I imagine that with all of the camping experience on this board, that there must be some weird happenings, whether tents, trailers, or motorhomes are involved.
A weird thing happened at Lake City Campground in Lake City FL. 2 police cars, a fire engine, and an ambulance came to a campsite about 3 sites away from ours. The campers stood around, wondering what was going on. We didn't see any smoke.
A camper walked up to us to tell the story. He had been camping there for the past 9 months. This is the 2nd time 911 had been called on this couple. The 1st time, the man had been slapping the woman around outside the camper. This time, he beat her up inside the camper. She managed to run away to get someone to call 911, but the man grabbed her and shoved her back inside. She went to the hospital, and he went to jail. We only stayed one night there.
I expect we will have some more weird camping stories to tell right around the first week of August....
I will be disappointed if we don't.
I was on a camping trip as a child I Florida. We had cooked a ham for a meal later in the trip and it was stored in the cooler. Well we kept the cooler pushed under the pop up to secure it from the little critters running around. Then one morning my dad wakes up and says he must really have wanted that ham because he swore he dreamed about it so vividly that he could smell it throughout the night.
We thought he was crazy until we go to the cooler to get some milk and find that the ham had been shredded by little fingers.
Turns out the raccoons figured out that they could open the lid high enough to reach an arm in to grab a fist full of ham. We have no clue how long they were going after it but the only reason we assume they stopped is because they couldn't reach anymore.
Needless to say my dad was disappointed.
Another story I like...
I was guiding a backpacking trip on a very easy overnight trip into the Uwharrie National Forest. We had left in the evening and planned to hike a short distance to the first site in the dark.
I was in the lead with the rest of the group trailing. I had my headlamp turned off because we were telling these participants that if you allow your eyes the time to adjust, you really don't need much light to see.
Well we are all just trekking along when I turn on my light because I thought I had seen something. I heard no noise in the dry leaves but I was sure I saw something. I turn my light off thinking my eyes were just playing tricks on me when the participant behind me says 'you saw it to?'. I asked what he saw, to which he replied 'that shadow figure'.
He then proceeded to describe the exact same scene I had just witnessed. A dark shadow, tall enough to be a person but with no noise and nothing to been seen when the light was turned on. I'm not the superstitious type, but I don't pretend like I have any real clue about the unexplained mysteries in this world. I can't figure out how this guy would be able to describe exactly the same event without my prompting unless we witnessed the same thing. To this day it is still a mystery. Of course it didn't help that we planned to camp near the site of an old slave graveyard that night.
Like most campers I prob'ly got a million of 'em, but one I like was many years ago at Tuolumne Meadows Campground in Yosemite, about 8,600 feet. Sites on either side of us had rock climbers. They were very seasoned and carefully put all their food in the bearproof...and forgot to close and lock it. About oh-dark-hundred we heard a lot of rustling, whispering, and giggling, but I couldn't see what was up. I just figured they were rising early to get out on the rocks and being quiet so as not to disturb us, but when the talking got loud and the flashlights came on I realized what it was; they'd been raided by at least one bear that had cleaned out their stash. They begged us not to tell the ranger, we didn't, and all was well. :P
A bear that scores is a bear that comes back. (:))
We came back after dark. Mom took the Kid to a ranger walk and I started to prepare dinner on the Coleman. I was pumping it up (bore-ing) and letting my gaze wander around the site. My gasoline lantern was in a tree casting a deep shadow on the right side of the car. The back of the car was open so I could get to my two coolers. I thought I saw movement in that shadow, but, nah, couldn't be, right? But there it was again and I looked harder. Sure enough, there was a black bear standing up on the car, both paws on the right rear window, peering through at the two coolers in the open back. All he had to do was step to his left and he'd have them. I grabbed a pot and a spoon and banged it, yelling at the bear, which dropped to all fours and stared at me as if I were out of my mind. I could practically hear the bear thinking, "Hey, dude, I'm just lookin'. Can't a bear look?"
