Oddest Experience While Camping

[MountainHomeCamper]

So what's the oddest experience you've had camping? Things that make you scratch your head and go "hmm??".

For me - we were camping in Shenandoah National Park for our anniversary. I always put my shoes out in the tent vestibule - they stay dry, but I don't have to smell them at night if I haven't fumigated them lately. The next morning, I got up, half blind from sleep and no glasses on, looked down at my shoes to put the first one on, and noticed small round balls all inside my shoe - completely filling it. Being half asleep I just sat and stared at it trying to make sense of those little round balls. My husband got up, looked at what had me so captivated, and could not stop laughing - a busy little chipmunk had spent all night moving his "hoard" of nuts into my shoes! I really hated to move them since he spent so much time and effort on it, but only the strongest survive!

 

[ponderosa]

Good story.

 

[Pathfinder1]

Hi...


And funny, too...!!:tinysmile_fatgrin_t

 

[Pathfinder1]

Hi...


I don't know if these qualify as the "oddest, but:

One night I was siwashing (no gear, just the clothes on my back) when I awoke to the sound of thundering hoof beats, apparently heading right for me. I had no idea what was happening, so I lay still right where I was...in the leaves under a tree.

I don't know how they found me (they must have had good senses of smell), but soon I was being looked over by a pair of some of the largest draft horses I've ever seen. They sniffed me briefly, turned around, and disappeared.

Another time near my year-around camp, I again heard the thundering of hoofbeats, heading right toward me. I quickly darted off the trail, just in time to see a huge moose running by. It probably didn't even know I was there, fortunately.

One night at this same camp, I heard a strange "growling" noise outside...and with pistol and flashlight in hand(s), I cautiously ventured outside to investigate. To my surprise, I saw a marten in the pine tree overhead. I don't know what it was so mad about. I let it have its say, and then I retired for the evening.

 

[Grandpa]

Many times, large animals have wandered past our camp, some stopping to look us over but......

Several deer came wandering through our High Uintas camp while we were eating supper but one old doe got so curious she layed down about 50 feet away so she could watch what we were doing. After 15-20 minutes of giving us the look over, she got up and continued on her way.

After making camp in a Yellowstone backcountry campground with a firepit, we spread out to gather wood. One of they guys came out of a thick patch of spruce and warned us a cow moose and her calf were in there. I looked up and said those? The cow and calf had followed him out of the grove, came within about 75 feet of our fire, turned their backs to us and faced out into the forest. A few minutes later we heard the first of the wolf howls nearby. That old moose was using us for protection from the wolves. During the night, a thunder of hooves came right through our camp. Someone thought it was elk. Wolves were howling. Next morning, sure enough a bunch of elk came through trying to use us to "scrape off" the woves that were chasing them. I found our moose tracks. She had taken the opportunity to go the other way after the wolves had passed around us chasing the elk.

 

[CozInCowtown]

Last summer myself, the wife and a couple of Foster kids were on the bank of Lake Cleburne fishing and had been there for a hour or so catching perch and crappie.
Nobody was around us, not a soul in sight.
All of a sudden out of the water rises a scuba diver! He just stands up out of knee deep water about 20 feet to our right all in black scuba gear.
The kids freak out!!
My wife freaks out!!
I freak out!!
Come to find out he got disoriented and surfaced on the wrong side of the lake.
Not expecting anything dark and scary rising out of the water almost right in front of us.....thank goodness the toilets were close at hand!
Coz

 

[ChadTower]

Nothing all that strange, really... maybe the strangest was at a car campground. We were just about ready to sit down to lunch and a family of Chinese people sat down at our table and started eating our chips. They didn't speak much English and it took me a while to get them to leave. Several other times that weekend they came and just sort of made themselves at home on our site. It was to the point that I was afraid to leave the site wondering if they would go nap in our tent or something.

 

[ppine]

I've had a few drunks eyeball my wife in a remote campground. A few late night wakenings from a deep sleep with a flashlight. The oddest were always animals when I didn't expect them like 4 different bears while a party was going on. Moose and herds of deer. Really intense thunderstorms, hail, and 75 mph winds. Nothing too unusual.

 

[Hikenhunter]

Years ago I used to accompany our local boy scout troop to summer camp. Since I snore,they tell me, when we had an extra platform tent in the site I would happily take it by my self. One sleepless night I opened the rear tent flaps and sat on the wooden floor of the tent to have a smoke. As the ground at the rear of the tent was low someone in the weeks before our trip had set several large rocks in place so you could enter from the rear of the tent.While sitting there with my feet on the rock a mother and 6 baby skunks walked by in single file so close that I felt the fur on my toes.

 

[Pathfinder1]

Years ago I used to accompany our local boy scout troop to summer camp. Since I snore,they tell me, when we had an extra platform tent in the site I would happily take it by my self. One sleepless night I opened the rear tent flaps and sat on the wooden floor of the tent to have a smoke. As the ground at the rear of the tent was low someone in the weeks before our trip had set several large rocks in place so you could enter from the rear of the tent.While sitting there with my feet on the rock a mother and 6 baby skunks walked by in single file so close that I felt the fur on my toes.

