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Quoted: That story was brutal. Quoted: Quoted: The worst camping story I know of is the guy that woke up with his German Shepherd mutilated and clothes stolen (if I remember correctly). I believe it was linked in the creepy thread. That story was brutal. Anyone got a link? I found the thread but it’s over 100 pages |
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I found it, copy/paste from page 6 When I and my wife were quite a bit younger, we decided that we would spend the bicentennial outdoors. Yes, July of '76......we're old. We lived in Pueblo at the time, and decided to go hiking, fishing and camp along Lime Creek between Durango and Silverton. There wasn't anything other than brookies in the creek, but they were plentiful and fun to catch. We left our car by the side of the road along Old Lime Creek Road about 5 miles in from the highway and packed in upstream along the creek with our shepherd, Rebel. It only took us about an hour to get to where we wanted to camp, a nice meadow beside the creek just before a slot canyon that required you to swim to get any further upstream. Either that or take a several mile detour. We camped uneventfully that night, the third of July, enjoying the sounds of the rippling creek and nature all around us. It was such a nice night that we just slept out under the stars, didn't bother to pitch our little backpacking tent. A little cool, but we had the fire going and our lightweight 30 degree bags, so we were very comfortable. The next day we had breakfast, packed up and we all swam our way up the creek to the next wide spot with a bit of bank in the canyon, only about 150 yards or so. Now Rebel was never one to turn down a chance to get wet, but we had to do quite a bit of coaxing to get him to follow us up the creek. We fished and splashed upstream a bit, and before we knew it it was lunchtime. We thought we'd fry up some of those brookies but we were in this slot canyon that terminated in a fairly deep pool with about a ten foot rocky waterfall at the end of it. We decided that I would scale the waterfall and pull the dog and the packs up and then I'd help Maggie get up. It was fairly difficult, even with the help of an old cable left over from a mining operation that was hanging down the side wall of the canyon. It took a LOT of effort and though we finally made it, we looked back down that waterfall and wondered what the heck we were thinking. Rebel was none too happy about it either, and seemed to get more irritable by the minute. We found enough driftwood at the rocky top of the falls to get a fire started and get the fish fried up, but that was about it. You know the uneasy feeling that several others have mentioned? It was like a switch turned on and we all of a sudden became aware of our surroundings. It grew like a cancer and I actually watched the hair on the back of Rebel's neck stand up. Maggie felt it too and we both noticed that it was getting dark FAST down in this canyon. First thought in my head was a cat, and I actually felt a bit better about that because I figured the cat would leave us be, between the fire and the dog. I told Maggie what I thought and she seemed to feel a bit better, too. I did not want to get caught in the dark in the canyon, for a bunch of reasons, flash floods etc. I spied what looked like a mine shaft about 2 hundred feet above us, a heck of a steep climb, but it looked like our best bet. We pulled out our flashlights and by the time we reached it it was PITCH black. The dog was a mess by this point, whipping around in circles, whining, yelping and generally being a real pain in the ass. Maggie and I were drenched with sweat and immediately began to freeze. July in the mountains is a weird thing, I have seen blizzard conditions before, but this was like someone turned on the deep freeze. We were at what looked like the start of a mine, it only went back about ten feet, but there was evidence of fires at the mouth, and they curiously looked fresh. I was too tired to think more about it, I knew we had to get out of our wet clothes, pitch the tent, and climb in our bags before we got serious hypothermia. That was NO fun, let me tell you, having to do all of that by the light of our rapidly dying flashlight. And there was NO firewood anywhere close. I cursed myself several times for letting things get this far out of control. We finally got the tent pitched right there in the back of this little cave , buck naked as we had no dry clothes left. The sleeping bags were slightly damp too, even though we had stuffed them in plastic garbage bags before our swimming expedition up the canyon. WE FROZE!! It was miserable. About 1 in the morning I called Rebel into the tent for a little heat. The dog seemed to have calmed down greatly, and with the added heat we drifted off. Sometime during the night I heard something that just about woke me, I was still in a haze, so I fell asleep again immediately. I woke up one other time, because I thought I heard Rebel yip a little bit, but again I was in and out. I put my hand out to pet his head and he licked my hand. I fell asleep again. Maggie later said she fell asleep the same time as I did but never woke up at all during the night. I woke to the most horrible noise I have ever heard come out of a hundred pound woman. Just the most God-awful shrieks that I have ever heard. I never want to hear that again. I opened my eyes just in time to see a man at the mouth of the shaft, silhouetted against the morning daylight, looking back at us with the most twisted evil grin I have ever seen on the face of another human. I scrambled to get free of my tightly zipped bag and the little tent while he just crouched there and grinned. When I was just about free, he disappeared. Now, we were granola crunchin' tree huggin' anti-gun nature freaks at the time, so the only thing I had of any consequence as a weapon was my camp knife. I found it after what seemed like hours of searching, but really was probably under a minute. I very cautiously made my way to the entrance, millimeters at a time. The guy was gone. About that time Maggie started screaming and whimpering again so I rushed back to the back of the shaft. She had struggled out of the tent and was pointing at what used to be Rebel. His head was nearly severed, and the tent and the bags were ruined with the blood all over everything. She had blood all over her, so the first thing I did was make sure she was not injured. Then I checked myself. We were ok,it was all Rebel's blood. We put on our still damp cold clothes from the night before and then we noticed that our boots were gone. We were in trouble. I had some paracord, so we tied some shirts and towels around our feet and climbed back down towards the creek. We left everything in the mine, except for the knife and some stuff