Scariest Backcountry Experiences

[Yellowstone 1]

Last September while backpacking up the North Fork of the Yellowstone River, I had just finished refilling my water bottle in a side drainage when I hiked up out of the drainage and rounded the corner of an old non-maintained Forest Service Trail to meet face-to-face with a rather large male grizzly bear. He was straddling the trail while looking directly at me not fifteen feet away. Needless to say, my adrenaline level shot up quite rapidly! We stared at each other for about three seconds as I shouted back to my hiking partner who had not rounded the corner of the drainage yet, "get your bear spray out, I've got a grizzly right in front of me." The bear then bolted into the trees and quickly out of site. It took a couple of hours for my heart rate to return to normal!

I've seen Grizzlies pretty close, but not that close on the trail. Even in the distance when they are on the same trail they are scary.

 

[steve]

When I was a scout, we took a cross country backpacking trip in to Cherry Lake, below Yosemite. It was only an 8 mile hike, but there were 2 leaders and about 5 boys.

We caught fish all night long, bringing one in with every cast. It was great.

The next day, we walked out to the river and waded in it to explore. One of the scout leaders, McKay, had some voit water shoes, so he was pretty confident scrambling all over the wet rocks. We were enjoying ourselves, when all of a sudden he slipped and went down. His feet slipped out from beneath him, and he fell down, his forehead smacking a large granite rock. Immediately he stood up, with his hand over his eye. Since his body was wet, the blood from his cut was running down his chest, and it mixed with the water, looking far worse than it was. His entire face, chest, and legs were covered in blood. I remember the scene as if it were yesterday. McKay tried to keep his cool as we all headed back to camp. At camp, my dad, the scoutmaster, evaluated what to do.

McKay had a 1" cut above his eyebrow, and he had hit his head pretty hard. We were 8 miles from any road or trail, and a lot of that was bushwhacking. McKay was conscious, but his head was throbbing, and he was in shock. My dad gave him 2 asprin, and decided we couldn't carry McKay out. He was too big, and the other scouts were too small. He decided to stitch McKay up right there on the spot. My dad had zero medical experience, so he was winging it. He sterilized a needle, and decided to use fishing line to stitch him up (I can't remember why we chose fishing line?). He stitched him up right there, put a butterfly bandage over it, and we high-tailed it out of there. We split up McKay's gear amongst everyone, and hiked out, with my dad helping McKay make the hike out under his own power.

We made it to the car, and immediately called McKay's father, who was a surgeon. I don't remember what happened after that, but McKay ended up being fine, and 2 months later he didn't even have a scar where the cut was.

 

[Tater Head]

Long story, but it was the most epic "adventure" I've had in the outdoors.

"Scary" was short-lived, fortunately, but I will admit for at least an hour I was pretty freaked out...

Red River Gorge, Kentucky, 2001. I was way off trail exploring rock shelters and cliff lines, looking for arches with my girlfriend and another friend. It was summer, early evening and humid with sunlight filtering through the tress...stunning, I recall. I saw a nice wall that looked like it might hold some surprises...on my way up, hiking through a beautiful bed of ferns I feel a sharp pain in my ankle, probably a big thorn I thought. No biggie, off-trail hiking out there always leaves scars...I reach down to pull it out and there's a small copperhead coiled up, not at all happy that I almost stepped on it. Apparently he showed his displeasure by biting me...5 times. What's crazy is that I felt 1 bite, a bee sting is much worse (initially!). Needless to say I screamed rather loudly, pointed to the source of my odd behavior and started to think the worse. What if I'm allergic? How the hell are we getting out of here with nothing but rough terrain, no trails and 20-100' cliff everywhere? As the crow flies we were only 2 miles from a road, but its very slow hiking up and over deadfalls, route finding around cliffs and streams.

