Had a close call while out in the Backcountry?

[AL WORRELLS KID]

 You ever come close to cashing in your chips for the last time while out on your own?

Fortunately this hungry Grizzly was only photoshopped.
Doug

[jasnt]

Many times.  The worst was when I was 15.  I was climbing a hill that turned in to a cliff. Tried to cross a section of rock that was smooth and moss covered and about 65* angle.  The small tree I had a hold of broke and I  fell. Slid down and over the edge to be caught by a single out cropping of rock landing on my crouch.  Took my wind and I nearly fell again.  Anoth 40 or so feet straight down to more rock.   After recovery from the fall I found my way back up and to safe ground but it took a lot of prayers, a bunch of luck and all the strength I had.  Took 3 hours to get back to my friends down below at the lake.  They hadn’t seen a second of my ordeal.

[Bob33]

What's that smell in the tent?

[Timberstalker]

Hippie

[teanawayslayer]

Hippie

 

[ghosthunter]

I was hunting Church Mountain in Whatcom county in my 20s. Back when we had real deer seasons. We had hiked up the trail and were working our way back down through the timber towards the parking lot. There were patches of light snow and wet.

I saw some deer below. I was wearing rain gear. Working across a moss covered rock slope I slipped. You slide real fast in rain gear.

I could see the slope dropped off and I did not know how far. As I approached it at top speed I through my old 300 savage open sites.
Off I went . Lucky it was only about 10 ft drop. I had a day pack on , I landed in a snow chute doing about 60 . It was sharp shale and my hands got cut up trying to stop myself.
Up ahead was a sapling that had fallen across the chute and about 8 inches off the ground. I hit that full force with my legs going under it.

I layed  there awhile until my partner showed up. He bandaged my hands and we worked our way to the truck. He found my gun in a mud hole.

I still carry slight scars inside my fingers.

A week later I was back there and killed a 2 pt.

[JimmyHoffa]

Lots.  Most involving falls--crossing logs, crossing streams, loose rocks or duff, snow/ice on uneven ground, etc.  But have had limbs come down within a couple feet and crash right next to me.  Had boulders rolling down from above that pass real close.  There was one old logger in the camp that would jump off the side of the road and tumble down first thing in the morning, said he was getting the daily fall out of the way early and did it next to camp so if something went wrong, it wouldn't be a multi day search for him.

[BlackRiverTaxidermy]

Heres mine....

http://www.chronline.com/life/rochester-man-survives-charge-by-grizzly/article_b19188ce-232e-11e0-82da-001cc4c03286.html

[Alchase]

Wow, every hunters nightmare!
Did they charge you?

[Tjv28]

Heres mine....

http://www.chronline.com/life/rochester-man-survives-charge-by-grizzly/article_b19188ce-232e-11e0-82da-001cc4c03286.html

That is about as real as it gets.

[BlackRiverTaxidermy]

Wow, every hunters nightmare!
Did they charge you?

They said it would take about 10 months to get back to me as it had to go to the federal level after the necropsy of the bear. The two game wardens paid me a second visit the next day just to pass along that the bear was one of the oldest ones they had seen, had a broken jaw, almost all missing teeth and a few claws, and was starving. I got a call 3 months later from the feds, they said it was one of the most clear-cut cases of self defense they had that year and cleared me of any charges.

[JJB11B]

Almost fell off a cliff in high school while elk hunting up gold creek. Not really Back Country but last year at my buddies rifle elk camp we got a little drunk and all headed to bed, sometime in the night I woke up with a horrible headache and stinging burning eyes and nose. at first I thought it was just a bad hangover and tried to go back to sleep. For some reason I staggered out of my cot and into the moonlight air outside the tent. Soon as I got outside it hit me, our tent was full of thick nasty smoke and was hot as hell. I woke the guys up and we found that a plastic bin full of kindling had somehow wound up against the wood stove and was burning inside the tent. I think the big guy was looking out for us and woke me up

[actionshooter]

Couple years ago I was on a float trip for mule/deer elk and damn near cut my finger off with a havalon cleaning a buck.... thought for sure I was going to get an infection and loose an appendage to infection. Took us 3 days to get out of the wilderness area and everything was OK, all in all that is not a big deal, but could have been worse. Luckily, that's the worse I have seen, besides a little frostbite in AK on a float trip in the Brooks.
 Be prepared for anything.

[pd]

Heres mine....

http://www.chronline.com/life/rochester-man-survives-charge-by-grizzly/article_b19188ce-232e-11e0-82da-001cc4c03286.html

I had never heard this one before.  You lead a blessed life to still be alive.  (And, I know your father!  I am sure many people do.  Good man.)

[buglebrush]

Heres mine....

http://www.chronline.com/life/rochester-man-survives-charge-by-grizzly/article_b19188ce-232e-11e0-82da-001cc4c03286.html

Wow!  Awesome story!

[bracer40]

Heres mine....

http://www.chronline.com/life/rochester-man-survives-charge-by-grizzly/article_b19188ce-232e-11e0-82da-001cc4c03286.html

WOW!! I’m at a loss of words to describe my feelings about your story. 

