I've always said hiking, camping, the wilderness, all death traps. Convince me otherwise...
The Fall
"This was two decades ago. They used to do donkey tours in the Grand Canyon. You ride the donkey and then hike. You can camp, but we did the day tour. A woman that was probably in her late 60's/Early 70's was in front of me and on an incline started to act strange."
"She was swaying left and right as on a steep cliff (which was very safe and wide). It swayed back and forth for maybe a minute and she was slumped over and then boom, it looked like she passed out and pulled the donkey to the left and fell over the cliff. I saw her tumble over and then they were just gone."
"I cant remember how far down the fall was, but it had to be over 100ft. Immediately the guide jumped off at the front ran over and let out and audible scream before stopping after realizing she had a tour with her. A few people got off their donkey and she stopped them from peering over."
"A few of the other guides looked over and they made some radio calls and then we proceeded. It was very obvious that something really serious had happened, but we never found out. I'm pretty sure I watched a woman and a donkey fall to their death in the Grand Canyon."
BenfoSherman
Can I Help?
"I was on a trail in MA when two teenagers on motorbikes came gunning through the woods. One hit a bump at speed and went flying one way and his bike went another. He flew right into a tree trunk. He wasn't wearing a helmet. (Neither of them were). I went over to see if I could help. I told him not to move and I'd get someone."
"He told me to go f**k myself and limped over to his bike, got on it and slowly drove off. His friend just looked at me and shrugged and drove off after him. A few days later I saw his friend in a convenience store. I asked him how his friend was and was told that he had died from his injuries."
AoiGyoshi
Clapping
"Hiking a trail in Sedona alone, I heard a strange sound like thunder clapping. I stopped hiking then a boulder the size of 3 basketballs comes bouncing down the mountain about 15 feet in front of me... F**king yikes!"
Huge_Strain_8714
"A large boulder the size of a small boulder."
backtheduckup
Downhill
scared tv land GIF by Teachers on TV LandGiphy"Someone casually lobbing grapefruit sized rocks downhill, directly where we'd been a few cutbacks prior. Didn't even think he might kill someone. This was Wisdom Tree in LA, so imagine a very steep traverse."
lurkherder
I knew the wilderness was nothing but a horror movie.
At the Bottom
Look Away Season 3 GIF by Paramount+Giphy"Someone’s backpack, jacket, and wallet left on the edge of a two thousand cliff in a popular national park. Rangers found the body at the bottom the following day."
alexd753
Not Pretty
"I was on a Mountain Rescue team for several years. Saw a lot of stuff, but one that stands out is a guy who fell over 2,000 feet off a cliff and onto rocks. Not pretty. Things get remote out in the Ruby Mountains… it’s nuts out there. Took me a few years to realize I still carry some of the emotional weight from SAR. Make sure you get help if you need it!"
uncontroversial_name
Farewell
"I was in the Frank Church wilderness in Idaho doing some biological survey work. We were 30 miles from the nearest trailhead and got an early start to avoid the heat. About a mile into our hike, we hear the bushes stir near the trail. Up pops a man wearing nothing but a loin cloth and nikes carrying a very small bag and a hunting rifle. He says mornin' and takes off sprinting down the trail. Never did see him again, so so many questions."
Illbeyourdodo
Climbing the Stream
"I was on the Matanuska glacier ice climbing, and before we started scaling the wall a tour guide walked up with a group he was showing around. There was a small waterfall, and he filled up his water bottle, explaining how this is the best water in the world, the most pure and blah blah blah."
"Anyways, we climb up like 20 feet, and there in the stream just above the waterfall is the dead and rotting carcass of some kind of bird or mammal, completely gray and directly feeding the waterfall he just filled up his bottle with."
Shoe_mocker
signs of human activity...
sheep bucket GIF by Qvisten AnimationGiphy"A well-maintained 2-seater outhouse, numerous miles from any path or sign of human activity - just sitting there encircled by tall trees and dense overgrowth. The outhouse evidenced no sign of use or footprints in the area. Yet it was stocked with tp, magazines, freshly painted, and screens on the vents."
Back2Bach
Footprints
"Been hiking for 11 years and haven’t seen anything too crazy, but a couple concerning things have happened. I was hiking a trail that had recently been destroyed by a storm, and it was pretty easy to get lost. Eventually made it to the summit of the mountain, where we would camp for the night. It’s about 6:00pm and we set up our tent sight, and this guy coming from a separate trail passes us."
"He said he was day hiking, but the nearest hut or road was 16 miles away, and it was 6:00pm. He had no flashlight either. We advised that he turned around, as the trail would be nearly impossible at night, but he insisted that he would finish the hike. He didn’t even have a flashlight, so we gave him one of our headlamps. The morning came, and you could see his footprints lead to the destroyed trail, so I guess we didn’t change his mind."