My girlfriend at the time was a volunteer at a girl scout camp and was prepared. She sat me down immediately, broke out her Sawyier Extractor Kit and told me not to look. Within a few minutes of the bite she used those suction cups...the pain was much worse than the bite, but in the end it ended up getting enough of the venom out to save me from any tissue damage. I don't even have a scar today from it.
What I did have, just minutes after being bitten, was a left leg swelling alarmingly fast...it was to my knee within an hour. After about 15 minutes of pure terror, I calmed down and we tried to figure out the next step. I had no other effects, not even an elevated heart rate, just swelling so I figured I'd live but it was going to be a loooong night.

My friend was also prepared. He liked to hike with a full backpack just for exercise, and he had a sleeping bag with him that time. Of course it started to rain lightly, but we got a small fire going and I bundled up and chilled out. His phone had just enough juice to dial 911 and he got in touch with the local county sheriffs office. Phones don't work out there, how it did that night I will never know. After trying to explain our location to no avail, she contacted the Forest Service. We were in luck...a ranger was doing trail work a few valleys away and was notified on his radio. We communicated by yelling once he got close enough, and finally he got to us at 8pm...2 hours after the bite. He took one look and called in the rescue team. They couldn't helicopter in because of the dense fog that developed, so they had to get a team to hike in. The first question they asked him..."Is he from Ohio?"...Ohioans are very well known to be responsible for at least 80% of the rescues down there. I said no, I'm local enough and they said they would make it out that much faster
The team got to me around midnite, 6 hours after the bite. At that point the 4 of us are just joking around, normal conversation...me with my balloon leg, not much pain but just intense pressure. My leg finally stopped swelling just above the knee, apparently the biggest danger was how far that swelling would go. And it sucked, but I was very fit (they said that was also a big factor, the healthier you are the the better your chances of having less trauma), had everything I needed and knew I had a great story to tell one day.

8 of them arrived with a stretcher and gear. They asked me if I could rappel, it would save them at least an hour if not more. We spent years rappelling in the Gorge so it was 2nd nature...but never with one leg, off a 70' cliff. It went smooth, they got me in the stretcher and took turns, 4 at a time, hauling me out of some of the roughest terrain in the state. it took them another 5 hours to get me out to the road...2 miles...to an awaiting ambulance. When I got to the hospital, a small town affair well versed in snake bites, they pulled out a glossy card (looked like a Waffle House menu) with a bunch of snakes on it, asking me to identify which one it was. I thought that was pretty funny...if it was a rattlesnake I'd be much worse off, and that is the only other poisonous snake in the region. I pointed to the cobra just for laughs.

2 weeks on crutches with people waiting on me hand and foot, friends stopping by for the story...my 15 minutes of fame!
I couldn't thank those good ole boys from Menifee County S&R enough, they were awesome. They kept asking me how I was doing on the stretcher, and I was more worried about them becoming another victim on that brutal hike out. We talked and joked...apparently I interrupted a pizza and beer affair. A week later I sent them a check for $50, writing "Pizza and Beer party" on the memo. I became friends with the Forest Service guy, and even helped out with some GPS trail work for them.
To this day I have no markings from the bites, and that little guy loaded me up with venom. Sawyier kits are not recommended, but I think because of the fast action...within minutes of the bites...that it saved me from tissue damage.

Side story - They wouldn't let my friends and the Forest Service guy rappel during the rescue, they had to find another way due to liability issues. During that scramble they found an unnamed arch. When the USFS was updating their arch GIS database, I was asked to name it...its called Copperhead Arch.

I now have a tattoo with the Chinese zodiak of the snake on my left ankle.

I had an axe fall on my foot this past summer.

Let me elaborate. I spent my last summer doing trail maintenance in the Frank Church- River of no Return Wilderness and was in a pretty sweet setup. Because the Frank Church is so large and remote, the airstrips that were in the area were grandfathered into the wilderness's plan, and thus myself and my two crewmates were stationed in the wilderness full time. We were thirty miles from a road and three hours from civilization on that road. Very remote. The day before we were to start a trail clearing "hitch" I went out to the tack shed to sharpen my Pulaski axe. We did not have a working vice grip or clamp at the station so we would stick the adz end of the Pulaski into a log in order to hold the tool. This is not the most stable of methods to hold a tool in place, as was evident when the Pulaski fell off the log. At first I just swore under my breath and picked the thing up to try again, then remembered some things. I had gone fishing earlier in the day and my boots had been drying, thus I was sharpening my tool with Sanuk sandals on. The axe had also fallen towards my foot...

