Tales from the dark side.

666 Views 7 Replies 6 Participants Last post by therebel19, 4 mo ago

Desertdweller67

Discussion Starter · 4 mo ago

I want to hear stories of "When I almost bought the farm", or got yourself out of a really bad jam. I am doing this because there are a lot of creative and experienced folks here and I know that lessons can be learned.
Here's quick one.

About 35 years ago my girlfriend, now wife, went on a quick backpack/camp trip to somewhere(cant remember exactly) in Colorado. We parked the truck and hiked up into the national forrest. We just bushwacked up about 2 miles and 1800 feet above where we parked. We found a depression on a heavily wooded ridge that was pretty flat and set up camp. It was about 6 pm and In July? I think we were at about 9000 ft elev. Once set up we were eager to go climb up the ridge to see if we could see something but trees. We hiked for an hour and it looked like this could go up forever. Then I noticed the sun was starting to fade. This was when I realized we might have a problem. We started down quickly and the terrain was steep. Everything looked the same. Oh $hit! Inventory: we are wearing t shirts, shorts, hiking boots.... Nothing else. Car keys are in the tent. The temps at night can easily go down to the mid 40's over night. No flashlight, no matches. We still had about a half hour before it got dark. So I headed to where I thought we should find camp and saw nothing. At that point I knew we had to pull something off so, I had her go to my far left to where I could just see her. (not to far, bc the trees.) We walked a grid pattern for about 40 minutes and finally ran into camp. Would we have died....probably not. It would have sucked though. This was most likely 1990 and had no map or compass.

I hope you guys will post. Looking forward to it!

Save

Reactions: 5

1 - 8 of 8 Posts

B52U

· #2 · 4 mo ago

I was driving the family mini-van back from a long road trip on I-80 with the whole fam in it 2 years ago and had a ford mustang go totally out of control and do a 360 just forward to our 2 o'clock in the adjacent lane. As it spun perpendicular into our lane, my reflexes went into a zen state and gently so gently moved the wheel left just enough that the mustang rear bumper missed us by an inch as we passed by at 75mph. Sure wish I had installed a dash cam for that one. There was an adrenaline dump delay of a minute or so.

I have a few Iraq deployment stories involving various improvised explosives and other ordinance that are interesting moments in time as well, but the mini-van near death was just as good.

Save

Reactions: 5

BumbleBee

· #3 · 4 mo ago

So back in my younger days when I was 10 feet tall and bullet proof, my girlfriend and I decided to vacation in the Smokie Mountains. On the drive in I spotted a cool place I wanted to check out. My girlfriend at the time wasn't much of a morning person so I decided that I would get up early the next morning and trek out alone to check it out. Just like Desert, I headed out the cabin door with minimal equipment, shoes, shorts and tee shirt. After a while of walking, I checked my watch and I knew something was very wrong. I should have reached my destination long ago, and now I was lost. I back tracked for a while, but still nothing. After checking my watch again, I knew I was running out of time so I started jogging to make up some time (I'm not much of a runner). I was starting to get scared and now I was in a full sprint!! Bad thoughts in my head! Just then, I saw it!! I ran through the front doors, straight to the counter, and placed my breakfast order JUST AS THEY WERE ROLLING THE MENUE OVER TO LUNCH at McDonalds.... Scary.... Still haunts me to this day.

See less See more

Save

Reactions: 5

Budro2

· #4 · 4 mo ago

My wife and I took a horse pack trip into the Maroon Bell Wilderness, to hunt elk for her 2nd season tag. I had seen and hunted a bull in the area of our destination during archery season that was very large and we hoped to find him again and try our odds with a fire stick this time.
We camped at the same place my hunting partner and I had stayed in September. Close to the creek and good grass for the horses. The second evening of the hunt we located the bull but it was to late to make a play on him. The next morning we picked him up again with about 20 cows and watched them go to bed in an isolated timber patch, mostly surrounded by boulder fields. With little cover we spent half he day working into range and then waited them out. It was very low light before they moved out in the open and he presented a shot. She did a good job and harvested her biggest bull ever. We took care of business and got back to camp well after dark. Before we could even prepare dinner we had severe wind blowing. I’ve endured many a bad storm in the high country through the years, with winds and even lightning strikes in close proximity but this night was different. Before long we could hear what sounded like shotguns going off in the distance. I knew what it was immediately but had never got to experience it first hand. It was the sound of huge spruce trees snapping off like toothpicks. I’ve seen lots of them riding the backcountry and have always wondered what power it would take to just snap off a 30” tree that’s not rotten 6-8’ up from its base. We were now living in the middle of it going on all around us. We ate our dinner listening to them pop over and over. The sustained wind was very high. I don’t even dare guess the MPH but then we would hear something different coming in the distance from time to time. It would sound like a low flying jet that was likely to break the sound barrier coming from way off, getting closer and closer. Micro bursts I guess is what they call it. It would bear down on us, and in the flimsy light weight fair weather tent we had brought, the tent would collapse under the four flexible poles that made the sealing and lay down completely flat on us momentarily and then it would spring back up. We laid there till we’ll after midnight with this occurring over and over, listening to the trees popping, some closer and some off in the distance. Just about the time I’d be to sleep I’d hear one snap and sit straight up, eyes wide thinking this is it.
Sometime along the way in the night we both finally crashed and woke up before light to the alarm. It was calm. I put on my headlamp and went out to get the horses to start saddling and getting ready for the long day to go get the bull and then pack up and get out of the wilderness. I walked around the back of the tent in the dark looking for our saddles and gear and I was really confused. I couldn’t find anything and everything looked different. I walked over to check on one of my horses staked close by and saw a 20” spruce snapped off 4’ from the ground. It was only about 15’ from where my horse stood. He looked star struck and had tree debris still sitting on his back from stuff that rained down out of the air. All of our gear was neatly layed out at the base of the tent, the tree fell 5’ from our tent and the branches completely covered all of our stuff. I finally was able to get to the hand saw that hangs off the pack saddle cross bucks and it took over an our of cutting limbs to get all of our stuff free. Fortunately it didn’t crush the saddles and more importantly us! We never heard a thing when it happened. Our nerves were so frazzled and we were so tired that it must have just been another shotgun in the night when it came down.
That was one time I had to ponder God and weather or not we were spared for a future purpose!