that we shoved in our pockets. It took us 8 hours to get back down to the car, and we were like hamburger. Hands, feet, arms and legs scraped raw, bruised and bleeding. We jumped in, the car started right up thankfully and we left a dust cloud that blanketed the valley as we sped down the rough trail toward Durango. We limped into the Sheriff's office and we looked like hell. We got our story out, my wife through tears and me talking waaay too fast. but finally got it all out. The deputy said that they would go out first thing in the morning and asked us to stay in town. We had no money for a hotel, so he let us stay in a cell after we showered and changed into prison jumpsuits. We were there at the jail waiting when the "expedition" returned with the convoy of three trucks. I noticed that all the officers, who were quite wet and filthy, gave us dirty looks as they passed us, and the Deputy that we had talked to the day before herded us back to his office. Then came the interrogation. Turns out that some animal had spread the dog's remains all down the slide to the creek, and he said that there was nothing else there. No tent, no backpacks, nothing. He asked us if we had any drugs. I did not want to admit to him that we had some herb, so I denied it. It was clear that we were fighting a losing battle. They had come to the conclusion that we were wandering out in the woods high on LSD while a mountain lion had gotten our dog. The bastard even made us change back into our filthy clothes and give back the jumpsuits right then. He told us that he had better never see us again. We left. Maggie was sobbing. I never have been back to Durango. The thing that I still have nightmares about years later, and I have never mentioned this to Maggie, is....... the second time I woke up when I heard Rebel yelp, was that when his throat was cut?.......and if it was, was it the dog who licked my hand before I fell back asleep? I still go out in the wilderness, never overnight, out well before dark, only with other people, and always with a big gun. I respect animals, but I fear people. |
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Quoted: I found it, copy/paste from page 6 When I and my wife were quite a bit younger, we decided that we would spend the bicentennial outdoors. Yes, July of '76......we're old. We lived in Pueblo at the time, and decided to go hiking, fishing and camp along Lime Creek between Durango and Silverton. There wasn't anything other than brookies in the creek, but they were plentiful and fun to catch. We left our car by the side of the road along Old Lime Creek Road about 5 miles in from the highway and packed in upstream along the creek with our shepherd, Rebel. It only took us about an hour to get to where we wanted to camp, a nice meadow beside the creek just before a slot canyon that required you to swim to get any further upstream. Either that or take a several mile detour. We camped uneventfully that night, the third of July, enjoying the sounds of the rippling creek and nature all around us. It was such a nice night that we just slept out under the stars, didn't bother to pitch our little backpacking tent. A little cool, but we had the fire going and our lightweight 30 degree bags, so we were very comfortable. The next day we had breakfast, packed up and we all swam our way up the creek to the next wide spot with a bit of bank in the canyon, only about 150 yards or so. Now Rebel was never one to turn down a chance to get wet, but we had to do quite a bit of coaxing to get him to follow us up the creek. We fished and splashed upstream a bit, and before we knew it it was lunchtime. We thought we'd fry up some of those brookies but we were in this slot canyon that terminated in a fairly deep pool with about a ten foot rocky waterfall at the end of it. We decided that I would scale the waterfall and pull the dog and the packs up and then I'd help Maggie get up. It was fairly difficult, even with the help of an old cable left over from a mining operation that was hanging down the side wall of the canyon. It took a LOT of effort and though we finally made it, we looked back down that waterfall and wondered what the heck we were thinking. Rebel was none too happy about it either, and seemed to get more irritable by the minute. We found enough driftwood at the rocky top of the falls to get a fire started and get the fish fried up, but that was about it. You know the uneasy feeling that several others have mentioned? It was like a switch turned on and we all of a sudden became aware of our surroundings. It grew like a cancer and I actually watched the hair on the back of Rebel's neck stand up. Maggie felt it too and we both noticed that it was getting dark FAST down in this canyon. First thought in my head was a cat, and I actually felt a bit better about that because I figured the cat would leave us be, between the fire and the dog. I told Maggie what I thought and she seemed to feel a bit better, too. I did not want to get caught in the dark in the canyon, for a bunch of reasons, flash floods etc. I spied what looked like a mine shaft about 2 hundred feet above us, a heck of a steep climb, but it looked like our best bet. We pulled out our flashlights and by the time we reached it it was PITCH black. The dog was a mess by this point, whipping around in circles, whining, yelping and generally being a real pain in the ass. Maggie and I were drenched with sweat and immediately began to freeze. July in the mountains is a weird thing, I have seen blizzard conditions before, but this was like someone turned on the deep freeze. We were at what looked like the start of a mine, it only went back about ten feet, but there was evidence of fires at the mouth, and they curiously looked fresh. I was too tired to think more about it, I knew we had to get out of our wet clothes, pitch the tent, and climb in our bags before we got serious hypothermia. That was NO fun, let me tell you, having to do all of that by the light of our rapidly dying flashlight. And there was NO firewood anywhere close. I cursed myself several times for letting things get this far out of control. We finally got the tent pitched right there in the back of this little cave , buck naked as we had no dry clothes left. The sleeping bags were slightly damp too, even though we had stuffed them in plastic garbage bags before our swimming expedition up the canyon. WE FROZE!! It was miserable. About 1 in the morning I called Rebel into the tent for a little heat. The dog seemed to have calmed down greatly, and with the added heat we drifted off. Sometime during the night I heard something that just about woke me, I was still in a haze, so I fell asleep again immediately. I woke up one other time, because I thought I heard Rebel yip a little bit, but again I was in and out. I put my hand out to pet his head and he licked my