The bear ambled calmly off. This was clearly a "habituated" bear, dangerously unafraid of humans. I followed, banging my pot and yelling "BEAR IN THE CAMP"T to alert others. A family of four had just put their cooler out on their table. The sliding door of their van was open. Two adults and two kids pretty much dove headfirst into the van and slammed the door while the bear walked up and batted the cooler off the table. A big hunk of cheese flew out. The bear took the cheese, strolled to a nearby tree, sat down with his back against the tree and proceeded to calmly devour probably two pounds of cheese while eyeing me, me eyeing back, pot and spoon at the ready. The bear finished the cheese, arose, and sauntered up the trail while the cry "BEAR IN THE CAMP" was repeated up the line. 8-|
That night we locked everything we could in the bearproof. Next morning there were lots of bear tracks in the dirt around the car and bear nose prints on every bit of glass. My son was entranced and excited, us not so much.
I think pinstriper will enjoy reading this bear encounter.
Quote from: @admin" timestamp="1461029722" source="/post/20663/threadAnother story I like...
I was guiding a backpacking trip on a very easy overnight trip into the Uwharrie National Forest. We had left in the evening and planned to hike a short distance to the first site in the dark.
I was in the lead with the rest of the group trailing. I had my headlamp turned off because we were telling these participants that if you allow your eyes the time to adjust, you really don't need much light to see.
Well we are all just trekking along when I turn on my light because I thought I had seen something. I heard no noise in the dry leaves but I was sure I saw something. I turn my light off thinking my eyes were just playing tricks on me when the participant behind me says 'you saw it to?'. I asked what he saw, to which he replied 'that shadow figure'.
He then proceeded to describe the exact same scene I had just witnessed. A dark shadow, tall enough to be a person but with no noise and nothing to been seen when the light was turned on. I'm not the superstitious type, but I don't pretend like I have any real clue about the unexplained mysteries in this world. I can't figure out how this guy would be able to describe exactly the same event without my prompting unless we witnessed the same thing. To this day it is still a mystery. Of course it didn't help that we planned to camp near the site of an old slave graveyard that night.
Dang, another Big Foot sighting :o
My wife & I had an encounter of the scary redneck kind. 8-|
We were on a bicycle trip around the coast of Nova Scotia. We were pushing hard to make it to a campground that was on the map. We had no reservations because they can always fit in a tent. We arrived at the campground but found it was closed. I remembered seeing an RCMP police detachment a mile or two before so we decided to head back and ask where would be a okay place for us to camp. The RCMP officer was nice and suggested it would be okay to camp in the dunes on nearby [a href="https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.459504,-65.5786391,15284m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en"]>> Cape Sable Island <<[/a]. The seven mile long island is on the Southern-most tip of Nova Scotia. Perhaps a thousand people live on the island. It is remote enough that the the people who live there have a distinct accent. We would find the dunes after crossing a short causeway from the mainland. It was magical! The dunes were beautiful and we could hear the lullaby of the nearby crashing surf. The dunes were crisscrossed with paths and we set up our tiny two-person tent (more like a bivy really) in an area of sand without the dune grass. Our bikes were laid flat on the ground. You could walk close to us without even knowing we were there. We went to sleep.
We were awoken after midnight by a jacked-up 4x4 pickup truck with three drunk locals in it. Tanked up on beer (that they continued to drink while driving) it would seem they decided to do some 4-wheeling in the dunes. Flying through the dunes at high-speed they skidded to an emergency stop within a couple of feet of our tiny tent, a row of off-roading lights on its bumper (or bushbar) shining on the tent. The inside if the tent seemed to be lit up like it had a huge floodlight inside. We stayed inside the tent - quiet - and with our eyes as big as dinner plates. They stayed in the truck with the engine running. Occassionally they'd rev up the engine loudly. Very loudly to us - just feet in front of their bumper. We could hear they were pissed off that we were in their way. They had the windows open so we could hear their conversation. In very drunken voices laced with profanities, they spoke of how easy it would have been to run us over. Then one guy suggested they should back up & see if they could jump the tent. The others acknowledged the great idea by clanking their beer bottles together in a toast of approval. They proceeded to debate the idea. They acknowledged that we could be killed but that didn't seem to bother them in the least. To us it seemed very real that these could be our last moments alive. We were naked in our sleeping bags and we didn't dare unzip the tent to engage them as without saying anything we knew the situation could escalate to rape & murder. Silently we just hoped they'd go away. After about 15-minutes that seemed like hours they backed up and drove around the tent and went on their way. I popped my head out of the tent to see their tail lights bouncing in the distant trails and a few beer bottles tossed onto the ground near our tent. We breathed sighs of relief.