See less See more

Save

Reactions: 5

Madcat

· #5 · 4 mo ago

Me, wife and 3 kids were in Zion UT in 2015. We had stopped by the Zion lodge for some late lunch (2pm) We were one or two shuttle bus stops south of Angels Landing trail. Kids wanted to go back into town and swim at the hotel pool. I told the wife to take them back and I would meet them later as I wanted to take some photos . As soon as they were gone I caught the next shuttle north and headed up Angels landing trail. I had 2 liters of water and 30 lbs of photo equipment on my back. I hike a lot so was dressed appropriately and good boots. Hike is about 5 miles round trip. I knew it was gonna be tight to do it before dark but I would never have a chance to do it again so I jogged the first mile or so. I made the top in time for some really awesome sunset photos. I stretched my time as long a possible and made it off of the treacherous section before dark. When i dropped into the canyon on the way out it was really dark. With no flashlight all I could think about was the rattlers, cougars, and whatever else UT has that I wasn't familiar with. I must have been the last one off the trail....I hadn't seen anyone in a couple hours. The lower part of the trail is paved so was easy hiking but had to feel my way along the path and it was also a nice warm area for rattleheads to keep warm in the evening. I made it out unscathed but the shuttle's were not running any longer. I hitchhiked a ride out from a park employee who asked if I enjoyed Angels Landing. I asked him how he knew ..... he said he takes people out often that don't make it back till after dark. My wife was not surprise at all and also asked how I liked Angels Landing. How'd she know? I guess I'm that predictable 🤷

Cloud Sky World Mountain People in nature

Cloud Sky World Mountain Natural landscape

See less See more

Save

Reactions: 5

Budro2

· #6 · 4 mo ago

Speaking of Zion, it lies about 50 miles south of the mountains I grew up in. Another real life story comes to mind.
My father at 15 years old was in a logging camp in the mountains to the north. He and my uncle along with 3 other teenagers were left unattended while the the owner of the company went to town. As kids do, they got a wild idea for adventure. Camp was not far from the head of a large canyon called Deep Creek that funneled downward to the south and came out at the Zion narrows. The Narrows are a popular tourist attraction with sand stone walls going straight up and in some places about the arm span of a man across. My uncle was the instigator and convinced the other boys that if they made good time they could drop into Deep Creek, hike it down and come out through the Narrows by evening at Zion State Park and call for a ride home as big surprise! They took off fearless as can be, having fished down in Deep Creek many times and had hiked the Narrows from the bottom up as Boy Scouts.
The trip was a lot longer than they imagined, and as evening approached, they weren’t to the Narrows yet but the canyon was deep with shear sand stone walls and no way to climb out. Huge thunder clouds covered the country above where they had came from and the rain set in. It was one of those seldom seen kind of rains. They noticed the water rising and decided to climb up out of the bottom, and got up under a sand stone over hang. Darkness fell and the rain poured down. The only clothes they had were there boots, blue jeans and t shirt. Water shot off the cliffs above them carrying rocks as big as basketballs, shooting out 10 feet in front of their faces in a water fall. The bottom of the gorge roared. They huddled together, through the night. When morning came, they turned around because of the high water. There would be no possible way to get through the Narrows without dying. 24 hours in with no food at this point, they started the long journey back up country. One of the kids in the group was nick named Fats, and for good reason. He had decided to eat green acorns and became quite sick. He gave up and said to leave him for dead, but they actually beat him with sticks and motivated him to move his feet. By that night they reached a little shack up out of Deep Creek called the house on stilts. It was a tiny one room job in a wet meadow built up off the ground on four poles. An old sheep herder shack. My dad took me there a couple times as a child to show me when he wanted to share the story. In the shack they found a cup of sugar and an old coffee pot. They boiled up water that night, and made sugar water for energy, drank it and spent the second night. Being completely fatigued and weak and with Fats slowing the pace, it wasn’t until evening the 3rd day that they made it to the logging camp. They could see a plane flying that 3rd day, it was another uncle of mine that had a pilots license and my grandfather. They never did pick them up from the air. By this time they had assumed they had went into the gorge to fish and had been caught in the flood. They had a party at the narrows looking for the body’s.