hand. I fell asleep again. Maggie later said she fell asleep the same time as I did but never woke up at all during the night. I woke to the most horrible noise I have ever heard come out of a hundred pound woman. Just the most God-awful shrieks that I have ever heard. I never want to hear that again. I opened my eyes just in time to see a man at the mouth of the shaft, silhouetted against the morning daylight, looking back at us with the most twisted evil grin I have ever seen on the face of another human. I scrambled to get free of my tightly zipped bag and the little tent while he just crouched there and grinned. When I was just about free, he disappeared. Now, we were granola crunchin' tree huggin' anti-gun nature freaks at the time, so the only thing I had of any consequence as a weapon was my camp knife. I found it after what seemed like hours of searching, but really was probably under a minute. I very cautiously made my way to the entrance, millimeters at a time. The guy was gone. About that time Maggie started screaming and whimpering again so I rushed back to the back of the shaft. She had struggled out of the tent and was pointing at what used to be Rebel. His head was nearly severed, and the tent and the bags were ruined with the blood all over everything. She had blood all over her, so the first thing I did was make sure she was not injured. Then I checked myself. We were ok,it was all Rebel's blood. We put on our still damp cold clothes from the night before and then we noticed that our boots were gone. We were in trouble. I had some paracord, so we tied some shirts and towels around our feet and climbed back down towards the creek. We left everything in the mine, except for the knife and some stuff that we shoved in our pockets. It took us 8 hours to get back down to the car, and we were like hamburger. Hands, feet, arms and legs scraped raw, bruised and bleeding. We jumped in, the car started right up thankfully and we left a dust cloud that blanketed the valley as we sped down the rough trail toward Durango. We limped into the Sheriff's office and we looked like hell. We got our story out, my wife through tears and me talking waaay too fast. but finally got it all out. The deputy said that they would go out first thing in the morning and asked us to stay in town. We had no money for a hotel, so he let us stay in a cell after we showered and changed into prison jumpsuits. We were there at the jail waiting when the "expedition" returned with the convoy of three trucks. I noticed that all the officers, who were quite wet and filthy, gave us dirty looks as they passed us, and the Deputy that we had talked to the day before herded us back to his office. Then came the interrogation. Turns out that some animal had spread the dog's remains all down the slide to the creek, and he said that there was nothing else there. No tent, no backpacks, nothing. He asked us if we had any drugs. I did not want to admit to him that we had some herb, so I denied it. It was clear that we were fighting a losing battle. They had come to the conclusion that we were wandering out in the woods high on LSD while a mountain lion had gotten our dog. The bastard even made us change back into our filthy clothes and give back the jumpsuits right then. He told us that he had better never see us again. We left. Maggie was sobbing. I never have been back to Durango. The thing that I still have nightmares about years later, and I have never mentioned this to Maggie, is....... the second time I woke up when I heard Rebel yelp, was that when his throat was cut?.......and if it was, was it the dog who licked my hand before I fell back asleep? I still go out in the wilderness, never overnight, out well before dark, only with other people, and always with a big gun. I respect animals, but I fear people.  |
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Several times but the only time I moved was a cross country move back home with my buddy. I flew out to AZ and drove back home with him. Couple of spots along the way we had some interesting encounters. Because of the route, I did not take a gun with me. Pepper spray, baton, RAT-3 were what I had on the road. Road people would just walk up to the tent or truck randomly in the middle of the night. I have had some odd encounters hiking and some camping at state sites. Folks out to party, or rob folks. When I was younger I used to camp with an axe under my pillow. Even when I have walked a fair distance off the beaten path for an overnight I have encountered homeless folks or poachers. The poachers were interesting. On State land claiming they "owned it" I am more concerned about going into the woods unarmed vs. the city. |
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And then there's this one I grew up in Salt Lake City, across the alley from a kid named Ron. When we were like 14 a kid named Nick moved in down the street. Nick wasn't a Mormon but joined our scout troop, and the three of us became good friends. As scouts, we used to camp all the time at this place called Stansbury Island in the Great Salt Lake. In dry years when the lake was low it was really just a peninsula, but even when the lake was high you could get out to the island on a causeway. It was basically a little range of mountains that stuck up out of the lake. We had a great Scoutmaster who used to take us camping two times a month, most of the time to Stansbury. It was not that great of a place to camp, but we kind of felt like it was our place. We never saw anyone else out there. When we were Juniors, Nick and I started partying and hanging out less with Ron. After we graduated, I went back east for college, Ron went to the U for a while before going on a Mormon mission, and Nick worked at Arby's. After my Freshman year I spent the whole summer in Salt Lake working at a refinery, so I hung out with Nick and other friends from high school. The next summer I was only in Salt Lake for a few weeks. By that time Nick had started at the community college and was hanging out with these angst ridden poets, actors and other dorks. They didn't like me much and the feeling was mutual. Nick's gothish girlfriend wouldn't call me by name, but always called me "frat boy." She was a peach. Nick had started to do pot and acid and other stuff with his poet buddies, but I really didn't care about any of that and we still had a good time when we went out with some of the old crowd. Ron got home that winter from his mission in Argentina. I talked to him a few times over the school year and we agreed it would be fun to get together for a campout the next summer on Stansbury. I called Nick about going and he thought it was a great idea, and made sure that I had called Ron. We picked a date during the week I was going to be in Salt Lake that summer. Nick said he would call a couple of other guys who had been