Close Encounters With Nature

dennargle

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Mar 7, 2012
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39
In this thread share your closest and most terrifying encounters with creatures on planet earth.

here is mine.....
about two ears ago I was camping with my friend Stephen along the dome plateau trail in southern Utah. I was showing Stephen these very big sandstone caves that the native Americans used to inhabit. One of the caves you have to belly crawl into .Its a really tight squeeze but once you get inside it is just spectacular how massive it is. We crawled into the cave hung out in there for a bit. On the way back out I looked up at the ceiling above me. I saw at least 4 black widows no more then 1 foot above my head! I yelled to Stephen WE GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE!!! We crawled as fast as possible to the entrance. As soon as i got out I shook like crazy so if any were on me they would hopefully fly off. After shaking I asked Stephen to do a 360 around me to make sure there weren't any crawling on me. Stephen got around to my back side and said dude don't move there's one on you. I was terrified. I told him to get it off of me right now. He then he burst out laughing and said I was just messing with you bro your all good.
 
Here are those native American caves. my friend Steven is in two of the photos use him for scale.
caves1.jpg
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cave3.jpg

here is the one we crawled into
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This rock formation a little ways away from the caves i like to call the dragon.
dragon.jpg
 

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you can usually see some Black Widow spiders in the canyon cracks around Morning Glory Bridge. Especially where that natural spring is coming off the canyon walls.
Or go into my garage each summer, I have lots of them and am totally scared of spiders :mad:
 
when I was doing my archaeology dig in the Grand Staircase we were uncovering a couple of pithouses. At the end of each day we covered the pithouses with black tarps to preserve the "layers" and each morning when we hiked back to the site and pulled back the tarp there would be 3-5 rattlesnakes curled up. We would just get a shovel and chuck them over the hill and say "see you tomorrow morning" : ) However, we did kill the rattlesnake that came into our camp area.

something else we did at our dig site on boring days was find the little white scorpions that just sting like a bee and purposefully put them in our buckets so that those doing the sifting that day would have something to find : )
 
Interesting that you talk about an Archeology dig, when I was in Belize in 2000 digging at baking pot (near San Ignacio) we had similar issues with snakes under our tarps. The worst part was the fire ants, as we were digging I disturbed a fire ant hive, they don't usually bite until there are a bunch of them on you (at least that is what the locals said). Anyhow one of the local diggers all of the sudden tells me not to move and that he would go get water from the river (about a click away), I look down and I am covered from my thighs down.. I decided to ignore his suggestion and use the flail and swat method to remove them from my legs - this just caused them to bite and stay on until I was doused with water and laughed at by the local digger... I still don't like ants, or spiders....

Great Idea on the scorpions for the sifters :)
 
One of the most amazing experiences I had was hiking up woodcamp in Logan Utah in the fall many years ago and witnessing two bull moose full on charge each other head on apparently battling it out for the sweet lovin' of a cow moose hanging out in the brush. We witness this all from a fairly close distance on a ridgeline and the sound of the Antlers cracking together rang through the whole valley it was pretty awesome.
 
The only close encounter I can recall right now happened to my then-six-year-old son. We were in the Swell and had hiked down a canyon to check out some pictographs near the San Rafael River. On our way back to the truck, we took a different route and were scrambling up some ledges out of the canyon. My son was a little ahead of me, and after scrambling up a 2-3' ledge, he turned around and told me there was a snake there. I approached the ledge and, sure enough, there was a small rattler coiled up soaking up the last heat of the day. My son had climbed right over the top of it before seeing it, and he said his face had only been a few inches away as he leaned forward and put his hands on the ledge to start climbing up. I guess we're lucky that it was early-April and it was still cool enough that the snake wasn't too active.

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The only close encounter I can recall right now happened to my then-six-year-old son. We were in the Swell and had hiked down a canyon to check out some pictographs near the San Rafael River. On our way back to the truck, we took a different route and were scrambling up some ledges out of the canyon. My son was a little ahead of me, and after scrambling up a 2-3' ledge, he turned around and told me there was a snake there. I approached the ledge and, sure enough, there was a small rattler coiled up soaking up the last heat of the day. My son had climbed right over the top of it before seeing it, and he said his face had only been a few inches away as he leaned forward and put his hands on the ledge to start climbing up. I guess we're lucky that it was early-April and it was still cool enough that the snake wasn't too active.]


this is why I'm now scared to let my daughter hike too far ahead of me!
 
I was mountain biking up by Snowbasin ski resort came around a blind corner to find a rather large bull moose in my way. I came to a dead stop he was eating grass and looked up at me.....ate some more grass....looked up at me.... ate more grass and slowly moved off the trail and into the trees. I kinda just stood there not sure what to do. After he moved into the trees I decided to continue on my way.
 
Last summer I was attacked by some bees. I was at the trail head for Steam Mill Lake in Cache Valley. There was some of those box hives about 50 feet away from where we parked. I was sitting on the tailgate of my friends truck putting my boots on when a bee (thought it was a horse fly) buzzed around my head and I casually swatted at it. BIG MISTAKE!!! Soon a couple bees started trying to sting me and I was swatting them away like mad, but to no avail.... I got stung twice just above my eye, then more bees came after me!!! :eek: I went running up the dirt road with one boot on, one off, arms flailing in the arm trying to keep them away, cursing up a storm the whole time! :mad: Every time I stopped, thinking I was far enough away, they come after me. I then ran back towards my friends telling them to give me their skeeter spray (only thing I could think of to try and keep them away). That didn't work and I ended up running up the road into the trees and eventually they left me alone. My friend drove the truck up to me and I grabbed my boot and pack and headed up the trail before doing up the straps on my pack or lacing up my boots. I scrapped two stingers out of my eye brow with my finger nail! DAMN BEES!! I've NEVER had any problem with bees attaching me before.

They were still aggressive the next morning when we came back to the truck and we had to throw our packs in the back and jump inside!

We talked with some people that know about bees (we were wondering if they were Africanized bees) and they told us that if the honey was recently harvested or if people had been messing with them they could act more aggressive. There were some camper trailers parked near by the trail head and we wondered if some of their kids and been throwing rocks at the bee boxes or something...
 
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