over the rim. We booked it back to the Jeep after that. As soon as we got to the jeep my wife had a panic attack and started hyperventilating. I had never seen her so worked up, even after a car bomb in Colombia went off 3 blocks away when we were having dinner one night, she was calm enough to seek cover and follow instructions. But this thing with the baboons really messed her up for a few days.

In Africa, both baboons and hyenas are hated and feared by the locals who associated them with witchcraft (muti). I don't buy into the whole animals are evil or noble although I saw more than enough to know that witchcraft is very common in parts of Africa. We assisted the Swazi police on a number of investigations of ritual black magic child murders and albino killings. So no one can ever tell me that real evil does not exist. Some of that stuff still haunts me today but as a Christian at least I know there is a power that is stronger than the evil out there.

And I hate baboons!

 

[49ereric]

Bears are not true hibernators, they will wake and leave their den if they feel the need. The climate in Steamboat Springs is about the same as the northern 3rd of Minnesota. Steady below zero nights through January and February and snow that is measured in tens of feet. I've seen them out in the middle of January.

Do Bears Really Hibernate?

When we think about strategies animals use to survive the winter, we often picture birds flying south and bears hibernating in caves. However, not many animals truly hibernate, and bears are among those that do not. Bears enter a lighter state of sleep called torpor.

www.nationalforests.org

"The main difference between hibernation and torpor is during torpor, the animal is able to wake up quickly to avoid danger, or if the opportunity exists exit the den to feed."

A) Bears hibernate during winter, but aren’t sleeping the whole time. Hibernation for bears simply means they don’t need to eat or drink, and rarely urinate or defecate (or not at all). There is strong evolutionary pressure for bears to stay in their dens during winter, if there is little or no food available. But bears will leave their dens on occasion, particularly when their den gets flooded or is badly damaged. Weather does play a role. In the colder, northern parts of Alaska, bears hibernate about 7 months of the year. Bears in the warmer, coastal regions of the state hibernate for 2-5 months, with the longer hibernation time for bears raising newborn cubs.

you can believe what you want of course but here they hibernate.

 

[gabenzeke]

The below experience is not supernatural but was the spookiest encounter I have ever had involving an animal. It involved baboons. I have spent plenty of time in the African bush and had encounters with the Big 5 on foot. But this particular encounter felt much more similar to experiences I have had both hunting and being hunted by armed men in Afghanistan and Latin America. I know baboons are not human, but they are more human-like than the Big 5, crocs, snakes, big brown bears, etc. So it felt very different and much more like we were being hunted vs an animal acting in defense mode.

I worked for 3 years at the US Embassy in Swaziland (now called Eswatini) which is a small country in Africa located between Mozambique and South Africa. My wife, son, and I were hiking in the Malolotja mountains on the Swazi-SA border. We had cut down into a brushy canyon to get to some cool waterfalls. My son and I had crossed a creek but my wife was behind us taking a picture of something. Suddenly she screamed and pointed up in the rocks. I had seen fresh leopard sign and we had spooked a mamba on our last trip to the reserve so I grabbed my son and ran across the creek to where my wife was standing. I saw where she was pointing and after a few seconds saw a large male baboon about 30 yards away. I waved my arms but he didn't move. I then saw a second male baboon start approaching us showing his canines. I told my wife and son to walk slowly up the trail staying next to me. I drew my 9mm (I was allowed to carry in Swaziland) and pointed it at the baboons, hoping to scare them off. When hunting in other areas I had seen that baboons will run at the sight of a long gun but these two had probably never been shot at with a pistol because they kept following us. I then told my son to pick up a stick and hold it like a rifle but that didn't faze them either.

They trailed us about 400 yards, with my wife and son walking in front and me covering our back. What was spooky was how the two male baboons leap frogged, almost like using cover and concealment. They didn't just follow us up the trail like an elephant would do, but more like they were trying to get ahead of us while trying to stay concealed by the brush.

I knew if they rushed me, I would not have time for a mag reload so the 14 rounds (we carried Sig 229s back then) would have to count for both of them. But if they came at the same time it was going to be touch and go. Luckily, we got to the top of the canyon where it was wide open rolling country, and the baboons never came up over the rim. We booked it back to the Jeep after that. As soon as we got to the jeep my wife had a panic attack and started hyperventilating. I had never seen her so worked up, even after a car bomb in Colombia went off 3 blocks away when we were having dinner one night, she was calm enough to seek cover and follow instructions. But this thing with the baboons really messed her up for a few days.

In Africa, both baboons and hyenas are hated and feared by the locals who associated them with witchcraft (muti). I don't buy into the whole animals are evil or noble although I saw more than enough to know that witchcraft is very common in parts of Africa. We assisted the Swazi police on a number of investigations of ritual black magic child murders and albino killings. So no one can ever tell me that real evil does not exist. Some of that stuff still haunts me today but as a Christian at least I know there is a power that is stronger than the evil out there.

And I hate baboons!

That story is cool, but I'm more intrigued by a lot of the other stuff you mentioned. Witchcraft? Child murders and albinos? Car bombings? What the heck do you do for a living? Sounds like you need a podcast or something.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

 

[Lionhound1975]

That story is cool, but I'm more intrigued by a lot of the other stuff you mentioned. Witchcraft? Child murders and albinos? Car bombings? What the heck do you do for a living? Sounds like you need a podcast or something.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

I work as a federal agent with the Diplomatic Security Service which is part of the State Department so we spend a lot of our careers overseas doing criminal and terrorism investigations, fugitive recoveries, dignitary protection, and programs to keep the diplomats safe. As part of liaison working with the host country law enforcement and intel services, you end up seeing a lot of weird crap.