Funniest thing that ever happened to you in the woods.

J

JohnWayne360

Joined
Jul 7, 2010
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164
About a year back I posted the "Scariest thing......." thread and got a bunch of awesome stories. I thought this would be a great opportunity for all to share embarrassing, funny, hilarious stories of outings gone bad.

Here's mine:
Last October I decided to go on a very last-minute overnighter in one of the state parks in my area. I hiked about 6 miles with all my gear, and by the time I got there, it was already going dark.

At this point I needed to make a decision, do I start a fire, or do I get my tent & camp set up? I decided to set up the tent, foregoing the fire.

This decision had an interesting psychological effect on me. You see, I was in an unknown area, all by myself, feeling relatively out of touch with the outdoors since it had been two years since my last overnighter.

Tired, I decided to go to bed, and the moment I get into my bag I remember the old adage, "fire keeps the critters away". As you can expect, I slept a bit on edge, jittery, waking up every time leaves rustled or twigs cracked.

Sometime around 2 am, I hear noise again and as I turn on my right side to reach for my headlamp, I hear the loudest hiss I've ever heard. Its warm breath, hitting my face. Now, picture me, jumping clean out of my sleeping bag, knife in hand, looking around for the wild critter that had managed to enter into my tent. At this point, I remember feeling my right foot sinking.

Still confused, without the slightest idea of what's going on, I decide to reach down for my light perhaps risking a bite from the still unidentified animal, and as I turn it on, the hissing dies down and I was finally able to connect the points.

Now, every time before I go to bed in the woods, I make a point of duct taping the darned air valve of my inflatable sleeping pad.
 
My six year old and I were camping in North Cascades NP at Diablo Lake. Camp was set-up and my son was fishing from the beach. I was about 100 feet from him enjoying a book.
I see a the guy from the next camp walk over to my son and talk with him for a few minutes, then, with a friendly wave to me, the guy walks on down the beach.(I had met him earlier, seemed like a nice fellow. Hispanic dude with dreadlocks a good 18 inches long)
My son waits until the guy is a good 100 yards down the beach, drops his fishing pole and runs to me fast as a bullet.
He's as wide-eyed as I'd ever seen him and he excitedly askes me if I'd seen him talking to "the caveman from the GEICO commercial" ?
He even caught a fish that day too.
 
My story would involve me and a buddy taking girlfriends camping, getting drunk, running out of fire wood and foraging for more in the dark.

One of the pieces we found must have been covered with poison ivy, and was burned. Everyone was pretty miserable after that trip.

I take my trips into the woods a little more seriously these days;)
 
I was at my in-law's house near Selma, Alabama for Christmas. I got up early the day after Christmas and slipped off to the lower end of his eight-acre pasture with my deer rifle. His fence line abuted a much larger pasture with scattered stands of timber in it. On my FNL's side of the fence was a shallow ditch overgrown with scrub trees and brush. The trees had the densest concentration of rubs I had ever seen! Most of the bark gone, with deep grooves in the wood underneath. It was kind of out in the open, but I speculated that deer may be using the fence line for a travel corridor. So I found a good place to sit and conscienciously hunted until near lunchtime. Walked back up the hill to the house, which was full of relatives of my wife. FNL asked me where I had been hunting and I told him I was on the fence line. My younger teenage nephew then said, "back there where granddaddy's goats have eaten the bark off those little trees?" After a pause, I said, "yeah." Never did mention those "rubs", though.
 
I was riding back from an organized deer drive on the back of a pickup with several other people, including a couple of old-timers. One asked the other if he had any luck. "Oh, yeah. I shot the nicest ten-pointer I have ever seen around here. Field-dressed him and sat back to smoke my pipe,
when someone else shot nearby and must have startled him, as he hopped up and ran off, leaving his guts, heart, and lungs lying in a pile at my feet. I tell you, those things are tough." The other old guy nodded sagely and said, "Don't you hate it when that happens. In all my life I only seen it twice."
 
Around 20 years ago I made a Kayak trip and at the end of the day I built my camp. Everything was ok until i heard in the middle of the night a strange scraping under my tent in the ground. It was a mole doing what moles usually do: digging. This guy drove me crazy with his noise that night!
 
I cant tell you the funniest. The second an uncle took me bird hunting. The dog tensed up and he says "Hes pointing." Then out comes a steaming tird.
 
The Grand Staircase in Utah, climbing a small wall with dogs. We had to hand up the packs, and then the dogs. My friend on the lower end yelled, "Aww my finger just went up Paco's ass!" That was a great trip.
I had also asked the Rangers if my Corolla would make it on the 30+ mile access road. He said, "yes". I should have asked him a more detail question. Most of the road was a washboard from heavy rainfall. I thought my dashboard was going to fall off. It was hard to deal with, we laughed, about cried, and just got beat to hell from that ride. I had to take the same road back out 4 days later, that Corolla was never the same, and soon after I got a Wranger.
 
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