Spooky outdoors stories

Being that this week is Halloween, I’d like to share a few spooky outdoors stories. Some keep me scratching my head, some were close calls and some were just plain humorous.

Last spring, three of us, including my hunting partner also named Kyle, stayed in a private cabin on Kodiak for Kyle’s brown bear hunt. The cabin was nice, spacious, warm and kept us and our gear out of the elements. The only thing that it did have, that we didn’t want, were HUGE spiders. They were nonvenomous, but still a bit spooky. They’d crawl all over our table, the windows and the walls. One morning I even found one in my food bag. Kodiak: Land of Giant Brown Bears… and Brown Spiders.

A couple of years ago, Kyle and I did a float hunt along the Susitna River. Towards the end of our hunt, we stumbled upon an abandoned camp. We were miles from the nearest road, a mile off of the river and on a steep hill surrounded by burnt spruce and swamps. Foam sleeping pads, water bottles, a bottle of whiskey, cooking equipment, camp chairs and more were strewn across the hillside. It was evident that the gear had been here a while. Bears and weather had destroyed a majority of it. Everything had spilled out of a tow-behind four wheeler trailer that was on its side at the base of the hill. At the top of the hill was, I assume, the fourwheeler that was pulling said trailer.

Everything seemed to have been left in a hurry. Perhaps there was an injury? Or someone just didn’t want to make the trip back to recover their gear after a successful moose harvest? There was an old, homemade stand in a tree that had been knocked over and crushed. Maybe someone was in the stand when it happened? So many unanswered questions gave me the chills. And I’m sure it’s still there.

I’ve had three encounters with mountain lions while living in Washington. The closest, and spookiest, occurred during the middle of the night while backpacking with my wife. We had left after work to hike several miles into a spot along a ridge where we could glass for deer prior to the archery season. We made the last mile or so of a leg-burning uphill push in the dark with headlamps. The batteries in Emily’s headlamp died and she hiked the last bit with her phone light. She stopped me several times while looking over her shoulder to tell me she felt something was watching her from behind. The hillside smelled like elk and there was fresh sign along the trail, so I assumed it was just elk off the side of the trail.

We made it to a trail junction and set up camp for the night. I was outside the tent cooking dinner while Emily was laying down inside. Suddenly an eerie scream pierced the pitch blackness no more than 50 yards from our tent. It sounded like an elk, but it wasn’t the right pitch and tone and seemed to have come from a much smaller animal too close to the ground. The hairs on the back of our necks stood on end and I quickly moved towards my rifle. It made the noise once more and then never made a sound again. I slept with a round in the chamber that night. When we returned home, I found that cougars will often mimic the sounds of elk as they stalk in on them and I assume that’s what we encountered.

The one and only time I’ve actually felt prompted to unholster my sidearm was in Washington after a successful black bear harvest. My wife and I had shot and packed out a black bear a couple of days before and I had left a trail camera on the carcass to see what would scavenge off of it. Upon returning to the area, I walked up to the carcass to pull the card on the camera to see what had stopped by while we were gone.

As I walked up to the camera, a sense of dread poured over me. My senses heightened, my hairs went on end and my pulse quickened. The air felt thick. I KNEW something was watching me, and close. The area was surrounded by thick brush and deadfall trees. I drew my 9mm and looked all around. I quickly backed out the way I had come and didn’t feel easy until I had made it back to the trail. Perhaps another bear was ready to protect its meal, or maybe a cougar was watching me from the cliffs above. But I have never felt such a sense of fear and dread wash over me as I had in that moment. I would never know what came of the carcass because my SD card filled up with videos of grass swaying in the wind.

These are a few moments that stand out to me from my many years outdoors. The more time you spend outside, the more likely you are to stumble across something spooky.