When I was in high school my Boy Scout buds and I were camped in a canyon up in the Panhandle one January, place that is now a state park near Quitaque. Decided to drive to Amarillo and see the Grand Funk Railroad concert, then back to our campsite. Everything was fine when we bedded down in our black-plastic shelters and sleeping bags, it was cold but nothing we had not experienced before. Along about 4am we were awakened by a siren and flashing lights and a voice over a loudspeaker asking if we were alright. Climbing out of our shelter I fell down face-first into about six inches of snow. Never even knew it was falling, snug as bugs in our bags. I think we would have been fine but somebody’s mom got all freakers and called the Fire Department in Silverton and demanded they go rescue us. I drove my ’67 Mustang up the winding road out of that canyon in the dark on a very slippery road and made it to the highway. Sheer drops of several hundred feet on one side, no chance of survival if a wheel was put wrong. That was a seminal event in my early camping experience, will never forget it. We were fine, had provisions (Boy Scouts, remember?) but we got out of there. Been back in that canyon many times since then but will never forget the night of that Grand Funk show.
My wife and I and a friend of mine sometimes go down to Corpus Christi and from there onto Padre Island (north) and down the beach to a suitable camping spot, usually around the 40-mile mark. We built a nice tarp shelter and put up a large tent and She Who Must Be Obeyed and I slept in our tent, buddy in the back of his truck in the camper shell. About 6am of the third morning a helluva storm rolled through, flattened our tent and destroyed the shelter as my buddy and I stood in the 60mph wind blowing sand into our backs like a blaster and tried to hold the camp together. Totally wrecked, gear scattered for a hundred yards. While we were picking up our stuff we looked out over the surf and saw two waterspouts, what a Panhandle boy like me calls tornados, wind one around the other and finally merge into a single funnel. OK, I’m standing there expecting to die, but the worst of the storm had passed and the funnel dissipated and we licked our wounds and headed for the mainland. I mean hell, what are you going to do down there in weather like that? We were lucky the wind was off the dunes and not the Gulf or we would have only had once choice, drive the trucks up on a dune and hope for the best. Got away easy, a few tarps destroyed and a darn good story to tell, but unscathed (except for the sand burns on my sunburned back). Interesting side-note, on another trip in about the same location my buddy had gone down the beach to the jetty at the Mansfield cut to fish, leaving she and I alone. Wife was playing down in the surf while I was fetching a cold one, she without her bathing suit top. Then, I heard it, whoop-whoop, then again whoop-whoop-whoop and instantly knew what it was. I leaned out of the tarp shelter and looked to the south and saw the approaching chopper, probably 5 miles away. I tried to yell and warn her but I knew with the pounding surf she’d never hear so I just stood there and took it all in. Once the Nueces County Sheriff chopper got close enough for her to hear it she freaked, cupped her hands over the girls and ran like hell toward our shelter. I knew it was too late, them deputies had been watching her through their binocs for a ways and I’m sure that ain’t their first sighting of boobies on the beach!
I have a major hard-on for Brewster County, the Big Bend. I have been down there many times and can see the whole place in my head when I close my eyes. A few years ago I was down there, couldn’t get the backcountry site I wanted and had to stay at a place called Rice Tank, right on the Glenn Springs road, the first night. It was a beautiful evening, full moon, still and cool in February, before the Spring Break crazies got there. About midnight I’m standing down on the old gravel road, enjoying some Old No. 7, and I hear something. OK, I always stay by myself, out there in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert, for a few nights to clear my head. People that know me say I’m crazy, but it feels good on my soul to be alone with God and the desert. When my nerves get frazzled from being out there I head up into the mountains or somewhere the peoples are, but it was my first night and I was still unwinding. Then, I heard it again. There is a VERY distinctive sound a boot makes when the wearer stubs his toe on a rock on a trail or old gravel road. Then I heard it a third time, no mistake, somebody was walking up the road from the river, right towards my camp. Who in the hell would be walking through the desert in the middle of the night? I thought maybe the Border Patrol, but figured it must be illegals. I high-tail it back up to my camp, grab my Mossberg and go hide behind some creosote bush by my camp. Not sure what was about to happen, had a sidearm, but I figured that slide racking would freeze things long enough for me to get a read on the situation before I started throwing 00 around. Never heard a thing after that. I heard my sound, three times, and there is no doubt a human was out there on that old road. Who? Maybe some crazy hiker dude, who knows, but there are critters out there in that desert that can end your life. Mountain lions and bobkitties, black bear, snakes, illegals, who knows? I still don’t know who I heard but it was definitely foot traffic, and they did not enter my camp. Whew, thankfully. I loaded up the next morning and headed on down toward the river some more, took the Juniper Canyon road up to Robber’s Roost, one of my favorite spots. Way off the road, no through traffic because the only thing up there is the parking area for the hiking trails at the end of the road. No further incidents after that, had a great relaxing time and lived to brag about it to you.