Sure enough the axe blade had hit my foot. A foot and a half of gravity and a very sharp tool drove the blade into my foot just below the joint, towards the inside top. When I saw the blood I instantly went into hyper drive. I screamed an expletive like I had never screamed before. I had thirty feet to walk in order to get to the station and I'm fairly sure I made it on shear adrenaline since the pain was crippling later. All gathered around. It was a nasty one. I got to finally use my WFR certification, sadly on myself. After dressing it up we called it into the office. I needed out. Was it life threatening? No he'll live. So it's not serious? Well its bad but he's not bleeding out. We can't get a plane in to pick him up due to winds. He'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Thus began the longest night of my life. Yeah it hurt. Yeah I could not walk, I had to hop like a bloody gimp kangaroo. But worst piece was myself. I knew I messed up and beat myself up for it all night. Was my internship over? Would I have to go home? Would this effect me my whole life? It was bad. Then in the morning I had to make the walk to the airstrip, a good 1/4 mile. The other two were busy hauling stuff up to the airstrip and I wanted them to do their thing, not pity me. So I made the walk. It took half an hour. It hurt, but I found a way to do it without the searing sharp pain it could produce, which was nice.

A good hour later I found myself in McCall ID, my first time in civilization in two months. The lead wilderness ranger picked me up and took me in to the ER. It was a fun four hours. The first was spent having everyone come in and look at the gaping hole in my foot and having everyone say I should have come in sooner. They didn't understand. Then I got X-rays that showed my bones weren't cracked. Then I waited for another one and three quarter hours to then be stitched up. I got inner dissolvable stitches for my muscle and 13 on top to hold my foot together.

Luckily I got to finish my internship. I spent the next two weeks healing and doing "light duty." By the time the next hitch came around I felt good enough to go out. The first days were painful with more walking than I'd done in weeks with a 50lbs pack. I didn't kick a single rock off the trail that hitch. But I was there, and I could help. Now half a year later I have but a scar across my foot. I can run, canyoneer and hike on it so all seems mended. And I learned a great lesson in why PPE is a necessary suggestion.

I'll spare the general public from seeing the injury when it was "fresh" but this is the remains. View attachment 15102

 

[Tater Head]

I once lost my car key's in Coyote Gulch. Which wasn't all that scary. The scary part was having to call my wife and tell that her that I had stranded her baby boy(13 years old) in the desert. Oh and that I needed to spend $350.00 on a new ignition switch.

 

[scatman]

I've seen Grizzlies pretty close, but not that close on the trail. Even in the distance when they are on the same trail they are scary.

They certainly can be. Two days later we were hiking up to the saddle between Thorofare Mountain and Younts Peak, when we saw another grizzly, this time bounding down the trail towards us. There were some small hills between us and he would disappear behind one then re-emerge at the crest before dropping down again. It was a little disconcerting not knowing where he was heading when he was out of our view. He crested the last hill closest to us and continued towards us. He got within about 30-35 yards from us before he saw/smelled/sensed us and veered off onto the lower slope of Thorofare Mountain. Fortunately we had plenty of time to get our bear spray ready just in case; which made this encounter a little less spooky than the first.



I was able to take a few pictures of him as he made his way around us before hopping back on the trail and heading down the North Fork. It was raining at the time so the shots didn't focus quite right. I thought for sure my point -and-shoot would be ruined but it survived.



A bit out of focus but you get the nice grizzled look. All in all we saw three grizzlies on this trip, one in Yellowstone proper (The Thorofare at about 120 yards) and the other two in the Teton Wilderness. Along with two other black bears, countless elk, three moose and numerous deer, this was the best trip I've been on for wildlife.

