Creepy experiences in the backcountry

[24valve]

Enjoyed reading this thread over the past year and finally had one of my one while mule deer hunting in CO earlier this fall.. We found a weird circle of rocks complete with an little rock altar and deer bones underneath a nearby ledge.

 

[Braaap]

My buddy saw a fast moving orb or ball of light moving through a canyon yesterday morning while we were hiking in the dark to a glassing spot. He said if he was alone he would have booked it back to the truck. This is northern NV. There wasn’t any noise associated with it.

So I posted this a little over a month ago. I filled my tag on opening morning but he didn’t so he went back at the end of October and brought along a friend of his. His buddy ended up seeing the same thing (ball of light or orb) but this time it was in the evening and several canyons over from his sighting. Weird.

 

[Ditt44]

Had an odd experience two weeks ago. About 5:45 AM, cold, clear sky. Orion's belt is to my right, between 45 and 50 degrees inclination. A large, bright object comes from the north to south moving in a straight line. No blinking, no colors at all, just the 'bright yellow/white' light... or reflection of the sun? The object was perhaps 5 degrees below Orion. First thought was it is the ISS as I have seen that in the past numerous times....

This object moved very quickly, traversing the entire visible sky in maybe 20 seconds. What helped place it in perspective is when it crossed above a jet liner with a well defined contrail. The jet was moving mostly east to west. The object was much higher and no contrail. I looked up the location of the ISS at that time. It was over Ohio. I'm in south central PA. No way I saw the ISS.

May have been another large satellite. Most odd thing I have seen in the sky in a very long time. I love getting out early, like an hour before day light and spend a lot of that time star-gazing.

 

[Warmsy]

Had an odd experience two weeks ago. About 5:45 AM, cold, clear sky. Orion's belt is to my right, between 45 and 50 degrees inclination. A large, bright object comes from the north to south moving in a straight line. No blinking, no colors at all, just the 'bright yellow/white' light... or reflection of the sun? The object was perhaps 5 degrees below Orion. First thought was it is the ISS as I have seen that in the past numerous times....

This object moved very quickly, traversing the entire visible sky in maybe 20 seconds. What helped place it in perspective is when it crossed above a jet liner with a well defined contrail. The jet was moving mostly east to west. The object was much higher and no contrail. I looked up the location of the ISS at that time. It was over Ohio. I'm in south central PA. No way I saw the ISS.

May have been another large satellite. Most odd thing I have seen in the sky in a very long time. I love getting out early, like an hour before day light and spend a lot of that time star-gazing.

That's my morning routine with coffee. Here in northern California I'll see one or more shooting stars often, and I make my wish. I was told as a youngin that if you share your wish it won't come true.

 

[Ditt44]

Was not a shooting star. That was the next morning, bright yellow/pink and "poof". This bright object arched out of sight over the horizon.

 

[Elkfever]

Love this thread. I have one from this fall that got my Adrenalin pumping.

I drew a limited elk tag in western WA near Seattle. Our camp consisted of a 14x16 Davis wall tent for cooking and relaxing next to the wood stove as well as our 7x14 cargo trailer for sleeping in. We had staged the trailer perpendicular to the entry/awning of the tent to create a breezeway between the two shelters. It was a good place to camp due to being central for the unit, low in elevation when the snow would hit but it was just off a rural highway that served as a main artery into the greater Tacoma/Seattle area. Over the course of scouting and hunting this area, we have encountered several transient camps, people that appear to be hiding out/living in their car, burnt up cars….you get the picture. We’ve never had a real issue but know the potential exists.

Second night in camp, about 1 am, I awoke to the subtle but unmistakable sounds of someone moving around our camp. I laid in my cot straining to listen and confirm. I could hear the occasional scuffing of a step, the crinkling of the awning sidewalls and general sounds of quiet rifling of gear around the entry to our tent. Then I heard the undeniable creaking of our cooler lid opening and closing a couple times.

I got out of bed quietly and made my way to the cargo trailer door, unlocked it and paused. The noises were ongoing outside, potentially only several feet away from me so I knew that I still had the element of surprise on my side. My rifle was in the trailer, in its latched gun case and ammo clip loose inside the case as well. I had tiptoed out of my cot without my headlamp and was blind to fumble for my rifle in the trailer. F@#$!!!! I thought, I had allowed myself to not be prepared for this moment. My dad and best friend were still sound asleep in their cots and my dad’s sidearm location was UTL. I didn’t want to create a ruckus in the trailer and allow whoever was outside to prepare for my next move.

Very dumb in hindsight but in that moment of holding the trailer door latch, Adrenalin pumping and boiling with anger at having someone currently going through our stuff, I flung the door open and let out a guttural “hey!!!”. As the door crashed open, before I could take a step out, a dark blob sprinted between me and the tent. I ducked my head back in the doorway instinctively. I leaned back out and about 20 yards away, in the moonlight, could see a black bear standing broadside and looking back at me. In my “fight” stage, I yelled agin at the bear and it finally lumbered off into the darkness.

Relieved that it was only a bear and not a band of tweakers to contend with, my dad had slept through the whole ordeal and my buddy finally rolled over in his bed to ask what was happening?

Next morning, we found muddy bear paw prints on top of both coolers and a Costco tray of cheese on the ground that had been pulled out of the cooler. I was thankful that my marinating, antelope backstrap was at the bottom of the cooler and had not been scavenged.

Probably not the first offense by that bear but in all my years sleeping in the woods, I’ve never had a bear cause a problem. Mice and curious cattle have been the usual suspects. We laugh about it now but in that moment, my heart was racing and mind bracing for the unknown.

My takeaway from that experience was to always keep a headlamp and sidearm ready next to my cot. Better to not need either than to be in the predicament I found myself in. In hindsight it would have probably been smarter to actually let the “intruders” hear the sound me chambering a round in my 300WSM before flinging the door open and if nothing else, I would have actually had a gun in my hand to deal with whatever issue at hand. Thankful it was only Yogi this time.

 

[Thinkingman]

I know others have mentioned this but I got to hunt whitetails out of a treestand for the first time this weekend in the Bitterroot Valley.
I was following my online tracker in the dark(windy, blowing 20, gusting 30) at 6:00 AM when I got slightly off course and retraced my steps to the correct side of a stand of olives when I heard the most violent crashing in the side of the scrub I was just standing on a minute ago.
My first thought was bear crashing through the brush but quickly realized a tree came down right where I was standing a minute earlier.
It took me a while to get over that adrenaline rush but I got another adrenaline jolt when I killed a decent buck with my bow a couple hours later.

 

[jtill2424]

A few cool story's on this thread