in our troop. It turned out that just me, Nick and Ron could go. Nick had just totaled his beloved Firebird so we took Ron's car, or actually his little brother's car (little brother was now on a mission). It was a little Japanese station wagon, I think a Subaru. Ron picked me up at my mom's and then we went and picked Nick up at his apartment in west Salt Lake. We had all been good friends, and it didn't take long before we were conversing as comfortably as we had when we were 15. Nick said he had been camping out at Stansbury a few times and that he had found some really cool spots, including an old mine, on the east side of the island (the road runs along the west side). We had always camped on the north end, and had never really been over there when we were scouts. The car died on the way out there, right after we got off I-80 and started heading towards the island. I can't remember what the problem was, but Ron said that you just had to let the car sit for half an hour. We waited and sure enough it started. We ended up camping in a spot about halfway down the island, where Nick said you could hike over the mountain to these cool spots he had found. We brought KFC that night for dinner and ended up talking around the fire until 2 or 3 in the morning. I remember it was a full moon and that you could see your shadow at night. We had pop tarts for breakfast and went bunny hunting in the morning with 22s (I had a 10/22 and Ron had a lever action, I think a Marlin). We always did that but I don't ever remember seeing very many rabbits out there. There were more cattle on Stansbury than wabbits. At about 10 we left camp and took the Subaru up this little jeep trail that led to a water tank. Nick told us to bring some flashlights and he brought a rope. He led us to a foot trail that went to the east side of the island. About halfway down the mountain the trail led to this rock face kind of shaped like a bowl, and on the south side of it there was an old mine. It was a horizontal shaft heading southwest. Somebody had put steel bars over the door, but they had been pulled off and were lying on the ground. I remember sitting down to get all of the stickers out of my socks while the other two were talking. The mine was a about six feet high, so me and Ron had to stoop a little. It was about three feet wide. After about 10 feet we came to T, and Nick had us take a right so we were heading pretty much directly north. We probably went about 150 feet or so, and by this time it would have been pitch black if not for the flashlights. The tunnel was straight but going down a little until it came to a big pit. The pit was only about 10 feet deep but it was at least that wide. There a piece of metal sticking out of the rock in the floor. Nick wrapped the middle of the rope around the peg and lowered himself down into the hole. Me and Ron followed. There was a rope on the other side of the pit already tied to the top. Ron was looking that way, and when I looked back and Nick was pulling the rope we had just climbed down into the hole. "What are you doing, we have to go out that way?" I asked. He said that we would need the rope later on, and showed me that he could throw the rope back up there and catch it on the peg when we needed to get out. He pulled the rope back down and put it over his shoulder. We all climbed out of the pit to the other side. The tunnel continued north, going down a little more now than before. There were some tunnels taking off from the main passage on the left. Some of them only went a few feet, others you could not see the end of them. After a few minutes of walking, the tunnel suddenly seemed darker. At first I thought the rock was just darker, but I looked at it more carefully and it was covered with writing. I said "Nick, check this out. There is writing all over the wall." He turned around and came back to where I was. "Yeah, isn't it weird. " I could not make heads or tails out of the letters. Some of them looked familiar but all of them didn't look like Roman letters, like they were Cyrillic or Greek or something. The writing covered the walls and ceiling. I wondered aloud if maybe some Greek or Russian miners had dug these tunnels. They brought in people from all over to work the mines. I turned back up the tunnel to see what Ron thought, and he was standing about six feet behind us. "Ron, can you see this?" He didn't say anything. He was pointing his flashlight right in my eyes so I couldn't see him. I started walking towards him and when I got back to him he said "Let's go." He turned and started walking back down the tunnel. Nick by this time had walked up and we both grabbed Ron's arms. We both badgered him to continue up the tunnel. Nick said we were almost to the end. We finally convinced Ron to keep going, but he stayed behind the two of us. As we went on, the writing on the wall got even thicker. Nick seemed like he was in a hurry so I could not take a good look at it, but it looked like there were little pictures mixed up in the writing too. I could not really tell what I was seeing, but I thought there were some pictures of skulls, like little Iron Maiden skulls. By this time I thought Nick had drawn on the walls and he was trying to freak us out. After another minute or so of walking we came to a more open area. It was about 15x15 feet, with an old rickety wood door at the end. Nick set the rope down and stepped aside so me and Ron could file into the room. The walls of the room were bare rock, but I looked up at the ceiling, which was pretty high like 12 feet, and it appeared that there was more writing up there. Nick walked up to the door and knocked on it two times. I was smirking by this time. Ron was by the entrance pointing his flashlight at Nick. He said "What the hell are you doing?" Nick said "Just wait, this is really cool." Ron grabbed the rope and then turned around, saying "I'm leaving" over his shoulder. I let out a little laugh and turned back to Nick, smiling. Before I could say anything he ran past me and tackled Ron. Both of them hit the floor. I stood there for a while looking at Nick sitting on top of Ron, punching him in the face over and over again. Finally I ran up and grabbed Nick by the shoulders and tried to pull him off Ron. He turned around and punched me right in the nose. I fell back, but Ron was able to throw Nick off and get to his feet. Nick grabbed Ron and pulled him back into the room. Nick was pulling Ron towards the door. I got up and tried to pull Nick's arms off of Ron. Nick tripped Ron, who fell hard on the floor, and then he turned and punched me again in the nose, knocking me back on my butt. Both Ron and I were a lot bigger than Nick but he was kicking the crap out of both of us. Ron bolted for the tunnel. Again Nick grabbed him and started pulling him backwards. I got to my feet and grabbed my flashlight off the