Fellow campers and hikers of reddit what is the creepiest/scariest/unexplainable event that happened to you while in the woods. I remember being little and hearing footsteps outside my trailer and the rest of my family was hunting, scared the shit out of me kept looking outside and time and time again nothin was out there but it sounded like a grown man just walking

Follow-up comment by u/MasteringTheFlames:

Scary? Or creepy? To me, those are two very different things. I'll share both stories with you...

Story # 1:

Several years ago, I loaded a bunch of camping gear onto my bicycle and spent the better part of the next seven months riding 5,300 miles (8,500 km) around the western U.S. solo. At night, I most often preferred to wild camp. Rather than paying to sleep on the ground in a campground, I would just find somewhere to disappear into the woods, somewhere people were unlikely to find me and even less likely to care that I was there.

The forest, I quickly learned, makes for far from a quiet night's sleep. After the first few weeks of this lifestyle, I had come to find comfort in the droning of thousands of crickets and toads. It was always a highlight of my night —though not particularly uncommon— to hear the yips and howls of a distant pack of coyotes, and I fondly recall one night when I was lulled to sleep by two owls, one on either end of my tent, hooting back and forth. If nothing else, it wouldn't take much of a breeze to stir music from the tree canopies.

A bit over a month into the trip, I was way out in the middle of nowhere in western Montana. After a full day of cycling on incredibly sparse roads, I found somewhere to set up camp for the night. Went through my usual bedtime routine. Pitch the tent, eat dinner, write my final journal entry of the day's events, study maps for the coming days. Living outdoors all day every day, my sleep schedule more or less synched with the sun, and so I laid down in bed shortly after dusk.

That's when I made a disturbing observation. There was not a single cricket chirping nor toad croaking, certainly no owls. There wasn't even the slightest breeze to rustle the dry leaves of early autumn still clinging to the trees. It was truly and completely silent. And that was terrifying. I can only describe it as the loudest silence I've ever felt. It was as if the entire forest was hiding from an equally silent predator. Suddenly the occasional snapping of a twig —a common sound normally lost in the cacophony— rang out like a gunshot. I slept terribly that night, and I'll never forget the immense relief I felt with the first bird song of the pre-dawn hour.

Story # 2:

So that was my creepiest night. What about actual fear for my safety and well-being? That came a month or so later on the same trip. I was somewhere in southern Washington State, with my sights set on Portland, Oregon. Again, I was just wild camping in the woods. And I started coming down with food poisoning. I spent the whole night tossing and turning and leaning out the door of the tent to vomit. I'd finally throw up, then use some water from one of my bottles to rinse out my mouth. Drink some water to help replenish the fluids I'd lost, then lay back down. Feeling better, I'd get a couple hours sleep before waking up once again feeling nauseous.

Come 4:00 AM, I dreaded the thought of getting back on the bike, I simply didn't have the energy for it. But what other option did I have? Just wait alone in the woods and pray I recover quickly? Besides, I'd used up all my water through the night. I had no choice but to get on the road. Looking at my maps, there was a town not too far away with a motel where I could put myself up for a night of proper rest. It would be 30 miles, or 50 km. A reasonable half day for me, under ideal conditions.

Right as the sun came up, it started raining, so I waited out the brief 20 minute storm in the tent. Rain stopped, I took down the tent, loaded up the bike, and hiked it back to the road. Get on, start pedaling... And something feels weird. It's a flat tire. Just my luck, right? But I had the tools, spare parts, and knowledge to fix it, so I get to work. In my less than ideal mental state, it took far longer to fix than it had any right to, and my the time it was back together and holding air, it had started raining again. No option other than to turn on my lights, put on my jacket, and just ride through it.

The words "overwhelming hopelessness" don't feel big enough, but I don't know how else to summarize that day. I was cold and wet. I was hungry, but didn't want to put too much into my still upset stomach. I was dehydrated, remember I'd used up all my water the previous night. And I was tired in every sense of the word; sleep deprived, physically aching, mentally exhausted. Every rotation of the pedals felt like a feat of Herculean strength, but somehow I continued to find that strength. I made it to the motel, took a long hot shower, called my mom, the slept for 13 hours straight.

Long story slightly shorter, I woke up the next morning feeling surprisingly good, and managed to outrun the food poisoning for a day or two to Portland. Eventually it caught up to me while I was out at a museum, but one rest day on the toilet of the hostel got it all out of my system for good. In hindsight, I'm just thankful the shits waited until I was back in civilization!

The flat tire and the rain, that was just demoralizing. But that night before? That was without a doubt the most scared I have ever been for my own safely while camping. I honestly had no idea how I was going to get myself out of that one.

TL;DR Both while riding a bicycle across the US, the creepiest was just a night camping in a dead silent forest in the middle of nowhere, Montana. In terms of actual fear for my safety, it was a month or so later in Washington State, when I came down with food poisoning and spent the night vomiting while alone in the woods rather than in a proper campground. 10/10 would still recommend cycling across a continent!

Katie’s comments:

Story # 1:

• Location: the western U.S. // way out in the middle of nowhere in western Montana

Story # 2:

• Location: Montana