What had contributed to making the experience terrifying was our knowledge that [a href="https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.459504,-65.5786391,15284m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en"]>> Cape Sable Island <<[/a] has a reputation of being home to a free-spirited population. It is relatively remote. The people who live there are hard-living lobster fishermen. (The 'Cape Island' style of fishing boat originated there). The only reason there was a RCMP detachment near the Island is it is an area where heavy drinking & fights are a relatively common pastime. We knew that if they did kill us they'd have no problem disposing of our bodies.
Wow, after PEI's story I hear banjos to the tempo of Dr. Lecter clanking the empty Chianti bottle.
Most I have is a bear encounter. After trekking all day in the hills of VT we set up camp. We prefer hammocks in the dead of summer. Bears around there know food bags are slung and know how to defeat them like low hanging fruit.
After sleeping for a few hours I awoke to muscle spasms in my left calf. Then I felt it again. Grabbed my headlamp to find a small black bear was testing my hammock and was wandering away by then.
[quote source="/post/20663/thread" timestamp="1461029722" author="@admin"]Another story I like...
I was guiding a backpacking trip on a very easy overnight trip into the Uwharrie National Forest. We had left in the evening and planned to hike a short distance to the first site in the dark.
I was in the lead with the rest of the group trailing. I had my headlamp turned off because we were telling these participants that if you allow your eyes the time to adjust, you really don't need much light to see.
Well we are all just trekking along when I turn on my light because I thought I had seen something. I heard no noise in the dry leaves but I was sure I saw something. I turn my light off thinking my eyes were just playing tricks on me when the participant behind me says 'you saw it to?'. I asked what he saw, to which he replied 'that shadow figure'.
He then proceeded to describe the exact same scene I had just witnessed. A dark shadow, tall enough to be a person but with no noise and nothing to been seen when the light was turned on. I'm not the superstitious type, but I don't pretend like I have any real clue about the unexplained mysteries in this world. I can't figure out how this guy would be able to describe exactly the same event without my prompting unless we witnessed the same thing. To this day it is still a mystery. Of course it didn't help that we planned to camp near the site of an old slave graveyard that night.
[/quote]I spent some time in Uwharrie National Forest and can advise that there are shadowy figures from Fort Bragg that blend in with the gray and are very quiet. Special Forces Qualification course is at Fort Bragg and in my day all of 5th SFG was there unless deployed. Not big foot perhaps but . . .
I have always wanted to go back there, and Pisgah. I spent spent a cold several weeks in Pisgah but enjoyed it. Tough rucksack humping though. Beautiful area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uwharrie_National_Forest
I probably should not tell this Sea Story, so please, nobody slam me for this. I'm just sharing because it was asked
When I was on a Coast Guard Cutter (25 something years ago), we had been on patrol for about a week off South Carolina. One night we pulled into a dock for some Liberty time on some island and there was a campground there. That night, being young and coasties, several off us wondered into town and did a "little" bit of drinking. On the way back to the boat we stopped at the campground swimming pool and drank some more while sitting in the pool. At some point well after 2am we started walking back to the boat and admittedly, some of us were more inebriated than others. One of my buddies for some unknown reason ran up to a camper and started pounded HARD on the door with both fist yelling at the top of his lungs "WAKE UP IN THERE, I SAID WAKE UP, WAKE UP!!!" The rest of us stood in shock as we witnessed the crazy event. We quickly ran over and grabbed him and took off back to the boat as quick as we could.
We did not mean any harm, and the guy that did it was a good guy, we were all just young military guys who had been offshore for a week. I think he was just joking around and thought it was funny, and honestly we all laughed about it the next day thinking how terrified the people sleeping in that camper must have been when that happened. But also how lucky he was that he didn't get shot. To this day, I can still only imagine how much that must have scared those poor people. It scared me and I was awake on the outside.
Will someone PLEASE tell the raccoon story ?