Strange experiences?

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I'm thinking that running into Pete Hickey with a chainsaw might be pretty scary!! But, usually a longer story... I was camping with a girlfriend and another couple in the ADK's. We had a nice campfire near our two smaller tents. The other couple had hit the sack and soon after we did the same. About 15-minutes or so later we heard noises out around the camp. I could distinguish movement and rustling of things and the ole heart started POUNDING!! I figured for sure that there was a bear at the site. I wasn't about the zip the tent and find out... I actually thought maybe I should consider a knife toward the rear wall and bailing with my sweetheart (awesome, impressive and chivalric thing to do). Problem was I couldn’t move!! I wasn’t about to make any move. So this went on for several, no, many minutes. We were both sweating bullets when the fire flared up. Then some more rustling and the fire flared again… I thought no way a bear is trying to warm up! Turns out the other guy had decided to star gaze, got out of the tent and was collecting twigs to throw on the fire. I took a minute before I mouthed… “John… is that you??”

It was very real for the moment, folks!! Makes you think!
 
Bf?

Could any of those blood curdling sounds have been bigfoot??

I've heard a variety of 'owl-like' vocalizations in the WMNF at night. More recently I've heard a few BF tapes, and damned if it didn't sound like what we heard. We had a biologist, and an accoustician, with us who thought that if what we heard was an owl, then it must have weighed 500 lbs.

I understsand that research teams will visit the ADKs and Whites this year searching for BF.
 
QUOTE]Could any of those blood curdling sounds have been bigfoot?? ......
More recently I've heard a few BF tapes.........

I understsand that research teams will visit the ADKs and Whites this year searching for BF.[/QUOTE]

I would love to know where to find one of these bigfoot tapes! Would allso like to be part of the research teams. Perhaps they might like to hire me to search for the Catskill Yeti, a close cousin of bigfoot.

I'd be willing to do it cheap, add it on to my regularly scheduled hiking duties of searching for plane wrecks, gold, haunted summits, mountain lions, lost tribes, golden tablets, aliens, Dutch Schultz's treasure, etc. ;)
 
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eruggles said:
Several years ago I saw a guy hiking along Franconia Ridge with an oar.
There have been several trips up the Ammonoosuc Ravine trail to the summit of Washington with a canoe. Look for photos of the Lakes Croo in the canoe, which are displayed on the wall inside the hut. Maybe one of the paddlers got lost?

-dave-
 
David Metsky said:
There have been several trips up the Ammonoosuc Ravine trail to the summit of Washington with a canoe. Look for photos of the Lakes Croo in the canoe, which are displayed on the wall inside the hut. Maybe one of the paddlers got lost?

-dave-
Maybe he was doing a Pemi Loop and stopping to do some canoeing along the way. There's Garfield Pond and then he could have dropped down off West Bond to Redrock Pond (Bear Pond). Am I missing anything? Is Redrock Pond just a mud puddle now?

-Dr. Wu
 
eruggles said:
Several years ago I saw a guy hiking along Franconia Ridge with an oar.

David Metsky said:
There have been several trips up the Ammonoosuc Ravine trail to the summit of Washington with a canoe. Look for photos of the Lakes Croo in the canoe, which are displayed on the wall inside the hut. Maybe one of the paddlers got lost?

No. Can't be. Any boater knows that one uses paddles, not oars with a canoe. Maybe the guy was searching for a rowboat or a shell.

Doug
 
Was that you, Sherpa John

This is not real weird, but it begs a question I've had for a while now:

Last summer, (8/8/4), HarryK and I were coming down the Falling Waters Trail, having climbed Lincoln, when we met a guy coming up who was apparently video-recording the entire hike. He spoke to us briefly, but never put the camera down. I believe he also had a female companion. So,

Was that you Sherpa John ?
 
Too many weird things

seen and experienced on the trail to recount. But I often think about the time a deer jumped over my tent (I was inside, sleeping). It was the middle of the night and It was running down the ridge that we were camped on, probably for it's life.

I once met a guy hiking up Wittenberg who decided to set up his camp right on the trail, in the middle of the treadway. I thought that that was bizarre.

One time a bear was following me as I was bushwhacking up Wittenberg. I was passing thru his territory and he probably cam out to see who was trespassing.

On South Crocker, at the campsite, a moose almost stepped on me in the middle of the night as I lay in my tent sleeping. I'll never forget how large, silent and gentle it was.
 
