
Image by Hermann Traub from Pixabay |
There's something really majestic about hitting a trail and backpacking through the mountains or the wilderness. The sights you see? They can be incredible. The feeling of independence as you keep walking, unencumbered by the pressures of everyday life? They can feel fulfilling. The horror stories? Terrifying.
Believe it or not, they happen, especially if you're not careful as we learned after Redditor EinnVon asked the online community, "People who have done a multi-day hiking trip, what is your horror story from the trip?"
I'm a city boy. I think I'll stay right where I am.
"First night out."
Night 1 of a trip at Sleeping Giant in Canada, I believe. First night out, I'm always a little jumpy because it takes a while to get used to the sound of the woods, and this was no exception. It was a solo trip, so just me in a little tent on the edge of the forest, looking out onto a small slope down onto a pebble beach.
I was having some real trouble getting to sleep, the woods were just so loud and my mind kept jumping to 'serial killer' instead of 'normal wildlife'. I was trying to convince myself otherwise when I hear some heavier footsteps. Breaking twigs. My heart is in my throat because I just know I'm going to die all alone in the Canadian backwoods.
Then I hear a crash and some falling rocks directly outside my tent, and I work up the courage to turn on my flashlight and unzip the door to have a look... at which point I catch a glimpse of the very clumsy woodland elk that had just fallen down the slope onto the beach right in front of me.
Didn't die.
Thanks for the clarification.
"Spent the whole night half asleep..."
Great Dividing Range in Australia. Doing it in summer, so we didn't take tents - just slept in sleeping bags in the open, under the stars. (We had tent flies with us in case it rained.)
Gorgeous. Except for the one night when we camped near a huge infestation of caterpillars. Fuzzy hairy ones. Spent the whole night half asleep, and peeling tickly fuzzy things off my face.
That's a big nope from me, dawg. Call me a wuss, but I hate dealing with bugs.
"My wife and I had set up camp..."
I was on a canoe camping trip, on a long narrow lake. My wife and I had set up camp about halfway along the lake, and all was well.
After dark, I went to wash my face in the lake, and I see two lights on the other side of the lake! (It was only like 50 meters wide). As I'm watching, their headlamps fade and die. And then something big starting snorting over there. A moose or a bear? It was pretty loud.
It was a still night, and so I called out to them: "Hey are you alright?"
It turns out they had accidentally started hiking from the wrong parking lot (delaying them an hour or two) and then when they got to the lake, they had hiked down the wrong side of the lake.
So I offered, and then went and picked them up in my canoe, and lent them a flashlight so they could set up. I think they were pretty relieved to have gotten away from whatever animal that was. If I hadn't been there, that would have had hours of hiking to get to the next campsite! Without lamps!
"I barely remember the rest of the tour..."
I went out to Muir in CA to see the redwoods. I did one of those old-person tours and that was one of the stops. Everyone in my group stayed on the ground trails, but I decided to take the elevated trail up and around. I was having a blast with my camera and relished the solitude within the forest. I suddenly realized that everything around me had gone quiet. Deadly silent. The only thing I could hear is the ringing in my ears and my own heartbeat pounding because I knew that meant a predator was in the area.
I did the same thing you did, and kept saying to myself repeatedly, "I'm not ready to die. I'm not ready to die," as I slowly made my way down. I didn't want to run because I didn't want to start a chase, but it was HARD resisting the urge to just scream and run for my life.
Suddenly there were birds singing around me again, and I heard a bunch of kids running and yelling up the trail behind me.
I barely remember the rest of the tour. The other people on the bus kept asking me how it was up there so I showed them photos from my camera but I was definitely in shock. The bus driver noticed something was up, I could tell he looked a bit worried. But I would crack jokes to distract him from questioning me.
"As we walk backwards..."
I was doing a one-night backpacking trip with a friend a few years back in some woods we didn't know very well. It was a very popular area for such things, and not particularly remote, so we weren't worried. The sunset snuck up on us a bit, so we were making camp in the dark. I was gathering some firewood by the light of my headlamp when I spot the unmistakable shimmer of a pair of eyes maybe 100 feet from me. My dumb @ss is excited because cool; wildlife! After staring at these eyes for a minute though, it becomes clear this is not a harmless raccoon; it is something big.
