Creepy experiences in the backcountry

[Rubachub]

Y’all have some great stories. I’ve only hunted out west a few times. I didn’t realize there are some scary predators that will hunt the hunter. Stay safe!


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[Turkeytider]

Deer hunting on my grandparents farm one morning, about an hour before sunrise. I was sitting under an oak tree mostly surrounded by a burlap blind. There was a puddle of water 30-40' across too my left. I started to hear something walking thru the water, but between the blind and the darkness I couldn't see anything. As it got closer, I had my shotgun shouldered.

Eventually it got to where I could see what it was, a great big coon!! It got downwind of me and very quietly left.

Things that make noise in the dark immediately take us back to the time when we hadn’t been walking upright that long !

 

[HairyScandinavian]

So way back on quite literally my first Western trip ever the wife and I got to Colorado after dark and were looking for a campsite. I'm driving around and looking at Google maps and we drive through a big open area with tons of deer. Wife had never seen a mule deer before so she's in full blown tourist mode, deer everywhere, she's trying to take pictures in the headlights and all. I pull over at a potential camping spot but didn't like it so I'm studying maps and she's shining a flashlight around. She sees eyes way across an opening there behind a tree, eyes were high then low kinda going up and down. She's trying to ask about if I think it's a buck because it's hiding behind the tree and the head movements were so rapid. I'm frustrated and tired and trying to figure out this Western camping thing and studying the maps so kinda blew her off. She says she wants to go look at it closer to see if it's a buck and I say no just leave it alone, she gets kinda bummed and I realize I'm probably just being cranky so I crawfish and say if you want to check it out it's cool but I'm gonna stay here and figure out where we're gonna setup. She heads across this field walking and it's a good bit further than either of us realized. I'm done with the maps and identified a spot I wanted to look at and she's still slowly walking across this field. Now I'm annoyed so I get out of the truck, was gonna holler at her to come back but she's way out there so I just watch. At this point I see the color of the eyes and the behavior as she's walking up to it and I went ahead and yelled but she couldn't hear me. Quickly I grab a handgun and take off walking towards her at a fast pace. I get maybe 50 yards from the truck and I see her almost fall over quickly walking backwards and clearly attempting, unsuccessfully, to hold the light steady on the tree. She's walking backwards about 50 yards or so then turns and runs straight at me. Sure enough she can barely talk, all I could hear was "it was a cat it was a cat it's a cat a cat it's a cat!" She had the eyes blinded by her flashlight and managed to walk up to within 15 or so yards of this thing before it jumped out into the open to figure out what this crazy woman was doing walking up to it in the dark. We got back to the truck and I said next time I suggest to leave something alone you should probably not be so disappointed, she agreed lol.

 

[Blowdowner]

I was camping 10 miles into back country, with 6 guys on a fishing trip, and we had a stranger show up out of no where. It was about 10 pm pouring down rain. We had a fire going and this guy showed up out of the darkness with no head lamp, wearing all black and soaking wet. He didn’t say anything to us and started setting up his tent within 10’ of our fire, and between two of our tents. After he crawled in, with in 20 min he started screaming at us to be quiet, this caused me to keep the firearm ready. He finally got out of his tent and carried it about 30yds away, and got back in. By the time we woke up the next morning there was no sign of him being there. We all questioned if he really came into camp, and if what happened was even real. The mannerisms and the interaction was very odd.

Was this guy proficient outdoors? Is there any chance he fell asleep and was having a flashback? Did he express any gratitude?

 

[xebadir]

Having read so much of this thread and enjoyed it, I feel I must keep it rolling on with one.

The Hunted:
I've hunted mid-western whitetails for several years, and had no shortage of encounters with coyotes, from taking shots at them with the bow, to being followed just out of the lamplight when dragging a deer. The howls now chill my spine every time, but it was not these experiences that make me feel that way, but an incident a few years ago in Wyoming.