One of the eerier sounds is that of loons calling and coyotes answering.

I've seen vast numbers of intriguing and odd things, but few that have been actively disquieting. Animal screams can, as have been noted, be pretty ugly. I remember living in the woods many years ago and my wife and I running out at a dreadful hubbub. Probably a fox, or a fox chomping something, but I woud not have cared for it near a tent at night.

Porcupines make some of the oddest sounds out there.

Ted.
 
I just had one on Saturday. I was hiking by myself and heard this loud thumping that sounded like something was running up behind me on the trail.
I actually spun around and held my hand out to block the - what ever it was -from knocking me down. Naturally there was NOTHING there. After collecting my thoughts and thinking about what I heard I decided it was a Ruffed grouse drumming just behind me and off the trail.
Woods and fog can amplify and distort noises. Years ago I was hiking with my old dog and a friend in a thick fog. The dog would get out ahead and then circle back to check on us. At one point is sounded like a team of horses were running full-tilt straight at us on the trail. My friend actually pushed me off the trail and started to jump the other way...just in time to see my mutt trot out of the fog wondering where we were. :eek:
 
In the way

I once met a guy hiking up Wittenberg who decided to set up his camp right on the trail, in the middle of the treadway. I thought that that was bizarre.


I have run into this problem every summer, in the middle of the trail, on the side of the trail and once on a foot bridge.
 
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About 2AM at 5 mile point on the east bank of Tongue Range, something big jumped into the water, making a heck of splash for a quiet night. And about an hour later it got out of the water. I dont know what it was for sure, but can only guess deer are very good swimmers.

PS 5 mile point must be the "Northway" for deer.
 
Being creeped out

I haven't had some of the strange experiences of screams and what not, but a couple of times hiking the AT down in VA where some reported Civil War sites are (North of the SNP around Loudoun County, VA) I got real creeped out. Just a weird sense that I was not alone. Real spooky feelings. I hauled my sorry butt down the trail. Maybe the ol'Rebs don't like this yankee boy tresspassin' on their trail!
 
Somethin' gettin' the stuffin' knocked out of it!

July '03 we were hiking on the Long Trail going kind of quietly up a small hill in the middle of a sunny day (remember those?) when suddenly we came within 30ft of some sort of creatures that we must have scared as they all bolted! There were several things that must have been very large birds that suddenly flew up into the trees and something brown and furry that ran across the trail screetching horribly!! It was pretty freaky! As near as we could figure, we had probably come across some falcons killing a weasel (looked bigger than that though) or a badger or something...

Not on the trail but last week, my wife and I drove into the drive way and saw on the sidewalk two sparrows having sex and a few others watching... :eek:
 
No. Can't be. Any boater knows that one uses paddles, not oars with a canoe. Maybe the guy was searching for a rowboat or a shell.

I'm not a canoe person but my friend has a really old Old Town wooden Canoe that had actual oar locks on it that you could actually row like a rowboat. Now, I still don't know if technically that would be called oars or paddles, but it was rowed like a rowboat. However, we took it out in East Grand Lake in Orient, ME with basic canoe paddles but I did see the locks and asked him about it since I've never seen a canoe with them before.

Jay

P.S. I Think one of the strangest encounters I've had in the woods is running into a co-worker and his family near North Lake on the escarpment trail a few years ago. Completely unknown to either of us and unplanned, I didn't recognize him at first until literally he asked if I worked for company x. and I eventually made the connection. strange coincidence to meet somebody in the woods.
 
I once went out into my favorite SP at night to see a meteor shower. On my way out, I heard crashing through the woods, headed for my clearing. I became convinced that WILD DOGS were on the loose and crouched low in the grass. During all this conjecture, they continued crashing their way directly toward me, getting me real spooked. How they could vector right on me was getting me more and more freaked out until they were almost on top of me. I figured if it was fight time, I'd best stand up.

It was three large deer, and they had no idea I was there: they freaked worse than I and bolted in another direction.

My heart slowed down about an hour later.




.
 
Jay H said:
I'm not a canoe person but my friend has a really old Old Town wooden Canoe that had actual oar locks on it that you could actually row like a rowboat. Now, I still don't know if technically that would be called oars or paddles, but it was rowed like a rowboat.
Not very common. A canoe is too narrow to use oars efficiently. One also could not use a canoe with oars in narrow passages.

Those would be oars (they have a pivot). Paddles don't have a pivot.

Doug
 
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