I don't have any sort of weapon and don't know how best to scare away my mystery animal. I call out to my buddy, who shines his brighter light in that direction. Turns out our visitor is a mountain lion. Maybe the fear distorted things but MAN that thing looked big. I didn't know much about them but I knew that if they attack you, they are spectacularly deadly. We decide to try and make a fire as quickly as possible since we figure we can't outrun the murder kitty.
As we walk backward toward our campsite, that damn thing kept perfect pace with us and never broke its gaze. The more of it I could see, the more I wished I couldn't. That cat was absolutely pure muscle. Luckily we had supplies to get the fire going very quickly, which had the effect we hoped; our stalker stopped slowly advancing on us. It appeared to think for a minute about its next move and then decided to maintain its current distance but circle us for a while. So now it's a stalemate.
Despite not being very remote, this area didn't have cell service back then, so we had no choice but to play the waiting game. We pitched our tent, made dinner, and tried to make jokes about the situation for the next few hours. The cat circled us for a long time maintaining his perimeter. At some point, though, he stepped behind a tree and we never saw him come out the other side. My friend and I had opposing reactions to this. I took the glass-half-full route and was relieved that it was gone. My friend's view was "well now he can be anywhere you idiot! It's not like we'll hear him coming if he charges us from behind!!" He was probably more right than me.
Eventually we are too tired to stay awake and aren't willing to risk burning the forest down so we let the fire burn out. No sign of our stalker for a while so we're hoping to sleep without being eaten alive. Luckily we did just that and I woke up the next morning well-rested and enjoying the act of breathing. As soon as I sat up in the tent and saw my friend though, it was obvious something was up. He was wide-eyed and looked pretty freaked out.
It turns out just as the morning light showed up in the sky, our feline friend came back to check on us. Apparently there was a funny yowly sound that woke my friend up and got closer to the tent over the course of 10 minutes or so. I didn't know at the time that mountain lions make a sound similar to a scream, which is very disconcerting when you're camping by yourselves.
Not that I cared though, my survival instincts were going strong as I happily slumbered. My friend hoped it was a bird at first but pretty much knew what it was. He didn't want to risk making any noise by waking me or getting out of his sleeping bag, so he just laid still hoping it would pass by. Apparently that harbinger of death got right the hell up on our tent and paused trying to figure out what it was. The windows were zipped shut, but my friend said it got close enough and there was enough light that he could see its shadow on the tent wall. It made another screech or two, sniffed around, and decided to move on.
So anyway, I wake up not knowing any of this, but just seeing my friend doesn't look good. I asked him what was up, and he says let's get out of the tent and he'll fill me in. I wonder now if that was because he didn't want to be the first one out of the tent. Maybe I had made too many jokes about how I could run faster than him, so he would likely be the tasty treat.
Luckily, the hike out was uneventful and this whole event was nothing more than education for us. We always carry a gun while camping now, though we've never seen anything else even close to that scary. Read up on your local predators ahead of time, kids. And definitely bring one really slow runner on every trip.
Why would I want to go somewhere I might be stalked by a mountain lion? I'm cool where I am.
"We found him again..."
Leading a youth group on a hiking trip. Lost a kid.
We found him again but I don't think anything will compare to the fear of losing someone else's child.
This has "horror film" written all over it.
Getting lost in the woods is not my idea of a good time.
"It was supposed to be..."
It was supposed to be a two night stay in the backcountry in Grand Teton National Park, with my parents. The day we hiked out, it rained the entire day and only got worse when we got to where we were camping. Everything was soaked through despite our best efforts (this was far from the first backpacking trip we'd been on), and we ended the day with sleet. I ended up wrapping myself in one of those emergency foil blankets inside my sleeping bag to get warm. We were so miserable the next morning that we threw in the towel and hiked back to civilization... in perfect weather. Every single person we crossed paths with the next day was shocked we'd even bothered going out the day before.
Moral of this story: if you compare your father to Ron Swanson on a regular basis, don't let him make decisions about activities if inclement weather is in the forecast.
"But the worst..."
When I was a kid (like 10ish?) my parents took us on a family vacation, a week-long backpacking trip through the Smokies.
It was mostly fine, I still look back on it fondly. But there were big millipedes everywhere and you had to be careful when packing up otherwise you'd probably roll one up in your tent or something.