The previous year I'd been lucky enough to hunt elk in Montana and Wyoming, done it tough, but learned a lot, including finding a nice couple of honey holes. I'd driven in a long way from other access points and been camping deep in a National Forest. Found a nice spot to camp vacant, and set up a wall tent. The mission for the trip was to learn more about elk behavior and hunt a cow elk with a bow in September. I was a few years away from drawing a WY general elk, and so wanted to familiarize myself with the area. I'd had some initial success but kept finding bugling bulls rather than cows, and all in places that you really wouldn't want to try and retrieve an elk from - dead fall, thickets and steep timbered slopes that worked every tendon and fiber of my muscles. After several days, I'd covered alot of miles, but it wasn't until I got late into the trip that I finally encountered a cow elk and twigged to what was going on - there was a group feeding and watering in a nearby meadow to my camp, but disappearing into a canyon as soon as they heard ATVs from other hunters echoing each morning before light.

So I worked through the edges of this meadow looking for sign and found a promising area of deadfall that seemed to have heavy sign of elk passage. As I examined it more closely, there was a good indication that the elk were walking past it in what I assumed to be the first few minutes of light. It was about a mile from camp, so I rose early, to set myself in ambush. It was about 2.5 hours before light. I got in quietly just in case I'd mis-judged the timing, and sat in the frosty morning air awaiting the sunrise. Something howled at a distance, echoing off the canyon walls, and I thought little of it other than how cool the echo sounded. But then it was joined by another, another and more until it seemed to be a constant rolling echo. Then they started to yip, and this being an area with wolves, and not having heard behavior like this I wasn't sure what exactly I was dealing with. The howling and yipping was coming closer, and fast, these things were on the chase of something...and I could hear them cresting each ridge and funneling through each draw as they grew closer and closer.

At this point, I was getting uncomfortable. I'm a big guy, but I only had a bow and my 357 on me, loaded with 180 gr buffalo bores for the guys in the big brown suits, and I wondered would 6 shots being enough given how many of whatever these hunting animals were that were coming close. Then the pursuit seemed to stop, really close, and the howls lit up above my ambush point, chilling me to the core, the same feeling I now get back east.

I balked - a hunting pack, baying for blood that was now close to me, a solo hunter who really wasn't prepared for this situation. I drew my revolver and turned on my headlamp to see at least 40 sets of eyes all along the ridgetop above me, looking down and focused on me - effectively triangulating my position. Trying my best to avoid panicking, I kept my head up and the light on the ridgetop illuminating their eyes and picked my stuff up, and backed down the hill...watching as they would take a few steps, then pause and seemed reluctant to follow, unsure of what I was. As I backed through a small draw and up to another little ridge, it seemed like I crossed an invisible line. As one, they turned parallel to the ridgetop, and began to howl and yip and resume the chase of whatever it was they were pursuing.

Backing off the ridge I ran like I've never run before. I was fit enough from a lot of preparation and perhaps 40 miles at altitude over the past week that I was hurdling dead fall left and right in the pre-dawn light. My headlamp sputtered and failed perhaps a quarter mile away from the site of the encounter. I made it back to camp at a pace that seemed unearthly fast. Arriving at my camp the come down hit, and I jumped into the car and spent the next hour trying to regain my breath I fell to pieces. As light came, I promptly packed up camp and got the hell out of there...feeling incredibly lucky to have not ended up the hunted.

Nowadays I bring a high capacity semi-automatic with me at all times when hunting, or if hunting with another in bear country have one armed with the revolver and backed up with spray for bears, and the other with a higher capacity semi-auto just in case I'm troubled again by the wolves/coyotes. Maybe not the scariest story, but still spooks me writing it.

 

[Yooper]

Having read so much of this thread and enjoyed it, I feel I must keep it rolling on with one.

The Hunted:
I've hunted mid-western whitetails for several years, and had no shortage of encounters with coyotes, from taking shots at them with the bow, to being followed just out of the lamplight when dragging a deer. The howls now chill my spine every time, but it was not these experiences that make me feel that way, but an incident a few years ago in Wyoming.

