What’s the strangest encounter you have had while camping outdoors?

Northern Dancer

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I don't know about the "strangest" encounter but here is a shortlist of things that might be interesting.

The first time I encountered "Fox Fire"
My first experience with an unidentified flying object.
The first time I observed a satellite in the dark sky.
Observing the Hale-Bopp Comet in the heavens.
My up-close bear encounter in camp.
The time we lost our canoe in the middle of the lake - and left stranded in the nude
until a young woman delivered our canoe back to us.
And so on. :00:

Welcome to Outdoor Basecamp misfits



 
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Northern Dancer

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The Hale-Bopp Comet of 1997.

2770

I use to lay on this gigantic rock formation at Wolve's Gate with my dog Blazer and watch it for hours.
 

Grandpa

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Which story do you want? UFO? Sasquatch? The mant times I was someone else's strange story?
 

jason

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Guess I am boring. I cannot think of any strange stories. Unless you count unique people, but even then it is just your typical crazy person you may see at wal-mart. No one would return a canoe to me if I was nude, but rather thing I was Sasquatch, or skunk ape as he is called down here, and run away.
 

Roybrew

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I would guess that what some people would call strange may appear normal to someone that has encountered it before.
I thought it was strange the first time I watched a deer swim a mile wide body of water. It didn't seem so strange seeing it happen again a couple of times after.
We had a Whippoorwill land with in 50 feet of the tent one night, and started its, very loud, call. That was the first Whippoorwill, I think, I've heard in these parts.
I had a couple of racoons climb a tree where I had one of my hammock straps tied to. What was strange about that, I was in the hammock at the time. Probably snoring, like I normally do so I'm told, and I bet my toes were within a couple of feet of the furry critters. I wonder what they were thinking. "OMG this guys feet really stink! Don't these hairless," well I guess I do have some hairy toe nuckles, "Don't these stinking humans ever groom themselves?" Maybe that's what they were saying to each other? I don't know.
I've seen a turkey, almost, fly into my buddies head when we were moving across the water in a power boat.
It is amazing to see things that you haven't seen before or seldom see at all. Everything is, almost, explainable except I guess human nature. We are the ones that don't make sense.
It's been 8 months since I've been camping. I'm chomping at the bit to get out there, and see some "strange" things.
 

Grandpa

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I'm probably the strange encounter others have but one surprise I got happened many years ago. My first visit to the Selway-Bitterroots was a backpacking trip up the Selway river. I had hiked for the better part of two days. I was 27 miles from the trail head when I came around a bend in the river. There was a large rapid feeder creek ahead and there, on the bridge, was an old couple carrying their fishing poles. They were dressed neat as could be, must of been in their 80's, and they were helping each other scramble down to the creek to fish. Where in the world did they come from and how in the he** did they get here was all I could think of. I watched for a minute to be sure they got situated safely then continued on. About 100 yards up the hill I ran into a lady forest ranger and not a young one either. Now I was really confused. There in the middle of one of the most remote wilderness's in the country was an emergency landing strip with about 10 small airplanes lined up along the edge of the grass runway. I say small but a couple were even twin engine jobs. And I had hiked 27 miles to get there.

On the other hand was the day I shocked the forest ranger. A son in law, his friend and I had packed in to an alpine lake for a few days fishing. Now the last few years, I have put on a lot of extra weight, due to health reasons, lazy living, and grandma's good cooking. The boys were busy drowning worms or losing flies, I was bored so the old dog and I took off further up the trail for an adventure. I was about 15 miles from the nearest trailhead. I knew our camp was well hid. As I was heading back to camp, I heard horses coming up through the gorge. Rather than continue and trying to find a place to let the horses pass, I sat down on a rock to admire the beautiful meadow with a small lake not far away. The rider was a trail ranger with a couple of pack horses hauling supplies in to a trail crew. As he spotted me you could see the shock on his face finding a fat old man sitting there 15 miles from the nearest road, at about 12000 feet above sea level. "Nice day for a little walk" I said. "Where'd you come from?" He asked. "Oh, I'm parked at the TH. Old dog and I decided to go for a little walk." "Where ya going with the pack animals" I asked. He was still sputtering about the trail crew when I just got up and said " gotta be getting back before dark. Have a nice day."
 

Dougdad

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camp raided by wild hogs during the night...LOL Glad the old 12ga was packed in my gear, it scared the squeals right out of them when I shot that big pine stump. We originally thought it was a couple of young black bears that had been around the area, until the squeals came out...LOL
 

ppine

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Many.
Fifty years ago when we were in college on the East Coast, we would drive to Florida every spring for spring break. On one trip the weather was cold so we just kept driving all the way to Key Biscayne. We had driven over 20 hours and got really tired and pulled over in a nice park. We set up the old canvas umbrella tent, cooked some chicken on the habachi and went to sleep. I work up at first light. When I looked outside the tent, it was obvious that were camped on the grounds of a big private estate with iron gates. We threw everything in the car and escaped without getting arrested. Close one.
 

ppine

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Back around 1972, I moved to California from the East Coast in a VW Bus. October found us at Crater Lake NP in OR. In those days there were campground bears around. In the fall a lot of the campgrounds were closed and only a couple of them were left open. We had a group of people, maybe 9 of us, having a party with a big fire. We had visits from 4 different bears while all of this was going on. They were hard to get rid of. We eventually were able to chase them out of camp with a lot of yelling and banging of pots and pans and throwing some rocks. We went to sleep late, and shadows of bears went by in the moonlight for the rest of the night.
 
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