But the worst was I went into my sleeping bag for the night and I felt something crawling along my leg. It felt like an inchworm, but it was, in fact, a bee. Somehow. Fortunately, I'm not allergic, but dealing with a bee sting in my calf right before bed some 10 or 15 miles from the trailhead... not fun.
"My only real horror story..."
My only real horror story was learning the lesson that the weather report for the nearest town does not reflect the weather at the top of the mountain where the open-face shelter is. When you pack for a low in the high 40's, sleeping in single digits is rough.
Also grew up in swampier parts of Florida. Wildlife can startle you. Not really "scary" once you know what to look/listen for. A cougar makes a horrifying sound if you don't know what it is. If you are near water in nesting season, always check for gator nests nearby. You don't want to find one while you're mid-dump. That does make a good laxative though.
"Did a miscalculation..."
Kepler Track New Zealand. Did a miscalculation on the number of calories two adults needed for the four-day trek. Had nothing but one jerky stick left and minimal water when we barely caught the last shuttle from the end trailhead back to Te Anau an additional 14K away. Whenever I think of the hungriest I've ever been it's the last half-day off that trek.
When we got back to our rented room we ordered two pizzas and a dessert made of berries, ice cream, and chocolate. I can not remember what the pizzas tasted like or even what we ordered. I only noticed the food going into my mouth at dessert. It was the most beautiful flavor I've ever experienced.
Have these stories put you off of hiking yet?
Here's a life tip: You can be a city boy like me and just not do it. It saves you a lot of trouble. (I'm being facetious, by the way.)
If these stories only further awaken the adventurer in you, then have at it.
Have some horror stories of your own? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments below!
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When you're younger, you might think you come from a great family. But as a kid, you miss out on a lot of nuance. You do not see all the drama the adults around you are involved in. And when you do eventually notice it, you start to realize that maybe few—if any—of your family members actually like each other. So why put up with all those tense family holiday dinners?
This isn't to say that all families are like this. Absolutely not. There are some very happy and wonderful families out there. But seeing families hurt each other is enough to teach you that maybe that age old tradition of getting together for Christmas dinner might not be in everyone's best interest.
People shared their thoughts with us after Redditor captrober157 asked the online community,
"What family tradition ends with you?"
"Being an alcoholic."
"Being an alcoholic. My dad is an alcoholic. Both my grandfathers were alcoholics, which is what killed them. One of my grandmothers used to be an alcoholic and the other one still is. I could go on and on."
Iamyes_ok
Be strong and bold man, don't let the family pressure get to you!
"200 years..."
"200 years of living in London and my kids will never be able to afford to rent or buy here."
Shoreditchregular
200 years of living anywhere, it seems. It's insane.
"My dad interrupting dinner..."
"My dad interrupting dinner, so we can CALL LONG DISTANCE to relatives who couldn’t travel to the event. Then we’d have to pass the phone around the table for brief, superficial greetings as our food went cold. Yikes."
Comfortable-worry-84
Ummm... what? No, thank you. There's no way!
"Expecting the oldest child..."
"Expecting the oldest child to parent the younger one and getting pissed off when the oldest ends up acting like a parent. My younger brother is eight years younger than me. I stopped being a kid by the age of 8.5."
RustproofOrb
Very frustrating and sadly the case for many families out there, especially those of more limited means.
"Expecting my son..."
"Expecting my son to join the military. Almost every male family member on my father's side have fought in every conflict since WW1. I did two tours in Afghanistan and I never want him to experience anything like that."
Afapper
War is traumatic and ideally, no one should ever have to experience it.
"Being hush hush..."
"Being hush hush about mental health related topics and untrusting of medicine in general."
1kateviax1
It's great to see the younger generation be so open about mental health and fighting the stigma!
"Telling the boys..."
"Telling the boys to not cry. To push it down. Going to let my kid cry and talk about his feelings as much as he damn well pleases."
FullBoardDad
This is so important — young boys need to grow up knowing that their feelings are valid.
"Arranged marriage."
"Arranged marriage. Should have ended that tradition myself but was too much of a coward."
Dry-Communication901
The best time was for yourself. The second best will be for your kids.
"Not practical."