The previous year I'd been lucky enough to hunt elk in Montana and Wyoming, done it tough, but learned a lot, including finding a nice couple of honey holes. I'd driven in a long way from other access points and been camping deep in a National Forest. Found a nice spot to camp vacant, and set up a wall tent. The mission for the trip was to learn more about elk behavior and hunt a cow elk with a bow in September. I was a few years away from drawing a WY general elk, and so wanted to familiarize myself with the area. I'd had some initial success but kept finding bugling bulls rather than cows, and all in places that you really wouldn't want to try and retrieve an elk from - dead fall, thickets and steep timbered slopes that worked every tendon and fiber of my muscles. After several days, I'd covered alot of miles, but it wasn't until I got late into the trip that I finally encountered a cow elk and twigged to what was going on - there was a group feeding and watering in a nearby meadow to my camp, but disappearing into a canyon as soon as they heard ATVs from other hunters echoing each morning before light.

So I worked through the edges of this meadow looking for sign and found a promising area of deadfall that seemed to have heavy sign of elk passage. As I examined it more closely, there was a good indication that the elk were walking past it in what I assumed to be the first few minutes of light. It was about a mile from camp, so I rose early, to set myself in ambush. It was about 2.5 hours before light. I got in quietly just in case I'd mis-judged the timing, and sat in the frosty morning air awaiting the sunrise. Something howled at a distance, echoing off the canyon walls, and I thought little of it other than how cool the echo sounded. But then it was joined by another, another and more until it seemed to be a constant rolling echo. Then they started to yip, and this being an area with wolves, and not having heard behavior like this I wasn't sure what exactly I was dealing with. The howling and yipping was coming closer, and fast, these things were on the chase of something...and I could hear them cresting each ridge and funneling through each draw as they grew closer and closer.

At this point, I was getting uncomfortable. I'm a big guy, but I only had a bow and my 357 on me, loaded with 180 gr buffalo bores for the guys in the big brown suits, and I wondered would 6 shots being enough given how many of whatever these hunting animals were that were coming close. Then the pursuit seemed to stop, really close, and the howls lit up above my ambush point, chilling me to the core, the same feeling I now get back east.

I balked - a hunting pack, baying for blood that was now close to me, a solo hunter who really wasn't prepared for this situation. I drew my revolver and turned on my headlamp to see at least 40 sets of eyes all along the ridgetop above me, looking down and focused on me - effectively triangulating my position. Trying my best to avoid panicking, I kept my head up and the light on the ridgetop illuminating their eyes and picked my stuff up, and backed down the hill...watching as they would take a few steps, then pause and seemed reluctant to follow, unsure of what I was. As I backed through a small draw and up to another little ridge, it seemed like I crossed an invisible line. As one, they turned parallel to the ridgetop, and began to howl and yip and resume the chase of whatever it was they were pursuing.

Backing off the ridge I ran like I've never run before. I was fit enough from a lot of preparation and perhaps 40 miles at altitude over the past week that I was hurdling dead fall left and right in the pre-dawn light. My headlamp sputtered and failed perhaps a quarter mile away from the site of the encounter. I made it back to camp at a pace that seemed unearthly fast. Arriving at my camp the come down hit, and I jumped into the car and spent the next hour trying to regain my breath I fell to pieces. As light came, I promptly packed up camp and got the hell out of there...feeling incredibly lucky to have not ended up the hunted.

Nowadays I bring a high capacity semi-automatic with me at all times when hunting, or if hunting with another in bear country have one armed with the revolver and backed up with spray for bears, and the other with a higher capacity semi-auto just in case I'm troubled again by the wolves/coyotes. Maybe not the scariest story, but still spooks me writing it.

Wait, so were they wolves or coyotes? Cool story regardless, and I've had more than a few encounters similar, although never to the point of fleeing the scene. The howl of a wolf up close and personal is something to experience at least once in a lifetime!

 

[QuickTrigger7]

Curious to see if anyone’s ever seen any UFO’s as the sighting have been getting more talked about.

 

[ZValentine]

Curious to see if anyone’s ever seen any UFO’s as the sighting have been getting more talked about.

I've seen a lot of lights that I couldn't explain away as planes or satellites, but I mostly chalk that up to my ignorance on what I am looking at, so to me they were UFO but someone that knows they were probably mundane.