Another Zion fact in my family heratige if your ever there or been there. My grandfather, that got me started into horses as a teenager and started me shoeing which became my profession, at the age of 17 lied about his age to get a job on the crew building the Zion Tunnel. It was Great Depression era. As they blasted out the rock for the tunnel, my grandpas job was to drag the huge boulders back up from below to the mouth of the tunnel with a team consisting of one big horse and a mule. The entrance to both sides of the tunnel is an archway done with big rocks cut to specification with a massive keystone at the top. My great grandfather hand cut every single one of them and my grandpas chain was around everyone of them before they were cut. Along that roadway, still today, many of the original culverts are still present with the same sandstone archways on both sides of the road, my great grandfather was also the stone mason that chiseled those as well.

See less See more

Save

Reactions: 5

Madcat

· #7 · 4 mo ago

Budro2 said:
Speaking of Zion, it lies about 50 miles south of the mountains I grew up in. Another real life story comes to mind.
My father at 15 years old was in a logging camp in the mountains to the north. He and my uncle along with 3 other teenagers were left unattended while the the owner of the company went to town. As kids do, they got a wild idea for adventure. Camp was not far from the head of a large canyon called Deep Creek that funneled downward to the south and came out at the Zion narrows. The Narrows are a popular tourist attraction with sand stone walls going straight up and in some places about the arm span of a man across. My uncle was the instigator and convinced the other boys that if they made good time they could drop into Deep Creek, hike it down and come out through the Narrows by evening at Zion State Park and call for a ride home as big surprise! They took off fearless as can be, having fished down in Deep Creek many times and had hiked the Narrows from the bottom up as Boy Scouts.
The trip was a lot longer than they imagined, and as evening approached, they weren’t to the Narrows yet but the canyon was deep with shear sand stone walls and no way to climb out. Huge thunder clouds covered the country above where they had came from and the rain set in. It was one of those seldom seen kind of rains. They noticed the water rising and decided to climb up out of the bottom, and got up under a sand stone over hang. Darkness fell and the rain poured down. The only clothes they had were there boots, blue jeans and t shirt. Water shot off the cliffs above them carrying rocks as big as basketballs, shooting out 10 feet in front of their faces in a water fall. The bottom of the gorge roared. They huddled together, through the night. When morning came, they turned around because of the high water. There would be no possible way to get through the Narrows without dying. 24 hours in with no food at this point, they started the long journey back up country. One of the kids in the group was nick named Fats, and for good reason. He had decided to eat green acorns and became quite sick. He gave up and said to leave him for dead, but they actually beat him with sticks and motivated him to move his feet. By that night they reached a little shack up out of Deep Creek called the house on stilts. It was a tiny one room job in a wet meadow built up off the ground on four poles. An old sheep herder shack. My dad took me there a couple times as a child to show me when he wanted to share the story. In the shack they found a cup of sugar and an old coffee pot. They boiled up water that night, and made sugar water for energy, drank it and spent the second night. Being completely fatigued and weak and with Fats slowing the pace, it wasn’t until evening the 3rd day that they made it to the logging camp. They could see a plane flying that 3rd day, it was another uncle of mine that had a pilots license and my grandfather. They never did pick them up from the air. By this time they had assumed they had went into the gorge to fish and had been caught in the flood. They had a party at the narrows looking for the body’s.

Another Zion fact in my family heratige if your ever there or been there. My grandfather, that got me started into horses as a teenager and started me shoeing which became my profession, at the age of 17 lied about his age to get a job on the crew building the Zion Tunnel. It was Great Depression era. As they blasted out the rock for the tunnel, my grandpas job was to drag the huge boulders back up from below to the mouth of the tunnel with a team consisting of one big horse and a mule. The entrance to both sides of the tunnel is an archway done with big rocks cut to specification with a massive keystone at the top. My great grandfather hand cut every single one of them and my grandpas chain was around everyone of them before they were cut. Along that roadway, still today, many of the original culverts are still present with the same sandstone archways on both sides of the road, my great grandfather was also the stone mason that chiseled those as well.

It's an awesome place.... one of my favorites. I was in the narrows earlier in the morning on the day of my story. The water lines on the slot canyon walls tell of the deadly danger of flash flooding. What an amazing area. I want to go back!

Save

Reactions: 3

therebel19

· #8 · 4 mo ago

Neat thread and awesome stories but I'll keep mine to myself. I've had more than a few and don't feel like jinxing myself as I probably shouldn't be here. I enjoy reading other peoples stories though. It sure makes you appreciate life.

Save

Reactions: 2

1 - 8 of 8 Posts

Top Contributors this Month