"Massive extended family gatherings. Not practical. Besides, grandma kicked the bucket 10 years ago."
MarketNeither9970
Often, families splinter once a matriarch or patriarch dies and people realize that they were the glue keeping everyone together.
"I'm the first..."
"Living below the poverty line. I'm the first member of my family to be middle class."
KnockMeYourLobes
Fantastic! Break the cycle!
It takes a lot of courage to break from your family, especially if they've always done things a certain way. A lot of respect to people who decide to and are able to create new lives for themselves!
What does breaking the cycle mean to you? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below!
People Explain Which Things They Cannot Believe They Had To Explain To A Grown Adult
One of the most wonderful things about children is their curiosity and eagerness to learn.
So, when they ask about things which seem like common knowledge to most adults, we will explain in detail with excitement, simultaneously broadening their horizons and, hopefully, improving their future decisions.
When we have to explain these same given facts to adults, however, we usually first greet them with a raised eyebrow, and force ourselves to hide our disbelief.
As no matter their education or upbringing, there are certain things one feels it should be safe to assume all adults know.
Redditor Lo-Fi_Kuzco was curious to hear things the Reddit community couldn't believe they had to explain to adults, leading them to ask:
"What's something you can't believe you had to explain to a grown adult?"
Oh, dear...
"He was only a college freshman."
"I had a conversation with a friend once that went like:"
"'Drug laws are really strict in Japan'. Like, you can actually go to jail'."
"'Dude, you can go to jail in America for drugs'."
"'No, no. My friend got caught with weed once and he just had to pay a fine to the cops and they let him go'."
"That was fun to unpack."- anportan
Unless you're a colonial prisoner...
"That Australia isn’t a part of the UK."- weedrangoon·
Let's hope they were talking to a man...
"How a period works and what it’s for."- R_cheese
Hopefully a realization made before they were told this?
"No, my snake won't turn into two if you cut him in half."- NyalaBoy
Rare, but legal.
"That $2 bills are real, legal US tender."
"Got chewed out at a coffee job, for accepting 'fake money', because a customer paid with 2, $2 bills. "
"My boss was in their 40s."
"Took 10 minutes and a google search to prove I wasn't lying."- DarkFae420
Might as well as well have worn a target!
"Not me but my husband."
"Had to tell his best friend why jumping around in the woods with some deer antlers he had found on his head was a Bad idea."
"They were hunting."- ZubLor
It's a universal inconvenience
"The fact that female anatomy is capable of farting."- samara11278
How did this conversation even begin?
"You can get pregnant if you have sex standing up."
"Had to explain this to a woman in her late thirties that had a teenage daughter."- PygmyPuff_X
If only...
"8% interest rate doesn’t mean you only pay $8 a month in interest."
"I worked in retail for too long."
"One guys debit card declined, I told him so."
"He looked at me like I was an alien, and then loudly exclaimed, ‘how can a DEBIT CARD be declined?’ "
"So had to explain that one to him."
"Another person was traveling from a state that didn’t have sales tax, and expected me to remove the sales tax from their purchase because?"
" Apparently in their mind if you live somewhere without sales tax, you can travel the country and not have to adhere to those states rules I guess."
"Another person tried to use a tax exempt card from another state, on Black Friday, mind you, and was mad that I couldn’t honor another states tax exempt card."
"Honestly like it’s okay to not know stuff."
"But don’t be a fucking a**hole when someone tries to explain to you what the hell is going on, lmao."- plsdontkillmelol69
It's hard to imagine how some of these people functioned living adult lives if they needed explanations on these things.
One can only hope they took this information in the first time they heard it.
The term "addiction" more often than not comes with serious connotations attached to it.
Be it for drugs, alcohol, or gambling, addictions are usually viewed as a problem that needs to be fixed or cured.
But are there certain addictions that go unnoticed by the majority of people?
Or, more over, are there addictions that are, for the most part, accepted in modern society?
Redditor jperaic1 was certainly curious to know, leading them to take to Reddit to ask:
"What addiction is seen as completely normal by society?"
To call it a "rabbit hole" is an understatement...
"Infinite scrolling in apps."- Ill_Animator_4437
"TikTok."
"The algorithm is insanely good at keeping people on it for long periods of time."- SDAPastor
"Social media."
