Scariest Backcountry Experiences

[Mullet]

I fell through in the Tetons as a kid. Near the head of Paintbrush Canyon. I had to chip snow to the side and then down for almost 3 hours before I built up enough to get my pic over the lip. That's the most scared I was for hours.

For seconds and ultimately the most scared I ever was was in July 2012. I'd carried bearspray for 13 years and only used it on problem black bears on ranch property. I'd had grizzlies mess with me a little, notably one real bluff charge and another time with my 13 year old niece and a sow put on a serious dominance display. Well, that summer morning I was solo hiking where I often do, just short of the Shoshone National Forest's Dunoir Special Management Area not far below the Contiental Divide boundary of the Bridger-Teton National Forest's Teton Wilderness. It was early, the sun was just begining to shine in my eastbound eyes. All of sudden I saw the golden silhouette of a large boar grizzly about 15 yards in front of me. It charged, I sprayed, in what seemed to be an eternity the big boy rolled up 6' in front of me and ran away.

Please carry bearspray.

Holy crap I'd think I'd mess my self if that happened to me.

 

[Jackson]

I fell through in the Tetons as a kid. Near the head of Paintbrush Canyon. I had to chip snow to the side and then down for almost 3 hours before I built up enough to get my pic over the lip. That's the most scared I was for hours.

For seconds and ultimately the most scared I ever was was in July 2012. I'd carried bearspray for 13 years and only used it on problem black bears on ranch property. I'd had grizzlies mess with me a little, notably one real bluff charge and another time with my 13 year old niece and a sow put on a serious dominance display. Well, that summer morning I was solo hiking where I often do, just short of the Shoshone National Forest's Dunoir Special Management Area not far below the Contiental Divide boundary of the Bridger-Teton National Forest's Teton Wilderness. It was early, the sun was just begining to shine in my eastbound eyes. All of sudden I saw the golden silhouette of a large boar grizzly about 15 yards in front of me. It charged, I sprayed, in what seemed to be an eternity the big boy rolled up 6' in front of me and ran away.

Please carry bearspray.

Wow!

Is the Dunoir Special Management Area the place I've heard about in the Washakie Wilderness where they send all the problem bears (that aren't put down) from Yellowstone and the surrounding area?

 

[kimbur96]

I fell through in the Tetons as a kid. Near the head of Paintbrush Canyon. I had to chip snow to the side and then down for almost 3 hours before I built up enough to get my pic over the lip. That's the most scared I was for hours.

For seconds and ultimately the most scared I ever was was in July 2012. I'd carried bearspray for 13 years and only used it on problem black bears on ranch property. I'd had grizzlies mess with me a little, notably one real bluff charge and another time with my 13 year old niece and a sow put on a serious dominance display. Well, that summer morning I was solo hiking where I often do, just short of the Shoshone National Forest's Dunoir Special Management Area not far below the Contiental Divide boundary of the Bridger-Teton National Forest's Teton Wilderness. It was early, the sun was just begining to shine in my eastbound eyes. All of sudden I saw the golden silhouette of a large boar grizzly about 15 yards in front of me. It charged, I sprayed, in what seemed to be an eternity the big boy rolled up 6' in front of me and ran away.

Please carry bearspray.

Oh man!! I'm going home to visit my Dad and do some solo hiking in Northern Idaho, almost Canada. It's bear country. I can only hope if I see a bear I will have the nerves of steel you had to stand there as a bear charges and allow it to get close enough to spray. OMG.

 

[Absarokanaut]

I sprayed towards that bear just a second or so after it started charging and it met the spray at full range, about 28'. I'd had a lot of encounters Kimbur but my nerves were jello.

The Dunoir Special Management Area does get some problem bears, Union Pass too. I think tThey backed off on it a few years ago when one year more than two dozen bears were killed by people, mostly hunters, in the Upper Wind River Valley. They still do it, but I hear other area names come up more often now when they're relocated. Here is a good chunk of it:

+0

 

[pstm13]

I heard a few (at least 2) very mean sounding growls while heading down Paintbrush Divide last summer. That was enough to scare the crap out of me. I was doing my best Navy Seal impression with the bear spray for the next few min. but never used it or saw a grizzly. If a marmot would have farted next to me I would have hosed him down.

 

[ram]

Suddenly my cubicle seems so spacious. Wow.

This from a descent on March 25th, 2009. The pictures are taken by Aaron Ramras, my son (last name ring any bells, Outdoor fool? Local politics?). In the pictures is Landon Micheals who is 5'9" and in these pictures a bit under 150 Lbs.
Excuse the quality. It's dark passing through "The Dark Side."

