Asklemmy

Despite hearing tales about will-o'-the-wisps all my life, I still followed a mysterious light deeper and deeper into the woods, and it was only the sound of a foghorn blowing almost directly beneath my feet that roused me and prevented me from tumbling off a cliff into the Ohio River. I was less than two feet from the edge, and I didn't even see it.

One time, Raccoons got into my tent, popped open my tent-mates snack box, and proceeded to fight each other viciously NOT ONLY outside AND inside the tent, but ON TOP OF ME as well.

It is hands down the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. Raccoons aren’t inherently scary, but when there’s ~8 of them, they’re angry, and you can feel them viciously fighting directly on top of you, it’s enough to scar you for life.

I stayed stiff as a board in my sleeping bag for over an hour, just waiting for it to end. I remember having intense back and neck pain the morning after because I kept my body so rigid for so long.

I fucking hated that tent mate. He was and always will be a psycho. Pretty sure the fuck did it on purpose, because he slept in a different tent that night.

I once camped on a semi secluded beach with a couple of friends. That night we were on the epicenter of an earthquake and also we saw a big red scar looking thing on the sky.

One of my friends acted as sentinel and did not closed his eyes the whole night, he was expecting the sea to recede and come back as a tsunami, gladly nothing happened.

Later, in 2010's earthquake the sea got out in that very same beach, it wasn't a full tsunami but videos showed how scary the sea can be.

Summer of ‘07, as had become our standing tradition, my brother, cousin and I would make a two-day canoe trip on the Upper Mississippi. Slightly above Winona (and indeed scattered about the river) are large piles of dredging sand scoured from the channel bottom to make room for barges. It was on one of these piles where we would always make camp.

Now, night on the river has a particular peculiarity, as the small waves tinkle like black diamonds and the stars make themselves known like in the days of pre-history. But on a dredging mount, which can often tower high above the dense treeline, the whole of the miles-wide river system span in a deep cut between the bluffs. The only light is from the moon and stars, and Winona in the far distance.

But every now and then, thundering and rumbling like an aqueous workhorse, slowly the barges approach, day and night. So big, in fact, that they themselves can be hundreds of feet of shunted rafts. Any craft foolish enough to nightcruise without lights would surely perish beneath their unyielding hulls.

Us three kids knew this must be the case, since each barge has lit with it an enormous spotlight, as big as a man, and brighter than a thousand campfires. Sweep, sweep, sweeping the dark water of the mysterious river, it would rush over, stop, then rush again to the next place. A lingering eye so uncanny, evoking the image of demons and creatures of the dark, akin to our treasured bushwhacked D&D games.

Hiding ‘hind a dune, pebbles digging our palms, we watched the barges lumber, all the while their searching eyes alert for prey. The only thing louder than the tug’s uncompromising engines were the unified chirps of a million thriving insects and nocturnal creatures. A new barge emerged around a bend, preceded by that glaring lamp, and we silently watched it make it’s inquisitive approach…

The light made a different turn. We all felt it; boats, water and flotsam were not all this barge hungered for. No, the spot of luminosity sped up the side of the dune, and faster than we could react, engulfed us three in a hail of blinding flare.

We hit the deck, but it was too late. Our eyes seared and we panted, backs cold on the sand, darkness returning with only us brave enough to watch the stars.

We waited; listened as the muffled barge meandered past, wandering it’s way to the next lock in search of more victims.

We had been spared of fate that day, but none of us ever forgot the wisps of wind, the churn of water, and the seeking, craving light of that barge. And it won’t soon forget our faces either…

Probably the foxes or coyotes screaming in the middle of the night, sounding like someone being murdered in the woods. That or the time we woke up to snuffling outside the tent flap and found bear scat in the campsite the next morning.

Few spooky, not terrifying ,things have happened over the years.

In younger days, a large group of us went camping in a wooded area on the outskirts of rich people land.

Long story short as things fizzled out, 2 of us as we tended the fire, came to the realisation that there had been an extra person there the whole night, always standing just far enough away you couldn't see their face, at various edges of the clearing we were in where the vegetation got thick.

Next morning we started asking folk about it and everyone realised when they were talking that the person they thought was standing near them at a certain time had actually been elsewhere.

For a while afterwards we came up with all sorts of stupid teenager explanations of spooky origin but as we grew up we just kinda decided it was a local weirdo

As a kid we went camping near a reservoir and it rained real hard through a couple of nights. One of those nights there was some serious lightning. The loudest lightning crack I ever heard scared the shit out of me and woke everyone in the tent up, but we all stayed quiet. I was terrified. It had to of hit the ground relatively close. I thought it was going to hit again and get us. Thankfully it calmed down after that strike and sometime later I fell back to sleep.

Not to me specifically, but a friend got his leg bitten by a spider while camping and almost died. Before finally deciding to go to the hospital, he had a terrible fever, a blinding migrane and his pee changed in color. His leg was also this close 🤏🏻 to necrosis, so yeah. Doctors said he only survived because of his weight.

This is more scary than creepy, but I got stuck in a tropical depression on an island. Thunder everywhere, pouring rain. No shelter other than a tarp. Only way to get off the island is a canoe.

Hmm. I was expecting a lot of comments about bears and wolves and getting trapped under snow but I guess no. There's none of that stuff where I live and I'd be terrified tbh.

Personally, I don't know if I've had a creepy experience while camping. Surely I've hated the leeches crawling all over the place and getting inside the tent occasionally but fortunately using the extra strong repellant kept them at bay.