 

[Dave]

Cool.
Say hello to that shreiking anasazi for me (I believe he is to the left of the "breech birth" panel).
You are going in a few day's? It will be pretty icy going down Sheiks, as you are probably aware.

To the right of breech birth, actually. Green Mask is a lot smaller than I expected. I did think of your story while admiring the view.



Sheiks wasn't too icy but there was a fair amount of ice toward the top of Bullet. Then I made a wrong turn in the dark and walked back to the highway instead of to the Sheiks TH.

 

[Kullaberg63]

Ouch, there's some nasty ones in this thread.

Luckily, it's been a while since I was really scared. Knock on wood! Like Amundsen said: 'Expeditions only turn into adventures when shit's going wrong', or something like that.

Well, back in the eighties/early nineties too many of my expeditions turned into adventures:

*In 1986 on a major peak in Switzerland I got in the way of a rockfall while climbing and, besides some long since healed traumas, I lost a finger.

*Also that year, in Norway, we had a friend buried in an avalanche for 45 min before seeing the tip of his hat. He survived.

*After climbing a classic north face in the Alps, on Christmas day even, my buddy walked into a crevasse. I was tied to him and almost got sucked in the maw too. An all night epic ensued. No injuries.

*Winter mountaineering in the High Tatras (Poland). By far the most dangerous stuff anywhere, and not only because the Iron Curtain was still drawn when we there.

*Climbing in Croatia during the onset of civil war, despite the well meaning advice of all our friends.

*Stuck in Karachi, Pakistan, with my girlfriend on the way home from the Himalayas. Had I been alone this event would not have made the list..

 

[pixie1339]

In 1986 on a major peak in Switzerland I got in the way of a rockfall while climbing and, besides some long since healed traumas, I lost a finger.

You win. As bad as some of these are whoever loses a digit takes it.

 

[DAA]

...with my girlfriend on the way home from the Himalayas. Had I been alone this event would not have made the list..

- DAA

 

[Kullaberg63]

It took a couple of hours for my heart rate to return to normal!

..it would've taken me a couple of seconds to decide to leave Grizzly country to grizzlies for good. Kudos to all of you venturing out among them.

 

[pstm13]

You win. As bad as some of these are whoever loses a digit takes it.

I agree.

 

[pstm13]

Ouch, there's some nasty ones in this thread.

Luckily, it's been a while since I was really scared. Knock on wood! Like Amundsen said: 'Expeditions only turn into adventures when shit's going wrong', or something like that.

Well, back in the eighties/early nineties too many of my expeditions turned into adventures:

*In 1986 on a major peak in Switzerland I got in the way of a rockfall while climbing and, besides some long since healed traumas, I lost a finger.

*Also that year, in Norway, we had a friend buried in an avalanche for 45 min before seeing the tip of his hat. He survived.

*After climbing a classic north face in the Alps, on Christmas day even, my buddy walked into a crevasse. I was tied to him and almost got sucked in the maw too. An all night epic ensued. No injuries.

*Winter mountaineering in the High Tatras (Poland). By far the most dangerous stuff anywhere, and not only because the Iron Curtain was still drawn when we there.

*Climbing in Croatia during the onset of civil war, despite the well meaning advice of all our friends.

*Stuck in Karachi, Pakistan, with my girlfriend on the way home from the Himalayas. Had I been alone this event would not have made the list..

Feel free to post pics and detail about your trips. I personally love hearing about that stuff. I don't think anyone would mind a trip report from back in the day...

 

[Nick]

Feel free to post pics and detail about your trips. I personally love hearing about that stuff. I don't think anyone would mind a trip report from back in the day...

x2! We LOVE old trip reports!

 

[Kullaberg63]

Maybe. But the veil of time will almost certainly cause me to embellish the facts and enhance the feats. Besides it's somewhat OT as all I did in my reckless younger years were climbing.