[Okanagan]

Black River,  Great story, amazing. Thanks for posting it.

As for me, there have been too many close calls way out there.  Am fortunate to be old and still alive with many life experiences.

I just wrote a short account of several from grizzlies to cliffs, and decided not to post it.  I posted one time about bear encounters from 50 years of living amid lots of bears, and was scoffed at and disbelieved as a spinner of tall tales.  Being believed or not on the internet is small change and does not alter the reality of what happened, but I'll pass this time.  There is value in our stories because we learn from each other's experiences, but only if we have ears to hear, as someone wiser than I said.

Will say that my scariest encounter with a wild animal was a billy goat in Olympic National Park that did stunt lunges to within 6 inches of my lower torso.

[Doublelunger]

Heres mine....

http://www.chronline.com/life/rochester-man-survives-charge-by-grizzly/article_b19188ce-232e-11e0-82da-001cc4c03286.html

Whoa, glad you're still here. I'd imagine something like that would really change a mans outlook on life.

[bearpaw]

That was a good story black river. 

Here's one of my close calls:

I was about 19 or 20, it was about midnight and I had a bobcat treed on a steep hillside above a 100 foot cliff in December with about a foot of snow on the ground. There were three huge trees growing up from a common stump, I circled for an hour or two trying to see the bobcat. The dogs said he was there and I couldn't find any tracks leaving the area so figured he had to be there. Finally I stated climbing trees, after climbing to the top of each tree I would circle around on the ground trying to spot the bobcat and then would climb the next tree. After climbing to the top of the third tree I made another circle and then I spotted the bobcat, he had moved out on the end of a big limb about 2/3 of the way up, I had climbed right past him going up and going down. 

From his tracks I knew he was a good tom, at that time in late seventies probably worth about $400, a lot of extra money for a young guy at that time. I didn't want to risk having the cat move while I tied up the hounds so I went ahead and took the shot with the hounds loose. The cat fell out, the dogs were right on his tail when he hit the ground running straight down hill. Fearing the dogs would follow the bobcat over the cliff I ran downward hollering but lost my footing. I was sliding on my behind, I tried to dig in my heels but it didn't help, too steep, I knew the edge was getting closer, in a panic I layed back and spread my legs and arms as wide as I could, suddenly I was able to grab a bush that stopped me! I was about 12 feet from the edge, wwwhhheeeewwww!

The dogs had also stopped and came to me, I managed to carefully work my way back uphil, finding my hat, flashlight, and rifle along the way. I rested for a short while, I thought about how my life had sort of flashed through my mind. Then I decided to find the bobcat, I worked my way around the hillside until I found a way to get below the cliff. At the bottom I found where the bobcat had crawled back in a crevice in the rocks. The dogs could smell him and knew he was there too. The dogs couldn't fit in the hole and neither could I, so I finally gave up and left, it was getting daylight as I got back to the truck. I rested that day and hunted that night again, the next morning I returned to the crevice, the bobcat had not left, so I started a fire and shoved several smoldering limbs into the crevice hoping to smoke out the cat, no luck. I decided he died back in there somewhere and I wasn't going to get him so had to give up and leave.

[WapitiTalk1]

Early 80s, I was in early 20s.  Buddy and I hit a trailhead, zero dark-thirty, mid September, in NW Montana in pursuit of wapiti.  Hunted back on that ridge trail perhaps 6-7 miles, dumping over the bank each time we got an answer or heard an unsolicited bugle (probably 4-5 times).  Once back up to the trail after not getting a shot, we would continue up, up, up the ridge trail and ended up very close to the Idaho border.  This was way back before puling up any type of weather report on the phone/computer was an option before heading out.  Mid/late afternoon, we were soaked in sweat pretty good (cotton clothing I'm sure), and just at the end of our hunt/distance we planned on heading in, when the clouds rolled in and the rain, then sleet, then snow started dumping.  Not adequately hydrated and now cold to the core, we started our way out.  At some point, we both realized that we may be in a pickle and decided to stop and get a fire going to warm up, perhaps dry off a bit. Everything was wet and we couldn't get a fire going so we ended up running out to the truck, many miles down the ridge trail.  Freezing, disoriented, stumbling, now in the close to two foot of snow that had dumped down...... we finally made it to the truck in pretty bad shape but safe. 

[Humptulips]

I have a couple stories but I will tell one that happened to my Dad.
This would have been back in the early 60s. He would have been in his early 40s but in very good condition from working in the woods.
The logging camps were all shut down due to snow. We had about 3 feet at home and the only road open was US 101. He took the hounds out. He said he had to shovel a place to get the car off the Hwy. He went hunting down Cook Cr not far from the house and got after a family of cougars. He said he thought there were 5. They chased them all day unsuccessfully and ended up way down on the Quinault Indian Reservation. Years later he showed me a creek he crossed on his way out and it is seven miles to the Hwy. Imagine yourself wading through 3 feet of snow all day and then with seven more miles to get out.
He said he would get so tired he would just fall down in the snow and go straight to sleep. After a while he would get cold and wake up. The dogs would be curled up beside him waiting on him. He would get up and go some more. He finally got home after midnight and was white as a ghost. Mom made him a big bait of bacon and eggs and he slept about the whole next day.

