Creepy experiences in the backcountry

[WHALL]

Real random, just wondering if anyone has any stories from backcountry hunts that were unexplainable, weird, or just plain scary?

Heading back to camp solo backcountry, in the dark and 50 yds above me wide eyes glowing in the dark, ( in grizzly country) quick draw on the 40 and heard the unmistakable moooooo! Dumb cow

 

[Snowwolfe]

Tag

 

[505Wapiti]

Is it bad to wish creepy experiences (without harm of course) on others so that we can read about them? Asking for a friend on the Slide.

 

[bigbassin]

Kind of a weird one scouting for turkeys this morning.

Started the morning out dark and early heading to a nearby WMA to go see if I could hear any turkeys gobbling. Unfortunately already raining by 5:15 AM rather than it holding out until noon like the forecast I saw yesterday predicted.

Started out driving through a clear cut towards a decent saddle connecting a drainage to a flat creek bottom. Parked the truck and as soon as I got out, a headlamp? started shining at me from right where I wanted to be. Kind of unusual in that it was flickering a bit and then looked like the guy started a small fire. Several trees were glowing orange but I couldn’t see the actual flame.

No clue what the guy was doing, but last time I was in the area I ran into a couple of tweakers. Not sure if that’s what I saw, or someone camping where they aren’t supposed to be and started a fire. Didn’t see any other vehicles out there.

 

[505Wapiti]

Was really hoping we could get to a minimum of 100 pages.

 

[Pharmseller]

I just realized what a great band name Spectral Mayans would be.

I call it.




P

 

[Remington92]

Heading back to camp solo backcountry, in the dark and 50 yds above me wide eyes glowing in the dark, ( in grizzly country) quick draw on the 40 and heard the unmistakable moooooo! Dumb cow

Had a similar experience. Was taking a buddy hunting who was on crutches after surgery one year and we had a short hike from the pickup to a small grove of trees where a blind was setup up. Area was great white tail country but also thick with grizzlies. We decided to walk down a dried up irrigation ditch in the dark to not spook anything that maybe grazing in the surrounding fields. Through the dark comes a big dark mass walking straight towards us down the ditch and we both bout sh!t our pants thinking we'd walked head on into a big sow. The beast saw us too and spooked and ran up the side of the ditch into the field, a big black angus cow.....

 

[MountainFeral]

It wasn't hunting, but once during a really tough 24 hour backcountry mountain bike race, I got caught in a lighting/hail storm on top of a mountain in the middle of the night. I didn't get struck by lightning, but I did get hypothermic. There were a couple of young guys truck camping at a nearby pass. I had talked to them earlier in the evening prior to the storm, and, in my hypothermic stupor, decided to get in the cab of one of the trucks to try and warm up.
I fell asleep briefly, then woke up. It was still pitch black dark, and I could see headlamps flickering about 200 yards away. I thought it was someone involved with the race I was in coming up to look for me. Then the lights went away and re-appeared several more times in the same spot before stopping completely. Once the sun started to come up, I talked to the truck guy (who'd been asleep in the back) and went on my way. Never thought much about the lights I'd seen after that.
One year later, I returned to the same spot to spectate the race. It was dark, and I was hiking the same ridge. I saw a headlamp ahead of me in the dark. I went around a rocky rise in the ridge, and on the other side (where I'd seen the light)... nothing. Cliff faces on both sides- there's nowhere else a human could have gone.

Ghosts, man.

 

[Nickofthewoods]

It wasn't hunting, but once during a really tough 24 hour backcountry mountain bike race, I got caught in a lighting/hail storm on top of a mountain in the middle of the night. I didn't get struck by lightning, but I did get hypothermic. There were a couple of young guys truck camping at a nearby pass. I had talked to them earlier in the evening prior to the storm, and, in my hypothermic stupor, decided to get in the cab of one of the trucks to try and warm up.
I fell asleep briefly, then woke up. It was still pitch black dark, and I could see headlamps flickering about 200 yards away. I thought it was someone involved with the race I was in coming up to look for me. Then the lights went away and re-appeared several more times in the same spot before stopping completely. Once the sun started to come up, I talked to the truck guy (who'd been asleep in the back) and went on my way. Never thought much about the lights I'd seen after that.
One year later, I returned to the same spot to spectate the race. It was dark, and I was hiking the same ridge. I saw a headlamp ahead of me in the dark. I went around a rocky rise in the ridge, and on the other side (where I'd seen the light)... nothing. Cliff faces on both sides- there's nowhere else a human could have gone.

Ghosts, man.

Forget the headlamp ghosts! The part where you get into some stranger's truck in the middle of the night while they were asleep in the back is the craziest part of your story. I can easily envision a less favorable outcome to that scenario. Glad it ended ok for you!

 

[MountainFeral]

Forget the headlamp ghosts! The part where you get into some stranger's truck in the middle of the night while they were asleep in the back is the craziest part of your story. I can easily envision a less favorable outcome to that scenario. Glad it ended ok for you!

Well, I'd talked to the guys a couple of hours beforehand. It was a really unique mountain bike race, and I was leading, so I let them know that there'd be more people on mountain bikes coming over the pass during the night. If that hadn't been the case, I probably wouldn't have done it. I don't know, though. I wasn't in good shape. It was one of those times that you have to search for the voice of reason in your brain because the normal thinking part is telling you to do things that will get you killed... like lay down and take a nap on that rock because the hypothermia is making you drowsy.
I basically survived being literally inside a thunderstorm at 12,000ft, then had to figure out how to not die from hypothermia. I was ashamedly unprepared in the clothing department- all I'd been carrying was a light rain jacket. Some lessons you learn the hard way. I will never be that underprepared again, so there's that.

P.S. Still won the bike race
P.P.S. I'm trying to get a mountain goat tag in that unit. Will definitely go back and look for headlamp ghosts if I ever draw it.