whats your sketchy story of being woken up while overlanding/camping

[charlie brown]

so when out traveling some times you got to sleep at a sketchy place and every noise you wake up or you got a knock.

I know that the short time i have had my van and the several trips i have taken cross country, we have stayed out back of some gas stations or other places. I have had good luck but what about you? some desert places can give this unsettling feeling also.

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

@Adventure Endeavor Do you have anything to add?

 

[DesertGoat]

i dunno if it's sketchy but more like me just being a paranoid city slicker...

When I took my great big sabbatical road trip (Trip report) there was a section that I was running around in northern Montana checking out Glacier NP & a few other things. I got all worked up in my head about Grizzly bear encounters. I was sweating it enough that my friend in Bozeman hooked me up with some 9mm bear rounds for my pistol and I would sleep in my Roof Top Bear Taco (tent) with my can of bear spray & my loaded pistol.

I was 100% by myself for that section of the trip and let's just say that I woke up more than zero times with my gun out & me peaking out the windows of my tent, lol.
I must have looked like such a Jabronie.

 

[Cleandezert]

i dunno if it's sketchy but more like me just being a paranoid city slicker...

When I took my great big sabbatical road trip (Trip report) there was a section that I was running around in northern Montana checking out Glacier NP & a few other things. I got all worked up in my head about Grizzly bear encounters. I was sweating it enough that my friend in Bozeman hooked me up with some 9mm bear rounds for my pistol and I would sleep in my Roof Top Bear Taco (tent) with my can of bear spray & my loaded pistol.

I was 100% by myself for that section of the trip and let's just say that I woke up more than zero times with my gun out & me peaking out the windows of my tent, lol.
I must have looked like such a Jabronie.

this reminds me of a trip with friends up in Mammoth

We did an offroad trip up the 395 and one night camped up above the hot springs by mammoth in the trees. I am not fond of the idea of a tent on the ground where bears might be. So i was whining like a bitch about our camping spot. I ended up putting my tent inbetween 2 really large bushes that made a alcove, so 3 sides of my tent were surrounded and i felt pretty confident i wouldn't die... Meanwhile my buddy Corey kept giving me shit that bears would be through that night and i was going to get fucked up. Fast forward til the morning while drinking coffee, Corey comes out of his tent telling us he had to pull his gun out because something's nose was sniffing him through his tent. That is what he gets for trying to scare me... we figured it was the dog from a couple campsites away. lol

 

[cbrewer22]

this reminds me of a trip with friends up in Mammoth

We did an offroad trip up the 395 and one night camped up above the hot springs by mammoth in the trees. I am not fond of the idea of a tent on the ground where bears might be. So i was whining like a bitch about our camping spot. I ended up putting my tent inbetween 2 really large bushes that made a alcove, so 3 sides of my tent were surrounded and i felt pretty confident i wouldn't die... Meanwhile my buddy Corey kept giving me shit that bears would be through that night and i was going to get fucked up. Fast forward til the morning while drinking coffee, Corey comes out of his tent telling us he had to pull his gun out because something's nose was sniffing him through his tent. That is what he gets for trying to scare me... we figured it was the dog from a couple campsites away. lol

true story, good times

 

[NODNARB]

Fuck it, thread revival:
Convinced my wife to try a couple night backpacking trip, so we are up in the sierras by a little lake, totally bear country.. we are in a tiny 2 person tent and she’s going “do you hear that?” I don’t hear anything, but get “up” and stick my head out to see what’s making noise. Nothing near our tent. She’s getting more and more paranoid saying it sounds like something is touching the tent every once in a while.

After about 15 minutes of scaring herself, she realized it was her EYELASHES as she was blinking in the dark rubbing on the nylon sleeping bag!

It was a cool spot though.

 

[Harry Johnson]

Oooh. We were sorta overlanding, but in a 27' motorhome up at Rock Creek campground in mammoth. Had a black bear showing up in camp the previous few days we were there. We come back from the lake to find this bear had tried to get in my shitty Amazon yeti cooler knockoff. I'm feeling vindicated the cooler is bear proof. Wife is spooked. That night she makes me lock the door of the RV. I do it, but proceed to make fun of her because "bears can't open doors dummy!"

Fast forward to about 2 am and the wife wakes me up with the "I hear something outside!" I listen and hear the bear scuffling around. Ok, whatever, he'll never make it past the ol Amazon special. Then I gets quiet. Cool, I win again.

Then the fawking thing tries the door. My kids were sleeping in the bunk bed. That would have been a fight to the death for either the bear or me.

 

[WW_RANGER_X]

I'll play. Not really spooky, but more like "oh shit!" I remember it like its yesterday.