floor. It was a polished aluminum flashlight that took two D batteries. I held on to the end with the light and smashed the other end into Nick's head. I did that three times until he fell. Ron ran out of the room, grabbing his light and the rope on his way down the tunnel. I watched him go and started to stagger after him. After taking a few steps down the tunnel I was hit in the back and Nick knocked me to the floor. My breath was knocked out and I dropped my light. He got up off me and grabbed me by the back of my shirt. He was pulling me back towards the room. I was grabbing at the floor, but it was too smooth to gain any purchase. I grabbed my light as he was pulling me past it, and flipped over with everything I had and knocked him on the head again. He fell backwards. I jumped on top of him and hit him again. The flashlight went out after that second hit. I kept hitting him with the light, and just lost all restraint. I must have hit him five times before I regained my senses and got up and backed away. Then I heard the squeak of rusty hinges as a gust of cool damp air rushed up the tunnel. I ran. It was pitch black but I sprinted down the tunnel and didn't touch a single wall. I don't remember the pit or the T, I just remember running. When I got to the entrance of the tunnel, I kept running and tripped over the fallen gate. I fell hard on to one of the bars with my left leg just below my knee and badly scratched up my hands. I got up and limped as fast as I could up the trail without looking back. I noticed there was blood all over my shirt. I was afraid Ron had left me, but when I got to the water tank, he was sitting in the car with the motor running. He had has his rifle out and was pointing it at me. I yelled to him and when he saw it was me he waived me over. He kept repeating "Let's go, hurry!"I hobbled over to the car and opened the door. "What about Nick?" I asked. I was loading a banana magazine into my rifle. "Screw Nick, let's go" said Ron. "We just can't leave him out here, I think I killed him." "Good, lets go." Right then Nick came sprinting over the top of the hill. He had blood running down his forehead and he was running full blast right towards us. I jumped in the car and Ron sped off. For a bit Nick was gaining on us, and I leaned out of the window and pointed my rifle at him. Ron was yelling "Shoot him!" But pretty soon he was way behind us. We stopped at the camp site and threw our sleeping bags and stuff into the car. We kept the engine running and our rifles in our hands while we scanned the road behind us. I left one of my canteens for Nick. When we got to the causeway, Ron told me I looked like hell. I got a towel and tried to clean all the blood off my face. We just kept yelling "What the hell" at each other. The car died again after we hit I-80, a few miles short of Black Rock. We pulled off to the shoulder. Ron got out of the car to look at the road behind us. He left his rifle in the passenger side of the car. I stayed in the car because my shirt was so bloody. I kept my loaded rifle by my side. I guess if we had seen Nick we would have shot him right there on the interstate. After about an hour the car started and we drove back to Salt Lake. Later that night I called Nick's apartment. His roommate answered. I asked if Nick was there and he said sure. I could hear him call "Nick, phone." After a minute I could hear the phone being picked up, and someone breathing on the line. He didn't say anything. I hung up. I hadn't heard from either of those guys in years, but Ron eventually found my sister through Facebook and he sent me an email. He has been doing well and is now a Mormon Bishop. That got me thinking about Nick. I searched the internet and eventually found an obituary, dated about 12 years after the camping trip. The obituary does not say how he died. I was kind of hoping to ask him what in the hell was going on that day. |
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Never from anything creepy but I learned my lesson about camping in August near water in Alabama about 10 years ago. Myself and a few friends took my Tundra and towed their pontoon out to Wheeler state park where we were going to camp for an extended weekend in mid-august. It seemed ok when we were on the water but where the primitive campgrounds were at was just in a nasty area and it was just so fucking nasty and humid it was too miserable to sleep unless you just drank yourself unconscious. To make it worse one of the first nights we were there some airboats came through spearing catfish. Those things were FUCKING LOUD and were just going down the bank by the campground for what seemed like hours. We didn't get any sleep that night. The next morning as miserable and sticky again and everyone just said fuck it and we went home and grilled out the rest of the weekend. 
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My brother went with a bunch of fellow students up to new hampshire for a weekend of camping while in college. They just happened to camp in a campground next to a single older man. The man was well equipped with camping equipment and seemed friendly. They started talking to the older guy, who told them he had a neat well paying job and enjoyed camping every weekend in the summer. Some how it came up that he never married. The older guy explained that as a young man he once lost his temper and almost killed a man and and paid the price of going a way for 20 years. Oops the guy was an ex con known for violence. The kids left early the next day.
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Quoted: I've never really worried about it. Statistically speaking the odds of there being two serial killers inside of a few square miles at once is like winning the lottery. Quoted: Quoted: Nope I've been on hunting trips by myself many times, I've been woken up by bears walking around the tent a few times, wolves howling, things like that aren't too unusual. Haven't shot any holes in the tent yet. I've never really worried about it. Statistically speaking the odds of there being two serial killers inside of a few square miles at once is like winning the lottery. 
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Quoted: My brother went with a bunch of fellow students up to new hampshire for a weekend of camping while in college. They just happened to camp in a campground next to a single older man. The man was well equipped with camping equipment and seemed friendly. They started talking to the older guy, who told them he had a neat well paying job and enjoyed camping every weekend in the summer. Some how it came up that he never married. The older guy explained that as a young man he once lost his temper and almost killed a man and and paid the price of going a way for 20 years. Oops the guy was an ex con known for violence. The kids left early the next day.