[2MANY]

Black River,  Great story, amazing. Thanks for posting it.

As for me, there have been too many close calls way out there.  Am fortunate to be old and still alive with many life experiences.

I just wrote a short account of several from grizzlies to cliffs, and decided not to post it.  I posted one time about bear encounters from 50 years of living amid lots of bears, and was scoffed at and disbelieved as a spinner of tall tales.  Being believed or not on the internet is small change and does not alter the reality of what happened, but I'll pass this time.  There is value in our stories because we learn from each other's experiences, but only if we have ears to hear, as someone wiser than I said.

Will say that my scariest encounter with a wild animal was a billy goat in Olympic National Park that did stunt lunges to within 6 inches of my lower torso.

PM Sent.

[Alpine Mojo]

It's dangerous out there.  Come deer season you should just stay in the city.  Wrap yourself in bubble wrap and put on a helmet.  It's for your own good.   

[Dtray332]

About 10 years ago when I lived just outside of Knoxville TN, my wife and I were hiking in the Daniel Boone National forest around the TN and KY border on a trail that paralleled a small river. It was getting late in the day and the trail was about 1200 yards from the river, so we decided to go down towards the river and make camp. We came across a small moonshine still with 2 guys at it. They were finish cooking the shine, but was sitting on what looked to be about 100 gallons. As soon as we saw the still, one of the guys had already leveled a shotgun at my wife's head and started screaming at us. I was trying to explain to him that we were just hiking and came down to the river to make camp for the night. What seemed like hours of intense conversation probably only lasted about 10 minutes. Told them that what they were doing was none of my business and my wife and I were out for a hike and nothing else. They told us to stay there and camp with them for the night, but I was not about to do that. My wife and I both had side arms on the waist straps of our packs. But with the shotgun pointing at my wife's head, trying to draw was not an option. I just told them that we were going to leave and continue our hike. I slowly reached out and grabbed my wife's arm and moved her toward me and put myself between the guy with the shotgun and my wife. I told the guys that I liked shine just as much as the next guy and reporting them was not going to do anything for me. He asked if I wanted to buy some. I just told him that I didn't have any money on me. They gave us a half of quart and we left. I was watching behind me all the way back up to the trail and one guy was following. I told my wife to draw her side arm and keep it in front of her where the guy couldn't see it and if shooting started to just drop to the ground and try and orient herself to return fire at the guy following. Once we got back to the trail, he came up to see which way we were going. After that, we didn't see him again. We put down about3 more miles when we came across 2 ladies camping. We told them what had happened and ended up sharing a camp site with them for the night. I stayed up the entire night listening and watching for them, but nothing else happened. I wanted to tell the guy that aimed the gun at my wife that if I ever caught up with him again, we will wish that he killed me. But the conversation was already pretty heated and the guy was shaking really bad. I didn't want him to accidentally shoot my wife because he was freaked out and scared.

[Jayfire83]

Two years ago in the while Elk hunting in the back country I came face to face with a monster Black bear. As i was climbing over some old growth blow down in pursuit of the Bull i had been talking back and forth with i placed my hand on the next log i intended to cross only to watch the paw of a black bear place his next to mine. I looked up only to see his face less than a foot from mine, his hair was matted and covered in blood. He huffed at me and in doing so splattered blood in my face as well. Startled I stepped back and as i did, i fell backwards over the prior log i had crossed which left me on my back with my feet in the air and my bow somewhere behind me. As i was struggling to get my 357 out of the holster, he stood towering over me. I was waiting for him to take my face off with one swipe. Though it was a rather quick event, it felt like forever before he huffed at me one more time then stepped down from above me turned and headed down hill. Once my heart was back in normal rhythm and i had overcome the adrenaline dump i proceed to go back to Elk hunting. The most upsetting part of the story is that an hour later I ran into two young guys maybe early twenties who were tracking a blood trail. To shorten the story up, after talking to them for a few i discovered that they had shot this amazing animal in the face with a Rage mechanical broad head. The saddest part of all of this is that this young guy truly believe that the bear should have had a "two inch wound channel" through his head? My thoughts were to just kick these guys ass, but after i got over that i realized that the only way i survived and didn't get mauled was most likely because the bear could not see me through all the blood in his eyes. I'm extremely lucky.   

[DOUBLELUNG]

Knocked out by a falling tree while grouse hunting 1986 or 87.  Pro tip: don't hunt ruffed grouse in a swamp in high winds.

Fell and knocked myself out solo hunting in the Bighorns 1992.  Didn't think much about it until night when I got back to the truck and found my hat was stuck to my head by frozen blood (-20F).  Lights got all funky and double vision driving back, went straight to the ER.  Sever concussion had me out of commission for a week.

Solo elk hunting in Wyoming 2007, 3 miles in and just shot a bull when life went to heck in a handbasket.  6 hours later I got a cell signal, 3 hours after that made it to the trailhead where a game warden picked me up and drove me out 45 minutes to an ambulance.  Turned out I had a heart attack and a TIA (ministroke).  That was the end of my back country hunting, health has never been good since.