 

[gerry35]

Having read so much of this thread and enjoyed it, I feel I must keep it rolling on with one.

The Hunted:
I've hunted mid-western whitetails for several years, and had no shortage of encounters with coyotes, from taking shots at them with the bow, to being followed just out of the lamplight when dragging a deer. The howls now chill my spine every time, but it was not these experiences that make me feel that way, but an incident a few years ago in Wyoming.

The previous year I'd been lucky enough to hunt elk in Montana and Wyoming, done it tough, but learned a lot, including finding a nice couple of honey holes. I'd driven in a long way from other access points and been camping deep in a National Forest. Found a nice spot to camp vacant, and set up a wall tent. The mission for the trip was to learn more about elk behavior and hunt a cow elk with a bow in September. I was a few years away from drawing a WY general elk, and so wanted to familiarize myself with the area. I'd had some initial success but kept finding bugling bulls rather than cows, and all in places that you really wouldn't want to try and retrieve an elk from - dead fall, thickets and steep timbered slopes that worked every tendon and fiber of my muscles. After several days, I'd covered alot of miles, but it wasn't until I got late into the trip that I finally encountered a cow elk and twigged to what was going on - there was a group feeding and watering in a nearby meadow to my camp, but disappearing into a canyon as soon as they heard ATVs from other hunters echoing each morning before light.

So I worked through the edges of this meadow looking for sign and found a promising area of deadfall that seemed to have heavy sign of elk passage. As I examined it more closely, there was a good indication that the elk were walking past it in what I assumed to be the first few minutes of light. It was about a mile from camp, so I rose early, to set myself in ambush. It was about 2.5 hours before light. I got in quietly just in case I'd mis-judged the timing, and sat in the frosty morning air awaiting the sunrise. Something howled at a distance, echoing off the canyon walls, and I thought little of it other than how cool the echo sounded. But then it was joined by another, another and more until it seemed to be a constant rolling echo. Then they started to yip, and this being an area with wolves, and not having heard behavior like this I wasn't sure what exactly I was dealing with. The howling and yipping was coming closer, and fast, these things were on the chase of something...and I could hear them cresting each ridge and funneling through each draw as they grew closer and closer.

At this point, I was getting uncomfortable. I'm a big guy, but I only had a bow and my 357 on me, loaded with 180 gr buffalo bores for the guys in the big brown suits, and I wondered would 6 shots being enough given how many of whatever these hunting animals were that were coming close. Then the pursuit seemed to stop, really close, and the howls lit up above my ambush point, chilling me to the core, the same feeling I now get back east.

I balked - a hunting pack, baying for blood that was now close to me, a solo hunter who really wasn't prepared for this situation. I drew my revolver and turned on my headlamp to see at least 40 sets of eyes all along the ridgetop above me, looking down and focused on me - effectively triangulating my position. Trying my best to avoid panicking, I kept my head up and the light on the ridgetop illuminating their eyes and picked my stuff up, and backed down the hill...watching as they would take a few steps, then pause and seemed reluctant to follow, unsure of what I was. As I backed through a small draw and up to another little ridge, it seemed like I crossed an invisible line. As one, they turned parallel to the ridgetop, and began to howl and yip and resume the chase of whatever it was they were pursuing.

Backing off the ridge I ran like I've never run before. I was fit enough from a lot of preparation and perhaps 40 miles at altitude over the past week that I was hurdling dead fall left and right in the pre-dawn light. My headlamp sputtered and failed perhaps a quarter mile away from the site of the encounter. I made it back to camp at a pace that seemed unearthly fast. Arriving at my camp the come down hit, and I jumped into the car and spent the next hour trying to regain my breath I fell to pieces. As light came, I promptly packed up camp and got the hell out of there...feeling incredibly lucky to have not ended up the hunted.

Nowadays I bring a high capacity semi-automatic with me at all times when hunting, or if hunting with another in bear country have one armed with the revolver and backed up with spray for bears, and the other with a higher capacity semi-auto just in case I'm troubled again by the wolves/coyotes. Maybe not the scariest story, but still spooks me writing it.