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Not camping, but catfishing at night on the Neuse River in Smithfield NC. I was alone which was rare, my BIL was almost always with me and we fished sometimes 5 nights per week. The ramp is in the city limits on Front Street. I was getting out about 1am and had tied up the boat to go get the truck/trailer backed down the ramp when I noticed a dude come out of the woodline. He walked toward me without a word, I had a G17 on my hip and I put my hand on it and told him to stop when he was about 30 feet away. Guy kept walking and I leveled the gun at him. He veered off at an angle and sort of made a large loop back toward the trees. He never spoke or made any expression. I made sure nobody was behind me and got to my truck and got it backed into the ramp. I kept it running but locked and got loaded as fast as I could. I went to the police station and made a report but to my knowledge whoever was going to try to rob me was not caught. |
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Quoted: That's some scary shit when setting up camp near old trees . Due to the narrowness of the canyon, there are few if any places to camp that aren't within the potential impact zone of rocks falling from very high. You just need to hope you aren't in the wrong place at the wrong moment. My lone camping story though, is from the It was a clear night, so for convenience (or laziness, or avoiding rattlers), I was sleeping under the open sky in my truck bed with my dog, enjoying the dark profile of the trees against the starry night sky. In the middle of the night, I was woken up by my dog all keyed up about something in the downhill direction behind the truck. I picked up my flashlight and shined it on the hillside, and saw something about the size of a beaver sitting up in the grass. It really looked a lot like a tan teddy bear, and I couldn't really id it. It was very light colored, like the dry grass. Just about then I thought, I better restrain my dog before he jumps out of the truck bed to pursue whatever that thing was, because he seemed to be really eager to do just that. Just at the moment I thought this, and started to reach for his collar, yup, he bolted out of the truck in hot pursuit of the "teddy bear." Damn. The mystery animal took off down the hill pursued by my dog, going down the steepening slope and out of view. Then I hear a lot of crashing through the underbrush, and then a sound like a couple animals thrashing around in a bush. Then the unsettling thing was, after that I just heard silence. I called my dog, then still, silence. So I put on some boots, turned the truck around and pointed the headlights down the hillside, and started to go down the hill to investigate. This took me a couple minutes, and still there were no sounds at all, and no trace of my dog. I started to think: Could that have been a mountain lion cub? and the momma killed him? So, I am walking down the hill, with a 1911 drawn, and then I hear something crashing out of the underbrush, charging right toward me. RIP Fido....  Nah, just kidding. I do believe in ID'ing targets, and didn't try to shoot anything.  So anyway, my dog comes charging up to me, happy as a clam. He was no worse for the wear, so I still have no idea what the "teddy bear"-looking thing was. I'm now suspecting a groundhog or woodchuck? But I have never seen those in person, and don't know if that is their nocturnal habitat. |
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Quoted: You aren't really camping if you're where someone might be walking around. I was on a back country fly fishing trip in a wilderness area nearly 10 miles in from the closest dirt road when a troop of Girl Scouts came strolling by our tent. No shit! Hadn't seen a soul other than my fishing buddy for four days. Seeing other people was simultaneously refreshing and also a little depressing. |
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Quoted: And then there's this one I grew up in Salt Lake City, across the alley from a kid named Ron. When we were like 14 a kid named Nick moved in down the street. Nick wasn't a Mormon but joined our scout troop, and the three of us became good friends. As scouts, we used to camp all the time at this place called Stansbury Island in the Great Salt Lake. In dry years when the lake was low it was really just a peninsula, but even when the lake was high you could get out to the island on a causeway. It was basically a little range of mountains that stuck up out of the lake. We had a great Scoutmaster who used to take us camping two times a month, most of the time to Stansbury. It was not that great of a place to camp, but we kind of felt like it was our place. We never saw anyone else out there. When we were Juniors, Nick and I started partying and hanging out less with Ron. After we graduated, I went back east for college, Ron went to the U for a while before going on a Mormon mission, and Nick worked at Arby's. After my Freshman year I spent the whole summer in Salt Lake working at a refinery, so I hung out with Nick and other friends from high school. The next summer I was only in Salt Lake for a few weeks. By that time Nick had started at the community college and was hanging out with these angst ridden poets, actors and other dorks. They didn't like me much and the feeling was mutual. Nick's gothish girlfriend wouldn't call me by name, but always called me "frat boy." She was a peach. Nick had started to do pot and acid and other stuff with his poet buddies, but I really didn't care about any of that and we still had a good time when we went out with some of the old crowd. Ron got home that winter from his mission in Argentina. I talked to him a few times over the school year and we agreed it would be fun to get together for a campout the next summer on Stansbury. I called Nick about going and he thought it was a great idea, and made sure that I had called Ron. We picked a date during the week I was going to be in Salt Lake that summer. Nick said he would call a couple of other guys who had been in our troop. It turned out that just me, Nick and Ron could go. Nick had just totaled his beloved Firebird so we took Ron's car, or actually his little brother's car (little brother was now on a mission). It was a little Japanese station wagon, I think a Subaru. Ron picked me up at my mom's and then we went and picked Nick up at his apartment in west Salt Lake. We had all been good friends, and it didn't take long before we were conversing as comfortably as we had when we were 15. Nick said he had been camping out at Stansbury a few times and that he had found some really cool spots, including an old mine, on the east side of the island (the road runs along the west side). We had always camped on the north end, and had never really been over there when we were scouts. The car died on the way out there, right after we got off I-80 and started heading towards the island. I can't remember what the problem was, but Ron said that you just had to let the car sit for half an hour. We waited and sure enough it started. We ended up camping in a spot about