Success

 

[Outdoor_Fool]

Are you and Jay brothers? I have a beer every now and again at Pike's. Wow those are awesome shots. Gives one a great idea of the hell one endures there. Wow.

 

[ram]

Are you and Jay brothers? I have a beer every now and again at Pike's. Wow those are awesome shots. Gives one a great idea of the hell one endures there. Wow.

We are first cousins. Last met in 1979 when we were both a lot younger. Aaron and Jay are 2nd cousins and have never met. Say hello for me.

Now the concept of a compressible rib cage and of a breath, halted half-breath "comes alive." Silly, silly games.

And looking forward, you can see how the area in front of you always looks like it is about to become impossible!!!!

 

[Outdoor_Fool]

My wife saw these pictures on my computer from a distance and enough of a side angle that she asked if I was looking at weird porn.

 

[IntrepidXJ]

Well, I had a pretty scary experience yesterday....almost falling into a 'desert crevasse' I was hiking to the edge of a cliff around sunset and there was what looked like a shallow wash or depression to cross to the to the other side. I started hiking across and all of a sudden my right leg fell through the ground to my knee and was dangling in the air. Then I could tell that something wasn't right as the ground below me was very soft and squishy. As I got my right leg out of the hole my left foot started sinking in, but I was able to get out and get back up onto the rock.

I walked along the edge a ways and found that there was a huge deep crack in the ground that wasn't really noticeable where I had tried to cross. The sand and dirt had covered the crack and formed a thin layer over the opening. I couldn't see the bottom, it was at least 100-150 feet deep. I'm really lucky that the entire section didn't just fall through when I stepped on it!

This is a photo of the holes left by my feet.


Falling Through by Randy Langstraat, on Flickr

This is where I was able to see that I almost fell into this.

Desert Crevasse by Randy Langstraat, on Flickr

 

[DrNed]

How was the dirt able to collect and cover the crack?

Glad you came out ok!

 

[Nick]

Wild! That's kind of similar to the terrain right before the last rappel in Pine Creek. A rock fall/landslide fell down onto the slot so you're climbing along and every so often there's a hole that goes down 100+ feet.

 

[Devin Ashby]

Been really enjoying reading everyone's experiences, and thought i'd share my own.

I was backpacking into Carolyn Lake in the Uintas. I made it to the lake and got camp all setup, and was making dinner when we noticed that a large group had also setup camp fairly close to us. There we're probably 10 people in the group. Which was pretty strange to see because most people hiking the Highline skip Carolyn and go straight to Four Lake Basin, or over Rocky Sea Pass if they are going past naturalist Basin.

The group got pretty rowdy as the sun set, and it was obvious that they had carried in a lot of beer. We were camped far enough away that the noise wasn't too annoying, and allowed us to get to sleep. Here is where it get interesting and scary. I woke up a few hours later, probably about 2am to the sound of my zipper on my vestibule being undone, and then my tent door. One of the guys from that large group had wandered, totally smashed, into our camp and was trying to get into my tent. He got the tent door open a little and was feeling around inside the tent. Basically the only thing I knew to do at the time (I was only 17 years old), was to yell at the guy and basically push him out. He fell to the ground and that's when I realized that he was totally drunk and lost. I grabbed my headlamp and helped him up and helped walk the guy back to his tent.

Still one of the most bizarre/scary moments i've had in the backcountry.

 

[Nick]

Been really enjoying reading everyone's experiences, and thought i'd share my own.

I was backpacking into Carolyn Lake in the Uintas. I made it to the lake and got camp all setup, and was making dinner when we noticed that a large group had also setup camp fairly close to us. There we're probably 10 people in the group. Which was pretty strange to see because most people hiking the Highline skip Carolyn and go straight to Four Lake Basin, or over Rocky Sea Pass if they are going past naturalist Basin.

The group got pretty rowdy as the sun set, and it was obvious that they had carried in a lot of beer. We were camped far enough away that the noise wasn't too annoying, and allowed us to get to sleep. Here is where it get interesting and scary. I woke up a few hours later, probably about 2am to the sound of my zipper on my vestibule being undone, and then my tent door. One of the guys from that large group had wandered, totally smashed, into our camp and was trying to get into my tent. He got the tent door open a little and was feeling around inside the tent. Basically the only thing I knew to do at the time (I was only 17 years old), was to yell at the guy and basically push him out. He fell to the ground and that's when I realized that he was totally drunk and lost. I grabbed my headlamp and helped him up and helped walk the guy back to his tent.

Still one of the most bizarre/scary moments i've had in the backcountry.

I had a drunk guy crawl into my sleeping bag and spoon me and my dog. Granted, I had met him that night so it wasn't exactly terrifying. It was really weird to wake up touching a hand that wasn't mine, then realizing his legs were intertwined with mine (I was on a tarp and don't zip up my bag).

