My friend and I were attacked by a bear while sleeping in our tent in NM. Scariest experience of my life.
I got lost on a backpacking trip. I had taken that trail a few times without problems. That year I missed or misread a few blazes on the trees that marked it. Spent two days hiking before I popped out of the woods onto a highway almost 14 miles from where I should have been. Then I still had a long walk on the highway before I found a house where someone let me use a phone.
Today cell phones and GPS make backpacking safer. But, I learned a lot those two days in the woods. Keeping calm, following a compass and not getting injured made all the difference. A lot of people panic in the woods and almost run as they try getting out. One wrong step and they have a twisted ankle or broke leg. Then they are in major trouble.
Anyone looking for a great backpacking trail, Ouachita Trail (pronounced Wash-A-Ta) 224 miles through Arkansas into Oklahoma. Sections of it are still pretty raw and guides are recommended for first timers. Other sections are very easy and go through state parks.
http://www.friendsot.org/about_the_trail
This is why I’ve hiked all my life.
http://www.friendsot.org/gallery/ot-adoption-segments/TrailMaint4-28-09-3.JPG.php
:eek:
Did you have food in the tent?
17 years old, first night in the BWCA (Minnesota, along the Canadian border) alone in a tent about 30 feet from dumbass California friend of friends of my parents and his 14 year old son in thier own tent. Dumbass doesn’t string the food pack high enough (1) and INSISTS on stringing it up on a tree right between our tents instead of the previously prepared sapling roped between two trees that any intelligent person would use (2).
Rains in the night. Rope stretches. I wake up about 6am to the sound of something ripping into the food pack. Slowly and cautiously, I peer out to see a BEAR about 10’ from my tent, tearing into the food pack which is now only about 5’ off the ground. At this time I notice that there is a thin trail in the forest floor leading straight through where I put my tent. About 10 terrifying minutes before dumbass and his son wake up and begin raising a ruckus. They actually got out of their tent and were screaming at the bear and banging their shoes together. I wasn’t sure whether the thing would kill them, or try to run through my tent.
Fortunately, it decided to leave peacably. Dumbass yelled at me for not getting out of my tent to yell at the bear along with them. Sure. I’ll get right on that. :rolleyes:
A couple of days later, we portage around some nasty rapids and a short waterfall/rapids on a medium sized river. We put in about 40 feet from the base of the falls where the current was still really strong. Dumbass doesn’t launch sideways into the water along with the current. NO, we launch straight out across the current. The rapid flow of the water immediately threatens to flip the canoe. Dumbass starts yelling contradictory instructions on how and where I should paddle. Fuck that noise. I dig in my paddle and in one hard swipe, flip the entire canoe around so that we’re now facing into the flow. Well, we’re facing the wrong direction, I’ll give you that, but we’re safe. Dumbass starts screaming at me about how I didn’t do what he told me to do and I put our lives in danger. I screamed back and that HE was the one who put our lives in danger by launching straight out into rough water and I just saved our asses.
About 12 years later on a trip with co-workers in late May, it got down to about 35 degrees and was raining hard, mixed with snow (ie, raining slush). Our rain gear just couldn’t keep up with it and I got so soaked that I had some hypothermia issues. When we camped, I slept 16 hours straight and then spent the next day a bit wiped out before recovering.
Which made it extremely aggravating when, about 6 years after that, a friend decided that he didn’t need to put on the lower half of his rain gear in a 50 degree rainstorm and had a similar experience. Oh, we tried to tell him, but NO, he had been an Eagle Scout and he knew best. :rolleyes:
Yeah I’d like to hear more about this as well.
Once, hiking in the woods of Japan, I came to a ledge segment. On my right, a sheer cliff wall. On my left, a drop of about 30 feet to a tree canopy. It had rained the day before. While walking slowly, the ground gave way under my left feet. I was starting to fall over…
If it wasn’t for the walking stick I had haphazardly picked up a bit earlier, I might not be here today.
(Then, even after that, I was still lost as hell, and had not told anybody where I was going. The first mountain I summited was an electrical tower, and all I could see was wilderness in every direction. Finally found a road about 2 hours later, and then had another 3 hour hike back to civilization. Asked for a glass of water from a farm family on the way back, and got a cup from their daughter the size of a urine sample. Aaah, memories.)
I’ve got almost too many to count.
I grabbed a rattlesnake and threw it out of a friend’s canoe.
I accidentally shot myself while cross country skiing.
I dislocated my shoulder mountain biking and reset it myself.
I’ve spent the night, on the trail in just my clothes (No tent or sleeping bag) more than once.
The day before yesterday my friend wrapped his raft on a rock 20 miles from civilization. We decided that I should continue on ,alone, to help out those other folks.
I’m, apparently, Not All That Bright.
Earlier this season, I ended up doing a solo run followed by a pin recovery because my companion lost his kayak. Bit of a pain in the ass, but hey, a sunny day on the water is a good day.
A friend of mine returned from Baffin Island, where a polar bear had attacked him and his partner through the wall of their tent. He shot the bear, which had scalped his partner. He said that the food in the tent was him and his partner. He also said that he would never go out on the land again without a dog to stand guard.
We got fucking hailed on.
Whee!!!
Chacoguy, how did you shoot yourself skiing?
Unfortunately, in well travelled areas of the BWCA/Quetico, and other well travelled parks, such as Algonquin, immaculate food and sanitation protocol sometimes isn’t enough, for bears learn through experience. If other people have previously kept a messy camp, expect bears. They learn to go after hung packs. They learn to go after barrels tossed in the woods. They learn to go through tents.
It was in college; alcohol related accident.
One of my frat brothers managed to shoot himself in the foot with a nine iron (never use a wedge to fire off a bullet).