40 plus sets of eyes staring at you would definitely be unnerving. Even one coyote would be a formidable foe if he was determined to get at you.

 

[RockAndSage]

Curious to see if anyone’s ever seen any UFO’s as the sighting have been getting more talked about.

Dig into the whole thread, there's at least one if not several things here that fit that description.

 

[HairyScandinavian]

Curious to see if anyone’s ever seen any UFO’s as the sighting have been getting more talked about.

Yep. When I was a kid out hog hunting late at night in South Texas we saw what looked like 3 satellites come from different directions int he sky and meet in the middle and all turn North. The next day the news station had a blip about a bunch of UFO sightings in Oklahoma.

 

[QuickTrigger7]

Yep. When I was a kid out hog hunting late at night in South Texas we saw what looked like 3 satellites come from different directions int he sky and meet in the middle and all turn North. The next day the news station had a blip about a bunch of UFO sightings in Oklahoma.

Shawn Ryan just dropped a very interesting podcast on ufo sightings

 

[xebadir]

Wait, so were they wolves or coyotes? Cool story regardless, and I've had more than a few encounters similar, although never to the point of fleeing the scene. The howl of a wolf up close and personal is something to experience at least once in a lifetime!

I didn't know at the time, but based on investigating afterwards and on the sounds they made (and having seen a few wolves since), they were coyotes - but given they were in hunt mode, I was thinking I'm an easier target than an elk...

 

[IdGoldHunter]

Three days ago a bit north of Idaho Falls was out driving with my wife through the dessert, came to the end of a little dirt road and decided to hope out to hike a bit. Saw what looked like a pattern in the dirt made of rocks, and when I looked closer it was like 8 or so concentric rings of rocks, the biggest probably 100 feet across, clearly took someone a good long while to make it. Started getting that "something isn't right feeling" but ignored it and started walking closer. There was a path lined with rocks to the center, and at the entrance to it two skulls, looked like cattle at first glance, but at that point I wasn't getting any closer. Real quick we headed out from there and found somewhere else to hike. Definitely not was I was expecting to find out there and my wife is still getting weird feelings about that plac look

Three days ago a bit north of Idaho Falls was out driving with my wife through the dessert, came to the end of a little dirt road and decided to hope out to hike a bit. Saw what looked like a pattern in the dirt made of rocks, and when I looked closer it was like 8 or so concentric rings of rocks, the biggest probably 100 feet across, clearly took someone a good long while to make it. Started getting that "something isn't right feeling" but ignored it and started walking closer. There was a path lined with rocks to the center, and at the entrance to it two skulls, looked like cattle at first glance, but at that point I wasn't getting any closer. Real quick we headed out from there and found somewhere else to hike. Definitely not was I was expecting to find out there and my wife is still getting weird feelings about that place.

have you been back? I’m interested in going to investigate haha

 

[go_deep]

Not Backcountry, but still odd at best.

Couple weekends ago I'm working a night maintenance in Cheyenne about 3 a.m. I'm driving East on Pershing past the VA Hospital. There's a entrance to the VA hospital off Pershing and the driveway V's immediately NW and NE. The NE portion has a radar this is your speed sign about 250' back off the intersection pointing SW, it was really dark overcast night and the street lights along with the lights around the VA made it relatively easy to see. Just after I go past the entrance the this is your speed sign starts lighting up with random low numbers up and down, on and off all together, this catches my attention. By now I'm behind the fence that separated the VA from the road straight South of the sign completely out of the question that it's me at this point, then the sign numbers climb crazy fast and hit 47 mph, and stay there, had to be almost 2 seconds it held 47, then off.
There was nobody else on the road with me, there was no one driving up the driveway of the VA, not a single vehicle anywhere. I've driven past there several times since and unless someone is driving up that portion of the driveway, the sign isn't on, and if it is on, they're never even close to 47 mph.

 

[ripcurlksm]

30+ day BUMP

 

[longrangelead]

Probably 25 years ago now, I found a spur road off a seldom traveled forest service road. The spur was ditched at about ¼ mile but continued quite a ways across the mountain. Being new to me, I was exploring the area when I had time.