What's holding me back more than anything is the mysterious disappearance of my picture files of laboriously scanned slides. If they resurface from the suspected ailing drives I'll go for it.

 

[pstm13]

Maybe. But the veil of time will almost certainly cause me to embellish the facts and enhance the feats. Besides it's somewhat OT as all I did in my reckless younger years were climbing.

What's holding me back more than anything is the mysterious disappearance of my picture files of laboriously scanned slides. If they resurface from the suspected ailing drives I'll go for it.

Those are risks were are willing to accept The humble guys tell the best stories. You just have to prod them a little.

What "classic north face" was it?

 

[HomerJ]

Maybe. But the veil of time will almost certainly cause me to embellish the facts and enhance the feats.

My boss always says: "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story"

 

[Dave]

My boss always says: "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story"

TV journalist's motto.

 

[andyjaggy]

These stories are not helping my drive to finally go solo backpacking this summer. Thanks a lot.

I haven't had anything too scary. I like to hike early in the morning to get places for the sunrise, normally I don't have any issues. Last July I decided to do an early morning hike up to the top of Sugarloaf at Alta. I started up the trail in the dark with my headlamp, I had gone maybe a mile and was starting to head up the hill right before Cecret Lake, when I hear a loud snort to my right. My heart rate jumps and the adrenaline immediately starts to flow, it turns out to be a large Moose about 25 feet from me. He is just staring at me, after about 10 seconds of us starting each other down he finally lowers his head and starts munching on his food again. I figure he was very used to seeing people in that area, but it still gave me quite a fright.

Another one from 2012, I had driven up AF Canyon during my lunch break to take some pictures. It was October and an early storm had come through and dusted the mountains with some nice white, yellow aspens and white snow are more than I can resist. I ended up parking at Salamader Flats and started shooting some picture. I decided to wander up into the woods for a few minutes to see what I could find. After about 4-5 minutes I don't find anything and decide to turn around. 15 minutes later I am still in the middle of the woods and have no freaking idea where I went wrong. I still don't know how I messed up so badly. I start to panic, it's cold, visibility is low because of the fog, and it's snowing. I have no warm clothes, food or water, because I just ran up here on my lunch break. Stupid. Anyway after panicking for a few minutes I calm myself down, rationally think about the situation, and make a decision as to where the parking lot would be. Luckily I guessed right and stumbled upon my car about 10 minutes later. I think I would have been fine, but the experience taught me a good lesson to always be prepared, even when you think you are just out for a short walk in the hills. I did get a nice picture though.

 

[moose droppings]

yeah I got one.

shut out of every backcountry and frontcountry campsite in the Tetons and Yellowstone one august weekend, we decided upon poaching an overnighter /snip/ in Yellowstone.
words cannot quite describe my absolute horror when I awoke early the next morning. my almost two yo daughter was 'bout two steps outta the tent, tip-toeing with outstretched arms, approx. three steps away from a "bear-hugging" surprise attack on a grizzly cub who was busy tearing into a rotted log. from my vantage point the mother was 10+ feet beyond the cub ass-deep into a berry bush. I lunged out and grabbed the kid with one hand tightly over hear mouth. the cub startled then bolted. mother bear began backing out of the hedge just as I was swearing and futzing with the goddam zipper trying the close up the tent door. ... like that was gonna provide any sort of protection.
one child began melting down because I rob her of a playdate opportunity. daughter #2 began melting down because i very sternly reprimanded her for wanting to unzip the opposite door for a good look at the bears herself. then there was the wife who awoke to the pandemonium... all hell broke loose inside the tent.
shit played out like a bill cosby stand-up skit. probably wasn't any sign of wildlife within ear shot of our party after about 5 minutes.

could have turned out very bad. very, very bad.

a backcountry bowel moving experience to say the least.

 

[andyjaggy]

I can't even imagine what I would do if my 2 year old girl started walking towards a grizzly 10 feet away.