Hi...


I wonder what you were thinking then...!!:tinysmile_hmm_t2:

 

[Hikenhunter]

Hi...


I wonder what you were thinking then...!!:tinysmile_hmm_t2:

In all honesty I was in awe, and I just sat there as still as I could till they passed.

 

[Theosus]

I was back in the woods with our summer camp group once. We were sitting on some rocks eating lunch when suddenly this guy walks out of the trees in a pair of slacks, a sport coat, penny loafers and a fedora-looking hat. Like he had been teleported from an office building or something. He took in the view and walked back into the trees like there was nothing to it. The strangest thing, the parking lot was WAY in the opposite direction from where he was walking. It had to be close to 100 degrees and it didn't seem to phase him. We were all dying in our shorts and t-shirts...

 

[MountainHomeCamper]

I was back in the woods with our summer camp group once. We were sitting on some rocks eating lunch when suddenly this guy walks out of the trees in a pair of slacks, a sport coat, penny loafers and a fedora-looking hat. Like he had been teleported from an office building or something. He took in the view and walked back into the trees like there was nothing to it. The strangest thing, the parking lot was WAY in the opposite direction from where he was walking. It had to be close to 100 degrees and it didn't seem to phase him. We were all dying in our shorts and t-shirts...

A ghost of hiker past?? You sure that was a real person??:tinysmile_hmm_t2:

 

[ppine]

Some of the most memorable have been experiences with birds.

Like trying to sleep under a long-eared owl nest. After dark the two parents were protective of their young and started to strafe the tent. They started pecking at it. We had to move.

Loons in the Northwoods are beautiful and surreal.

Flocks or white pelicans feeding in the shallows.

Blue heron rookeries.

Large groups of geese, mallards, grebes, and cormorrants. Watching osprey fish like last week.

 

[Grandpa]

I had an experience similar to Theosus, except I found the logical answer. Just shows how little us common people understand the comings and goings of the rich and famous.

Several years ago, I decided to hike deep into the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness. This area was rated by Outside Magazine as one of the 30 most remote places in the world. After hiking in 27 miles, I came to a large creek with a bridge and there on the bridge was this old couple. They must have been all of 80 years old, carrying flyrods, dressed like they had just come out of a high dollar sporting goods store. Tillie hats, safari jackets, the whole bit. I stood in amazement as these two old people helped each other down the rocky banks to the creek. Where in the heck did they come from I wondered. They looked up, I waved and they just ignored me and went to fishing. So I wandered up the trail shaking my head. As I broke out onto a plateau, I was amazed. My map had shown an emergency airfield in the area and there it was. complete with about 10 planes lined up along the grass runway. A real nice campground, complete with tables, fire rings and latrines also greeted me. After hiking 27 miles to find this, I sure had second thoughts about my wisdom when Uncle Sams minions had offered me a chance to be a pilot if I would sign on the dotted line.

We returned to this same place this summer. The campground has been moved, but the planes continue to come and go. We chatted with one fellow who has 3 favorite emergency airfields and he and his wife visit all three about 2-3 times each summer. Another fellow and his wife flew in just to fish for a couple of hours then they were flying out again to another place to camp for the night.

 

[Hikenhunter]

I remember backpacking on the AT near Harrisburg. As we were loading our cars to go home after a weekender a fellow came out into the parking lot on the trail with a small buck tied to the seat and handlebars of a mountain bike. It seems this fellow has a favorite spot to hunt deer during archery season but it is about 8 miles from the parking area so he regularly bikes in and camps for several days at a time during archery season. To get his prize out he simply ties it to the seat and handlebars and pushes it out. He told me a trailer of some sort was in his plans for the next season. I wonder if he ever got that trailer built?

 

[ppine]

I was hiking on the Napaali Coast of Kuai and ran into two guys coming out from a backpacking trip. They were wearing $2 flipflops and carrying bows for goat hunting. I asked them how it went and then I heard bleating. They had a kid goat in a pack and were taking it home to raise it for meat. Bush Hawaii in action. Cool and weird at the same time.

 

[EmberMike]

I had a couple of stoners walk into my site once, generally just being friendly but acting kind of weird at the same time. Harmless, but definitely enjoying the effects of whatever they were on. The one guy was carrying a large pie, looked homemade, and offered it to us. The whole thing, not a slice or anything. We politely declined.

Who knows what might have been in that thing, how old it was, etc.

 

[OutdoorMomma]

On one of our camping trips last year, hubby didn't do a very good job of securing the cooler. At about 2am we hear something outside the tent and look out to see a trio of raccoons eating the kids string cheese. They actually knew how to open the packages properly, I think they had made a habit of it or something, half the time I can't even get those things open!

 

[dinosaur]

Coons are actually very intelligent and great problem solvers. I once knew a guy who had a very large homemade cooler. It had a padlock on it to keep the coons out. It didn't work. They figured out how to take the pins out of the hinges.