 

[Devin Ashby]

I had a drunk guy crawl into my sleeping bag and spoon me and my dog. Granted, I had met him that night so it wasn't exactly terrifying. It was really weird to wake up touching a hand that wasn't mine, then realizing his legs were intertwined with mine (I was on a tarp and don't zip up my bag).

Ah getting fresh in the backcountry. That's wild!

 

[pstm13]

@Nick you are such a tease.

I had a drunk guy crawl into my sleeping bag and spoon me and my dog. Granted, I had met him that night so it wasn't exactly terrifying. It was really weird to wake up touching a hand that wasn't mine, then realizing his legs were intertwined with mine (I was on a tarp and don't zip up my bag).[/QUO

 

[DrNed]

I had a drunk guy crawl into my sleeping bag and spoon me and my dog. Granted, I had met him that night so it wasn't exactly terrifying. It was really weird to wake up touching a hand that wasn't mine, then realizing his legs were intertwined with mine (I was on a tarp and don't zip up my bag).

I'll take the bears, lions & wolves thank you very much.

Seriously, what do you say in the morning? I mean after "Dude, get the %#€!! outta my bag!"

 

[Nick]

I knew I'd told this story somewhere else on BCP. Here it is again with full detail:

Oh wait - something bad did happen once when I was tent-less in the desert. A huge creature crawled into my bag and tried to spoon with me. Since I rarely zip up my sleeping bag, it was pretty easy. I had my dog sleeping next to me up by my torso on a dog bed that night. Sometime in the night I was awoken by what I thought was her rolling around or something and pulling the sleeping bag off of me ( also cover her a bit like a quilt). I reached over to give her a little hug and felt a hand. I touched it for a minute thinking "why the hell can't I feel my hand?!". I thought maybe it had gone to sleep, until I realized it WASN'T MY HAND!!! That jolted me out of my half awake state of mind and i quickly realized that my legs were intertwined with another pair of legs down in the bottom of my sleeping bag. I looked over to see this guy (I'd just met him that night) basically spooning the other side of my dog. I woke him up and told him he was in the wrong bag. He was confused, but then he got really excited because my dog had finally let him pet her (she was asleep now and had been a little afraid of him earlier). After a bit of convincing, I finally got him to get out of my sleeping bag. He stood up at the foot of my tarp kind of confused and sad wondering where he was going to sleep now. Turned out he got up to pee in the middle of the night, he saw my tarp and thought it was his. Ahhhh, alcohol....

So there, pack a tent to keep drunk people out of your sleeping bag. ​

 

[gnwatts]

My only true lose my life experience was about 15 years ago. My friend and I wanted to complete a loop up North Mule on Cedar Mesa, out North Mule and traverse out over to South Mule, down South back to the car. It was raining lightly, as we exited North Mule up a small side canyon, a very sketchy climb, but doable, very exciting. Back packs definitely added to my overall anxiety, my friend is about 6'-3", a lot better climber. He had a very easy ascent. We sat under an overhang just under the top to wait out the storm, it never stopped. We decided to camp on the mesa. In the morning we started crossing over to South Mule, when we came upon a small side canyon, it was hard to see if it went all the way down, so we started working our way down on some nice slickrock ledges, when we were stopped about 100' above the canyon floor. It was raining slightly, and the rock was a little wet. I stupidly thought I had a better ascent route, we had a history of finding different routes due to his height. I ventured out on a ledge about 30" wide with a 100' drop on one side and a short fairly easy (or so I thought) ascent out of the canyon to backtrack to the mesa above. I started up, it was steep but doable. Then it got steeper. But I felt I could continue, about 30' above the 30" wide ledge, then the 100' drop. That is where it hit me. I was not going to go up that way, and I could not climb down. I screamed at my friend, who was already up on top, looking down at me. He hurried down, mean while my legs started to shake (some of you might know this feeling) , and I was scared shitless, stuck, not being able to get up or get down. My friend was now down below me on the ledge, and he climbed up the easier part, then asked me what the hell I was thinking trying this slope. That was definitely not what I wanted to hear. I was able, leaning (but not too much!) to get my pack off. At this point my calves were cramping up and shaking. He told me to relax and lower the pack down from the belt, it slid about 5' down and he grabbed it. If it had turned over he might have slid off. Luckily it sled smoothly down to his out stretched hands. He told me to carefully lower myself down, leaning out from the rock, which was the right way to descend but very scary. With my pack off things didn't look so bad, I was able to carefully climb down. My fiend was mad at me. And I puked on my shoes.

 

[Artemus]

while my legs started to shake (some of you might know this feeling)

We call it sewing-machine-leg.