"Everyone is always on social media, even i am personally an 'addict' I'm constantly taking pictures for my Instagram, posting on my Snapchat, or scrolling through TikTok. an endless cycle between the three apps."- meanbee90
"But enough about me, what do you think about me!"
"Attention."
"Some can't see the truth that they are out there trying to compete against one and other and can't understand why people don't like them."
"So they try harder."
"It's an endless loop because they will never be happy with what they have already."
"Life."- MywarUK
Look at that, I must have it!
"Shopping."- justnotthatwitty
I can just keep going!!!
"Energy drinks."- Professional_Grab513
Hey, you never know...
"Surprise no one has said this but lottery tickets."- Immediate_Pomelo638
Depending on your inner circle...
"Not crack, but cocaine is HUGELY accepted within pro sports, celebrities, rich people, so on an so forth."
"You'd be surprised at the amount of people who do it."
"People you'd never think of."
"It's a big secret a lot of the time but it's extremely popular."
"It is everywhere."- Reasonable-Low4120
If these addictions don't necessarily pose such an immediate threat to one's health that requires being sent to rehab, in the grand scheme of things they are almost equally dangerous.
So next time a close friend or family member asks if maybe you should think about cutting back, probably a good idea to listen to them.
There are few feelings that fill me with more joy than the thrill of seeing a great movie. And let me tell you: When I find a great movie, I'm not afraid to revisit it time and again.
I recently rewatched Jurassic Park for the first time in years. How could I ever get bored of it? How could anyone? It's pretty much a perfect film. Those effects really haven't aged a day. Trust me, after really making the grave mistake of sitting through Jurassic World: Dominion, I was in dire need of something with considerably more substance. Jurassic Park is perfect.
People told us about some of their favorite films after Redditor HBomb101112 asked the online community,
"What film do you see as a cinematic masterpiece?"
The Thing (1982)
"John Carpenter's The Thing, a masterpiece of horror, suspense, and special effects that has yet to be beaten."
Daigey
The Thing is exceptional and likely the gold standard by which all subsequent horror remakes have been measured.
City of God (2002)
"When I saw City of God I thought it was a masterpiece. Haven’t seen it in years, but that’s how I remember it."
CreepyLaw5186
A chilling film. Almost everyone in it is an amateur actor and the work they do is so wonderful.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1968)
"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, for its cinematography, soundtrack and storyline."
Villa-restal
The score is a work of genius. Ennio Morricone was just sublime.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003)
"The Lord of the Rings trilogy. All of them, just beautifully filmed, perfectly cast and expertly put together. I don’t think we’ll ever get something as good as that again."
KalitheDryad
Not one single role was miscast. It's impressive. They nailed like literally everything.
Jurassic Park (1993)
"Jurassic Park. The movie delivered well on its promise to show us dinosaurs."
SuvenPan
This is a movie that has aged like a fine wine and that looks so much better than any of the Jurassic World films that have been in cinemas these last few years.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
"No Country for Old Men."
"Cormac McCarthy is one of the greatest American authors of all time, and yet the Coen Brothers adaptation is better than the novel. And the coin flip scene at the gas station? Incredible."
[deleted]
This is truly a perfect film. I'd say the novel and the film adaptation are pretty much on par.
Children of Men (2006)
"Children of Men. Your heart nearly breaks for a future that doesn’t even exist, except that you feel it possibly could exist."
daveescaped
I saw this again a few months back and it feels more relevant than ever, especially in the context of the climate crisis.
Whiplash (2014)
"Whiplash. J.K. Simmons as a sociopathic band conductor may be the most realistically harrowing villain I’ve ever seen."
marmaloser
And he won the Oscar for it! Clearly the Academy felt he was doing something right.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Top 5 for me. Absolutely brilliant film. The scene in the bamboo trees was so beautiful."
thomriddle45
Along with being visually stunning, it's also one of the greatest film titles of all time.
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
"In The Grand Budapest Hotel, it seems like Ralph Fiennes was made for a Wes Anderson movie."
highlander2189
He pretty much was — and can you believe he missed out on an Academy Award nomination for the role? What a sin!
There is no shortage of good movies out there, and some are even exceptional or great. In another 20 years we'll be able to see what movies that came in the last few years have stood the test of time.
Have some suggestions of your own? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below!