Those are a few of my experiences, some of the more interesting ones. I’m betting I ain’t the only one who has a tale or two worth telling. Talk to me. What have you seen and done, what was interesting about it and where were you when you did it?
You mean like the time I went boating and took all my guns and ammo? The splash when that boat overturned was scary!
One time i heard this weird devil sounding screech. Someone told me later that it might have been young coyotes?
Frightening stories. Thanks. I feel like a wimp now.
My two brothers and I were camping in Trinity Forest in Northern California. After dinners, whiskey and a camp fire, we slept in sleeping bags on pads on the tall grass in the open field. 200 AM a team of huge deer with antlers strolled through our field and munched on grass about five feet from us. We were petrified and they walked away after 20 minutes.
We arrived late one evening at a small island in a large lake to camp and barely had time to pitch our tent and make dinner before it was pitch black. A friend and I crawled into our little pup tent in the dark. Then I heard him run his fingers (I thought) across the roof of the tent. We both said, at the same time "why did you do that?"
About then, we heard numerous rattling across the tent roof. We grabbed a flashlight and shined it out the tent. All we saw were millions of beady red eyes staring back at the light.
The whole island was completely inundated by mice. Everywhere we shined the light, all we saw were beady red eyes. We spent a fitful night with the scurrying over the tent roof continuing like a hail storm. In the morning we found that the contents of every pack that wasn't completely sealed was totally destroyed by the mice. We just threw everything in the canoes and got out of there as fast as we could move.
My roommate, his girlfriend and I went camping in the Sierras in June when the temperature was in the nineties. We were not prepared for cold weather. They only had a light tent and I actually was sleeping outside in a sleeping bag.
In the middle of the night a strong wind from a cold front came in. I thought I was going to freeze to death. I ended up in their tent and we all tried to keep each other warm and to keep the tent from blowing away. The temperature must have dropped below freezing, because the next morning there was an ice skim on the puddles of water near our campsite.
Tent camping on a hilltop among tall trees. Woke in the middle of the night with serious cloud to ground lightning and a heavy downpour. Nothing to do but sit (or lay there, LOL) there and wait for it.......
Camping with at least two friends who are as heavily armed as yourself is the best way to camp for many reasons. good stories on this thread. Im Glad you posted this thread.
First time camping in the Rocky Mountains...Beartooth Mountains to be exact...My buddy and his wife were sleeping on a mattress in the back of his truck which had a topper on it...My wife and I were sleeping in a tent a few feet away...
Sometime during the night I was woken up by loud noises outside the tent and all of a sudden, whatever it was, was clearly trying to get in our tent...We were doomed...
I started frantically screaming at my buddy to wake up, hoping he would before we got ate alive...He had a gun with him in the truck...I can then see his flashlight thru the tent...The ruckus stopped and my buddy started laughing hysterically...I shouted, ‘what, what’??? After he calmed down he said, ‘that was the biggest skunk I’d ever seen’...
(Kind of after the fact)
Another time we went camping out by Quake Lake just west of Yellowstone Park (we’re from Michigan)...We set up in the middle of the woods...Campfire and all...Pretty uneventful night...
Next morning a BLM officer pulled into our campsite as we were drinking coffee...He looks around and says, ‘somebody sleep in that tent last night’??? I said, ‘ya, me and my wife’....
He then looks me in the eye and says, ‘you got to be nuts’...’This particular square mile has a concentration of more grizzly bears than any other square mile in the United States’...’I’m surprised you’re still alive’...I think that was the last night for tent camping in the Rockies...I still tremble a little bit when I think about it...
You’re a great story teller, fellow Texan! Very descriptive.
Raton, N.M.. The food was terrible and the indoor pool was out of order.