“Creepiest backpacking story? Camping in Sequoia National Park with a stranger hiding, possibly stalking us, in the dark”

Hi everyone. I just had a relatively creepy backpacking experience this last weekend which got me curious about what other folks have encountered while backpacking.

Follow-up comment by u/deepblue10055:

I was in Sequoia with 3 friends a couple years ago. We had set up camp, made a fire and were just hanging out as it got dark. It was the first night and we were only about 8 miles from the trailhead.

I’m not sure why I did it, but I had my headlamp on and swung the beam through the woods uphill from us. There was a guy just sitting there in the dark with his pack. Alone, no lights. I was a little weirded out but figured maybe he was just waiting for someone. I ignored it and didn’t let my light linger on him or say anything.

30 minutes later I checked again and he was still there. At that point I told my friends, and not knowing if he had seen us hide our bear (beer?) cans, we sneakily re-located our food without using lights. When we checked again 10 minutes later we couldn’t find him.

Luckily we didn’t see or hear from him again, but the fact that he was sitting above our camp with a good view of everything and no lights to give away his location just gave me a bad feeling. I’m sure it was nothing, but it was definitely a little hard to sleep that night.

Katie’s comments:

• Location: Sequoia National Park in California // woods

Another follow up comment to u/deepblue10055’s comment by u/Puceeffoc (could provide an alternative perspective and possibly tie into the military / special forces story):

You're sure it was nothing? Lol. I don't know about that... Then again I remember in college I lived near a woods and I walked into in and would look out from the woods into people's backyards and would just sit sober and watch them. This was also after a deployment to Iraq so people watching wasn't uncommon for me, but I'd sit in the woods and watch people partying, no ill intent involved. Sometimes when watching I'd be like "Wait what am I doing just watching people what would they think?" Other times I'd get a backpack on full of useless things and just "patrol" the neighborhood late at night following the sounds of the night. Hear yelling I'd go that way, car squeeling tires I'd check it out, noisy dog better check on it... Maybe that's what that guy was on about? Just a vet deep in the woods with that thousand yard stare trying to decompress from war in a peaceful way. Hell if anything you probably were a bit safer if that was the case. ;)