"We went back the way we came, and eventually passed the nearest hut (can’t miss it, the trail only leads to that hut) and asked the workers if they had seen they guy, to which they responded no. No news ever came up of someone dying or going missing that week, so I presume he’s fine, but scary situation nonetheless."
Diabetes-Repair
"Eagle Creek Fire"
"A few years ago my wife and her friends were out east of Portland OR on a really really hot weekend and, on their way to Hood River, decided to stop at a place called punchbowl to cool off. They were going to be fast so they just brought bathing suits and flip flops and were just going to run up the mile +/- trail to jump in, jump out, and keep driving. They had just arrived at Punchbowl and were greeted by a fairly sizable crowd, maybe 75-100 people total spread out."
"They had just gotten out from swimming then they see a little trail of smoke. Within minutes the small trail of smoke is huge and noticeable smell is growing. A few folks get spooked and go to leave to the parking lot only to return panicked shortly after saying a fire wall had blocked the trail."
"They immediately call 911, within a few minutes a helicopter's over them and begins dropping notes on caution tape down to the group saying 'run! large fire spreading fast, head down...' followed very quickly after with 'trail consumed, stay put.' The fire is visible now and rapidly growing."
"A volunteer somehow got herself back there with a map and GPS and mapped out a possible route to escape as long as winds sustained their current models. Ultimately through 36 hours of terror. They hiked 15 miles+ on rugged terrain out barefoot in bathing suits in the middle of what later came known to be the 'Eagle Creek Fire,' that almost torched the whole one side of the Columbia River Valley, escaping with their lives but my wife still suffers some ptsd when she smells campfires."
"She said that for essentially 12-14 hours total of it they had zero idea of where they were going, if there was any remote chance of getting out, or even if they were going the right way following this group. All 75+ people made it out okay. Pretty incredible teamwork."
socibuddha
Water Issues
"I was in the Grand Canyon in 2008 during a huge flash flood that ran through there at the time. We were camping down in the bottom after a couple big days of backpacking around, and in the middle of the night it tore through. The waters went up 60 or 70 feet and everyone was fleeing up the cliff walls for their lives. A couple people were swept over the large falls. We saw bears running down and scrambling up trees before they fell over."
"But the craziest thing I saw was a woman with a baby strapped to her back climbing across one of those river-jumping ropes to get to a boulder on the other side before they got swept away. She was two or three feet over the water shooting down there at crazy speeds carrying massive trees crashing down along the way. We were terrified for them."
nomaddave
Human Waste
"We were about 8-10 miles into the Wind River Range when we decided to camp near a nice lake. We wanted to get off the trail and the lakeshore so we walked up beside the inlet stream. There we found AT LEAST 100 piles of human waste + toilet paper, not buried, and right next to a pretty stream. Disgusting."
Mentalfloss1
Stumbles
"I stumbled upon a meeting of Basque ETA separatists (terrorists?) near San Sebastián, Spain. Guards, guard dogs, the whole bit. It was a fairly terrifying 10 minutes as we played the role of dumb, lost tourists and they figured out what to do with us. Fortunately they escorted us away instead of throwing us off the cliffs into the ocean."
GuacChamp
A Second Mouth
"A few years ago a new hiking buddy climbed up a waterfall, slipped on some pine needles on the top and fell 40 feet down onto rock. I was the first person there, blood pouring out of head, broken spine, shine broke thru the skin. He bit below his mouth and pretty much had a second mouth."
"It took an hour or 2 for medics to get to us and another 2 hours to use ropes to lift him out of the valley to a helicopter. Miraculously, he was out of the hospital after a few months and eventually regained full movement. All medical experts were shocked he made a full recovery. Most traumatic event of my life by far."
wilfinator420
Intertwined
"Me and a friend were hiking in the mountains and heard what sounded like a hose bib running. We were deep in the mountains so there should not be water running. We tracked the sound to a large depression in the side of a hill and looked in and there was a mass of rattlesnakes mating. The mass was HUGE and there had to be at least a hundred of them all intertwined. Apparently that’s how they mate. Massive snake orgies."
mrsmith2929
Back at Dusk
Giphy"My ex and I went for a little evening hike on the trails by our campground and it felt eerie and kept turning around bc we felt like we were being followed but never saw anything."
"When we got back to the trailhead we got chewed out by the park ranger because they had a lot of mountain lion activity and we weren’t supposed to be out at dusk. That feeling I hope I never feel again."
monsterber
Dead Dog
"I walked past a campsite with a ton of smashed alcohol bottles and trash. Started feeling uncomfortable and walked faster to where the trail looked over a canyon. Smelled something bad and looked down to see, like three feet from me, two bloated dead dog heads sticking out from a rolled up tarp. Immediately turned around and booked it to my car."
"I called the forest service to report it. I think some people got drunk and killed the dogs or maybe it was a dog fighting thing. There may have been more under that tarp but I was freaked out. I think if it was someone’s pets they would have tried to bury them."
abc-z
I am reaffirmed... I'm an indoors person, happily. The end.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/