halfway down the island, where Nick said you could hike over the mountain to these cool spots he had found. We brought KFC that night for dinner and ended up talking around the fire until 2 or 3 in the morning. I remember it was a full moon and that you could see your shadow at night. We had pop tarts for breakfast and went bunny hunting in the morning with 22s (I had a 10/22 and Ron had a lever action, I think a Marlin). We always did that but I don't ever remember seeing very many rabbits out there. There were more cattle on Stansbury than wabbits. At about 10 we left camp and took the Subaru up this little jeep trail that led to a water tank. Nick told us to bring some flashlights and he brought a rope. He led us to a foot trail that went to the east side of the island. About halfway down the mountain the trail led to this rock face kind of shaped like a bowl, and on the south side of it there was an old mine. It was a horizontal shaft heading southwest. Somebody had put steel bars over the door, but they had been pulled off and were lying on the ground. I remember sitting down to get all of the stickers out of my socks while the other two were talking. The mine was a about six feet high, so me and Ron had to stoop a little. It was about three feet wide. After about 10 feet we came to T, and Nick had us take a right so we were heading pretty much directly north. We probably went about 150 feet or so, and by this time it would have been pitch black if not for the flashlights. The tunnel was straight but going down a little until it came to a big pit. The pit was only about 10 feet deep but it was at least that wide. There a piece of metal sticking out of the rock in the floor. Nick wrapped the middle of the rope around the peg and lowered himself down into the hole. Me and Ron followed. There was a rope on the other side of the pit already tied to the top. Ron was looking that way, and when I looked back and Nick was pulling the rope we had just climbed down into the hole. "What are you doing, we have to go out that way?" I asked. He said that we would need the rope later on, and showed me that he could throw the rope back up there and catch it on the peg when we needed to get out. He pulled the rope back down and put it over his shoulder. We all climbed out of the pit to the other side. The tunnel continued north, going down a little more now than before. There were some tunnels taking off from the main passage on the left. Some of them only went a few feet, others you could not see the end of them. After a few minutes of walking, the tunnel suddenly seemed darker. At first I thought the rock was just darker, but I looked at it more carefully and it was covered with writing. I said "Nick, check this out. There is writing all over the wall." He turned around and came back to where I was. "Yeah, isn't it weird. " I could not make heads or tails out of the letters. Some of them looked familiar but all of them didn't look like Roman letters, like they were Cyrillic or Greek or something. The writing covered the walls and ceiling. I wondered aloud if maybe some Greek or Russian miners had dug these tunnels. They brought in people from all over to work the mines. I turned back up the tunnel to see what Ron thought, and he was standing about six feet behind us. "Ron, can you see this?" He didn't say anything. He was pointing his flashlight right in my eyes so I couldn't see him. I started walking towards him and when I got back to him he said "Let's go." He turned and started walking back down the tunnel. Nick by this time had walked up and we both grabbed Ron's arms. We both badgered him to continue up the tunnel. Nick said we were almost to the end. We finally convinced Ron to keep going, but he stayed behind the two of us. As we went on, the writing on the wall got even thicker. Nick seemed like he was in a hurry so I could not take a good look at it, but it looked like there were little pictures mixed up in the writing too. I could not really tell what I was seeing, but I thought there were some pictures of skulls, like little Iron Maiden skulls. By this time I thought Nick had drawn on the walls and he was trying to freak us out. After another minute or so of walking we came to a more open area. It was about 15x15 feet, with an old rickety wood door at the end. Nick set the rope down and stepped aside so me and Ron could file into the room. The walls of the room were bare rock, but I looked up at the ceiling, which was pretty high like 12 feet, and it appeared that there was more writing up there. Nick walked up to the door and knocked on it two times. I was smirking by this time. Ron was by the entrance pointing his flashlight at Nick. He said "What the hell are you doing?" Nick said "Just wait, this is really cool." Ron grabbed the rope and then turned around, saying "I'm leaving" over his shoulder. I let out a little laugh and turned back to Nick, smiling. Before I could say anything he ran past me and tackled Ron. Both of them hit the floor. I stood there for a while looking at Nick sitting on top of Ron, punching him in the face over and over again. Finally I ran up and grabbed Nick by the shoulders and tried to pull him off Ron. He turned around and punched me right in the nose. I fell back, but Ron was able to throw Nick off and get to his feet. Nick grabbed Ron and pulled him back into the room. Nick was pulling Ron towards the door. I got up and tried to pull Nick's arms off of Ron. Nick tripped Ron, who fell hard on the floor, and then he turned and punched me again in the nose, knocking me back on my butt. Both Ron and I were a lot bigger than Nick but he was kicking the crap out of both of us. Ron bolted for the tunnel. Again Nick grabbed him and started pulling him backwards. I got to my feet and grabbed my flashlight off the floor. It was a polished aluminum flashlight that took two D batteries. I held on to the end with the light and smashed the other end into Nick's head. I did that three times until he fell. Ron ran out of the room, grabbing his light and the rope on his way down the tunnel. I watched him go and started to stagger after him. After taking a few steps down the tunnel I was hit in the back and Nick knocked me to the floor. My breath was knocked out and I dropped my light. He got up off me and grabbed me by the back of my shirt. He was pulling me back towards the room. I was grabbing at the floor, but it was too smooth to gain any purchase. I grabbed my light as he was pulling me past it, and flipped over with everything I had and knocked him on the head again. He fell backwards. I jumped on top of him and hit him again. The flashlight went out after that second hit. I kept hitting him with the light, and just lost all restraint. I must have hit him five times before I regained my senses and got up and backed away. Then I heard the squeak of rusty hinges as a gust of cool damp air rushed up the tunnel. I ran. It was pitch black but I sprinted down the tunnel and didn't touch a single wall. I don't remember the pit or the T, I just remember running. When I got to the entrance of the tunnel, I kept running and tripped over the