Creepy experiences in the backcountry

[Sandhills]

About 15 years ago I was doing some early season elk scouting with my dad, brother, and brother’s girlfriend at the time. We were scouting area that we had hunted the year prior, but pushing further into areas of this timber property we did not access the year before. This timber company is bordered by a large well known state park and is somewhere in the ballpark of 30-40 thousand acres.

We worked up a ridge on an old overgrown logging road and at the top where the ground leveled out, came across a long thin pond on the west side of the gravel road. The pond was maybe 30-40 yards across, surrounded by thick scrub brush/blackberry’s immediately followed by thick timber.

We paused at the pond to check it for game sign, and take a quick rest before pressing further on our scouting trip. When we heard something big start crashing through the trees/brush on the other side of the pond from us. Because it was so thick we couldn’t see what it was, but I know this area has deer/elk/bears/cougars, basically everything you can buy a tag for.

At first we thought, kick ass! Animals must use this pond to access water, great spot to set up a tree stand. But the longer we stood there, we realized the crashing sounds we heard were moving side to side, not away from us like we would have expected. It sounded like a truck moving back and forth, and went on for at least five minutes while we stood there hoping to catch a glimpse of what was moving.

That’s when things got weird to a level we still haven’t fully figured out. Whatever was thrashing the trees started vocalizing. As Christ Jesus as my witness, it sounded like a monkey started screaming at us. Not like a cute little pocket monkey, but like a howler monkey or orangutan.

At about that point we all realized it was probably best is we got the hell out of there.

A couple months later during bow hunting season, I was hunting that same property but about a mile from the previously mentioned location. I was hunkered down in some deep old growth enjoying the afternoon, when the same vocalizations started screaming off again. I could tell it was much further away, so I sat and listened to it for 10-15 minutes before I decided my night was done and I made the couple mile walk out well before dark.

Nope, just nope. There could have been a 350 bull in there and I'd have left him with Sasquatch

 

[longrangelead]

if I've already posted this sorry for the replay...

about 25 years ago I would take a week or two to hunt and fish by myself so i wasnt beholden to anyone else. I had a canopy/topper on my truck so I could sleep in it and go where the wind took me.

It was early or mid October and beautiful sunny weather.
One night I found myself on the plateau between Brewster and Waterville Wa. In those days, you rarely saw people during the day, none at night.

There have been a few violent encounters and and a few murders in isolated places like I was at so I had a pistol and slept with a shotgun too.

Some time after midnight I woke up instantly wide awake and alert to the point I consciously kept my eyes closed and just listened for a minute or two. The night was absolutely silent, no crickets, no nothing...

The weird thing was it was brighter than it should have been regarding the moon's position.

I finally sat up and looked around the truck, nothing to see. no movement, no vehicles, nothing.

so I stuck my head out the window and looked around.

That's when I saw the Aurora Borealis hanging across the entire northern sky in wavy sheets of pale white with a hint of green. Like giant curtains blowing in the wind, but in super slow motion.

To this day I don't know why I woke the way I did, maybe it was just the light through my eyelids that caused it.

It went from creepy to one of the coolest things I've seen.

 

[OsoMountain]

About 15 years ago I was doing some early season elk scouting with my dad, brother, and brother’s girlfriend at the time. We were scouting area that we had hunted the year prior, but pushing further into areas of this timber property we did not access the year before. This timber company is bordered by a large well known state park and is somewhere in the ballpark of 30-40 thousand acres.

We worked up a ridge on an old overgrown logging road and at the top where the ground leveled out, came across a long thin pond on the west side of the gravel road. The pond was maybe 30-40 yards across, surrounded by thick scrub brush/blackberry’s immediately followed by thick timber.

We paused at the pond to check it for game sign, and take a quick rest before pressing further on our scouting trip. When we heard something big start crashing through the trees/brush on the other side of the pond from us. Because it was so thick we couldn’t see what it was, but I know this area has deer/elk/bears/cougars, basically everything you can buy a tag for.

At first we thought, kick ass! Animals must use this pond to access water, great spot to set up a tree stand. But the longer we stood there, we realized the crashing sounds we heard were moving side to side, not away from us like we would have expected. It sounded like a truck moving back and forth, and went on for at least five minutes while we stood there hoping to catch a glimpse of what was moving.

That’s when things got weird to a level we still haven’t fully figured out. Whatever was thrashing the trees started vocalizing. As Christ Jesus as my witness, it sounded like a monkey started screaming at us. Not like a cute little pocket monkey, but like a howler monkey or orangutan.

At about that point we all realized it was probably best is we got the hell out of there.

A couple months later during bow hunting season, I was hunting that same property but about a mile from the previously mentioned location. I was hunkered down in some deep old growth enjoying the afternoon, when the same vocalizations started screaming off again. I could tell it was much further away, so I sat and listened to it for 10-15 minutes before I decided my night was done and I made the couple mile walk out well before dark.

Now we are talking about a hunt!!! PM the OnX pin for that kind of action. I wanna walk in there and come eye to eye with a genuine Jerry Clower hunting monkey wearing a coon light and carrying a pistol!

 

[Sandhills]

Now we are talking about a hunt!!! PM the OnX pin for that kind of action. I wanna walk in there and come eye to eye with a genuine Jerry Clower hunting monkey wearing a coon light and carrying a pistol!

If there's one thing that monkey hates worse than an elk hunter it's a lying coon dog

 

[jaredg]

My wife and I were tent camping a few years back. I woke up in the middle of the night to watch a mouse the size of a squirrel crawl into our tent. I am afraid of rats and mice. And spiders. I watched this mouse on steroids jump onto my pillow with his arms and legs all stretched out like he's in full killer mouse mode.

I come bolt upright and grab my RK signature model Maglite and light up the tent. I tell my wife that I been attacked by the biggest baddest mouse I've ever seen. My wife calmly asks me if I had been "smoking" before bed. I get a stupid kind of feel bad look and admit that I may be less than lucid. Sweet wife asks "did a mouse really jump on your pillow and attack you?" "Probably not" I replied, feeling pretty foolish.

Vindication!!!

Just as I admit the whole thing might have never happened, a normal size mouse runs along the inside edge of our tent! I freak out and start hitting at this mouse with the Maglite like a little girl. I want absolutely nothing to do with this rabies hanta-virus aids & ebola carrying rodent.

Wife takes a different approach all together. She goes full Mike Tyson on this thing. Chasing it around the tent unit she corners it punching the whole time. Bam Bam Bam! It collapses in the corner, bleeding from its ears. Crisis averted.

This is all true, I was there. I most definitely watched it craw into the tent and jump on my pillow. I may have overestimated the size a little.