One afternoon on a week day, I went to the spur for some reason. When I got there, there was a POS Datsun car parked in the wide spot where people turn around at the ditch.
It was raining and cool so I was surprised to see a vehicle since most people avoid the rain and this spot was pretty brushy.
I noticed the windows were fogged up good and saw someone move inside. The hood was wet so the engine had not been running in a while but the car didn't appear stuck either.
I pulled up next to the car a rolled down my window. A middle aged guy in a T-shirt rolled down the window of the car.
He was alone but looked like he had been crying. I asked if he was alright, he just said "ya". The look in his eyes said different though. I said "ok, I'll be here a while if you need help".
I didnt see any gear or anything to indicate he was car camping. I didnt see much of anything in the car, he looked unprepared for a cold wet night in the woods.
I don't know why, I got the feeling he was there to take his own life.

I was young enough I didn't know what to do beyond that. When I got back to my truck, he was gone. Out of curiosity and concern, I checked a couple other similar spots nearby but didn't find him. I even drove all the way up there the next evening to see if he came back. I never saw him again.
I've always wondered what he was up to...

 

[Easydoesit87]

I was working on a Forest between CA & OR when I got a visitor one day telling a trippy story. It was early summer. They had purchased a firewood permit and went out gathering dead & down in a fairly remote portion of the District. They saw a Toyota Tacoma with all four doors open. They didn't think much about it first time but thought it weird the "occupants" had left their belongings strewn about as seen from a distance.

Second day, they returned to gather more firewood and saw the same rig with the doors still open and things thrown about. They got their wood for the day and left.

Third day, same thing; except this time - they made their way towards the rig to attempt contact and ascertain if they needed help or whatever. They approached the truck and saw several opened prescriptions bottles, men's/women's clothes that had clearly weathered over some time, pint bottles of Jack Daniels, and to their horror - bones! They beelined it down the mountain to the District Office.

We put together a small group of people to check it out. We made our way to the site. Upon arrival, we could immediately smell a sweet stench. We made our way to the truck and found Rx bottles opened (but empty), clothes thrown all over the place, and as described above - a few bottles of JD. We started walking away from the truck and began seeing bones with clothes still attached (but filthy). A skeleton hand was found with a woman's watch still around the wrist. Walking further away from the scene - another JD bottle was found and some men's clothes. Then we started noticing piles of scat and began to realize what may have happened! Lots of black bears in the area ... and perhaps a few found the site and dined on whomever they were upon waking from hibernation. We took lots of pictures, noted the license plate, and returned to the office; whereupon, the authorities were contacted.

It took a day or so, but I received a call telling the likely story about who the people were and how they made their way to their demise.

Based on the license plate, the truck was registered to a guy from San Diego who was known to be part of an extremist group called Animal Liberation Front (ALF). Apparently, the owner and his mother had been "liberating" research animals in the area and the FBI was looking for them. They had been in contact with the law via cell phone along I-5 negotiating turning themselves in. They were using cell towers to track them as they made their way north to Grants Pass, OR when they suddenly went south into the Siskiyou Mtns where the cell phone signal was lost.

This was in the fall and in the Siskiyou's - snow falls early and deep at times. They had apparently made their way over the only pass in the area before going offroad and stuck. According to the agent, they were using drugs (hence the Rx bottles) and likely came to park in the area where the truck was found. They then started drinking (or were already drinking) and along with the drugs - one of them (most likely the mother) took her life. Then the son drank more JD and went down a hill and took his. The bears found the bodies and consumed them. The firewood gatherer found the scene.

The Forest Service had to spend a bunch of money to "clean" the area. The sweet smell was rendered fat from the bodies that had permeated the soil. It was removed. The area was then sanitized by a company from Sacramento which "specialized" in things like this ...

I still have dreams about it.

 

[Pharmseller]

Good deal for the bears.




P

 

[rookieforever33]

I bet the bears felt "liberated" maybe they got a buzz from what they ate