So, at the time i was 12 years old, which would make my brother 9. My dad, his best friend and us kids would go wheeling spontaneously in the so cal desert on random weekends. My dad had a sweet 1980 Jeep Cherokee Laredo 2 door, and his friend had a built (at the time) early 90's Wrangler. So we went out one random weekend to Borrego Springs to run some trails. Started Friday night...Saturday night comes and we'd been wheeling all day into the night. We find ourselves deep in some random canyon just before midnight. Us kids were beat, so my dad began to look for a camp spot for the night. Both jeeps didnt have the greatest lighting, so i remember all of us walking around with those cheap grocery store flash lights looking for a good spot to set up a couple ground tents. We find a flat spot and set up camp. My dad and his buddy start a small fire and start drinking some cold ones while my brother and i headed to bed. What none of us knew at this time is there was a desert storm brewing just north of us, but we couldnt see shit because we were so deep in this dark canyon. I remember not hearing a sound aside from the adults talking and the fire cracking. No thunder or lightning at all...so about 3-4 hours go by and i wake up first. Its pouring rain and i feel like im on a water bed...freakin flash flood! I scream at my dad, he leaps up and immediately grabs my little brother. We all start panicking trying to get the tent open. Finally get it open and us kids make it to our jeep, soaked. My dad starts yelling and runs over to wake his buddy up. By that time both tents, sleeping bags and all our clothes were unsavable. Both jeeps fire up (at this time i think the water was only a few inches high, but when you are a kid it felt like feet! My dad takes the lead and starts bogging his way down stream hardly able to see, but both jeeps finally made it safely to higher ground. I remember all of us just sitting in both jeeps wide awake with the heaters blasting as the sun came up to give us light. We made it back home mid day Sunday and my dad begged us kids not to say anything to our mom lol. Good times!

 

[AzPrelander]

We had a pack of coyotes run a few circles around our tent yipping and making noise in flagstaff Az one night. Not that bad just had to yell and they all took off but wife was a little freaked out, but it got her on board for a roof top tent so that’s a win in my book! Haha

 

[Dirtfiend602]

Here’s an urban camping story… I was working for a startup doing contract work in north Hollywood around 2018 I think prototyping electric semi trucks… I was living in a motorhome on the property, which was fenced in with barbed wire .

We had flyers posted all over the building of a crazy guy claiming he could save the world from nuclear holocaust if he could talk to the ceo of the company. We were advised to steer in the opposite direction and call 911 immediately.

Welp one night I must have left the door to the RV unlocked , and I awoke to a blistered face of a crazy tweaker In a leather jacket, literally 3 inches from my face , and I quote verbatim ,” hey , I just want to talk”. He decided not to slit my throat, so I extended him the same courtesy wielding a cast iron fence post, screaming like Johnny depp in fear and loathing BACK BACKKKK ILL PLUNGE THIS INTO YOUR FUCKING THROAT. sent him on his way, halfway in shock.

I’m sure that episode will rear its head later in my life. For now it’s suppressed . LOL.

 

[Harry Johnson]

The one time traveler that finally got through and you chased him off with a metal post.

 

[dwphoto]

Here’s an urban camping story… I was working for a startup doing contract work in north Hollywood around 2018 I think prototyping electric semi trucks… I was living in a motorhome on the property, which was fenced in with barbed wire .

We had flyers posted all over the building of a crazy guy claiming he could save the world from nuclear holocaust if he could talk to the ceo of the company. We were advised to steer in the opposite direction and call 911 immediately.

Welp one night I must have left the door to the RV unlocked , and I awoke to a blistered face of a crazy tweaker In a leather jacket, literally 3 inches from my face , and I quote verbatim ,” hey , I just want to talk”. He decided not to slit my throat, so I extended him the same courtesy wielding a cast iron fence post, screaming like Johnny depp in fear and loathing BACK BACKKKK ILL PLUNGE THIS INTO YOUR FUCKING THROAT. sent him on his way, halfway in shock.

I’m sure that episode will rear its head later in my life. For now it’s suppressed . LOL.

bahahaha FACK.... on this episode of you shouldn't be alive...

 

[Raceranger97]

I have a story that kinda fits the theme.

Last summer we wheeled into Red Lake up in the sierras to camp over night. Pretty difficult trail so there's typically not many others back there. We planned on sleeping in a tent on the ground which my wife was kinda trippin on because she's scared of bears which are definitely in that area. Her being scared always rubs off on me a bit and gets me worried but we had quit a few people with us and a loaded 1911 so whatev. As we wheel into camp a couple on their way out mentioned that they had seen a few big cats while hiking around and to be aware, this freaked her/me out a bit more as we picked out our camp spot. Fast forward a bit, few others we know happen to roll into the lake and our campsite gets kinda rowdy. We decide to pull a night run in several vehicles to Coyote Lake (further down the same trail). As we head into gate keeper we pass a pretty big camp of Russian dudes partying, the only other group at Red Lake besides us. Coyote Lake rail is pretty tough so by the time we are headed back its pretty late and one particular guy in our group had too many road sodas. We get back to gate keeper and the Russian dudes are trying to winch up towards us in a V8 TJ with several of them helping. Intoxicated homie is in front and begins to crack jokes about how they need to get off the trail if they are already winching, this escalates into a full blown international conflict. They barely speak any english but managed to get out several death threats we understood, one guy telling me as I walked up that my friend needs to take the threats seriously. Oneof them even takes a picture of his license plate saying he will track him down. They end up damn near destroying the jeep to get it out of the way and bad words were exchanged as we passed. That night in the tent, when something broke the silence I would get chills wondering if it was a bear, mountain lion or an angry Russian lol.