fallen gate. I fell hard on to one of the bars with my left leg just below my knee and badly scratched up my hands. I got up and limped as fast as I could up the trail without looking back. I noticed there was blood all over my shirt. I was afraid Ron had left me, but when I got to the water tank, he was sitting in the car with the motor running. He had has his rifle out and was pointing it at me. I yelled to him and when he saw it was me he waived me over. He kept repeating "Let's go, hurry!"I hobbled over to the car and opened the door. "What about Nick?" I asked. I was loading a banana magazine into my rifle. "Screw Nick, let's go" said Ron. "We just can't leave him out here, I think I killed him." "Good, lets go." Right then Nick came sprinting over the top of the hill. He had blood running down his forehead and he was running full blast right towards us. I jumped in the car and Ron sped off. For a bit Nick was gaining on us, and I leaned out of the window and pointed my rifle at him. Ron was yelling "Shoot him!" But pretty soon he was way behind us. We stopped at the camp site and threw our sleeping bags and stuff into the car. We kept the engine running and our rifles in our hands while we scanned the road behind us. I left one of my canteens for Nick. When we got to the causeway, Ron told me I looked like hell. I got a towel and tried to clean all the blood off my face. We just kept yelling "What the hell" at each other. The car died again after we hit I-80, a few miles short of Black Rock. We pulled off to the shoulder. Ron got out of the car to look at the road behind us. He left his rifle in the passenger side of the car. I stayed in the car because my shirt was so bloody. I kept my loaded rifle by my side. I guess if we had seen Nick we would have shot him right there on the interstate. After about an hour the car started and we drove back to Salt Lake. Later that night I called Nick's apartment. His roommate answered. I asked if Nick was there and he said sure. I could hear him call "Nick, phone." After a minute I could hear the phone being picked up, and someone breathing on the line. He didn't say anything. I hung up. I hadn't heard from either of those guys in years, but Ron eventually found my sister through Facebook and he sent me an email. He has been doing well and is now a Mormon Bishop. That got me thinking about Nick. I searched the internet and eventually found an obituary, dated about 12 years after the camping trip. The obituary does not say how he died. I was kind of hoping to ask him what in the hell was going on that day. @ponykilr I always avoid long posts like the plague....but I read yours. You and Ron have ANY idea what was inside that door Nick was knocking on? Do you think he was trying to get you into the room to kill you guys? If someone was beyond the door I'm assuming he would have come out during all that fighting....lots of wtf in that story but I enjoyed it. |
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Nope, BUT.... I loaded up the XJ with dogs, shotguns and camping gear in time to pick my Daughter up from High School. We were heading west out of the Ozarks and into the rolling prairie for our annual Father-Daughter Quail season opening weekend trip. We were going to try a new area that was a bit farther from home, so we wouldn't be able to get there before dark. Usually we left in the wee hours of dawn, in order to get to our hunting spot at first light, hunt all morning, then set up camp and cook lunch. But, like I said, new spot farther away. So as it was getting dusk, I saw a campground sign pointing to a side road on the north side of the highway, and turned in. About 3/4 of a mile from the highway, behind a shelter-belt of evergreen trees, we fond an immaculate campground. It was empty except for us, so we picked a prime spot close to the water supply and just far enough from the bathrooms. After we set up camp, had a simple but filling meal, we turned in early. Both because we had been up since before dawn getting ready, and because we wanted to get to our new hunting spot before shooting light. I had the shotguns locked in the XJ, our dogs in the tent with us, and my 1911 under my pillow. We awoke instantly when the wind-up alarm clock went off, quickly broke camp in the dark. (much easier than pitching camp in the dark IMHO) Soon we were making the right turn from the lane and a half wide access road back onto the highway heading west. About two miles down the road we see a huge building on the left and read the sign out front. ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALY INSANE |
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Quoted: @ponykilr I always avoid long posts like the plague....but I read yours. You and Ron have ANY idea what was inside that door Nick was knocking on? Do you think he was trying to get you into the room to kill you guys? If someone was beyond the door I'm assuming he would have come out during all that fighting....lots of wtf in that story but I enjoyed it. I'm pretty sure that's just a creepy pasta story . It's not posted by ponykilr as an incident that personally happened to him. |
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Quoted: That story was brutal. Quoted: Quoted: The worst camping story I know of is the guy that woke up with his German Shepherd mutilated and clothes stolen (if I remember correctly). I believe it was linked in the creepy thread. That story was brutal. Link to paw patrol ? |
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Quoted: I had to leave a couple of spots to protect the idiots within ear shot. After asking them to turn down the noise, they came off with a smart ass answer. I had a shovel, 3 19 round mags, and was 30 miles to the nearest dwelling. They should be glad I packed up and left. They have no idea how close they were to seeing Odin Dynamic anecdote, breh. |
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I’m 2007 I was going to school at CST in Colorado. The shooting club used to shoot at this public area not far past Conifer. There was a camping area before you got to the shooting area. One night I took my then gf to camp out with out dogs on a nice cool spring night. We set up camp. Made a fire. Cooked some food. We were relaxing and enjoying ourselves when I just got a horrendous feeling of dread. My female dog was restless and barking into the woods and i felt like my skin was crawling. I ignored it for a whole but eventually told my gf it’s time to stomp out the fire and get the fuck out of here. I don’t know what was going on but my gut feeling was to get the fuck out of there. We went home and I dont regret it to this day. We were the only ones in the campground that night |
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Quoted: @ponykilr I always avoid long posts like the plague....but I read yours. You and Ron have ANY idea what was inside that door Nick was knocking on? Do you think he was trying to get you into the room to kill you guys? If someone was beyond the door I'm assuming he would have come out during all that fighting....lots of wtf in that story but I enjoyed it. |