What are your best Camping, Hunting, or Hiking stories? Share & You Could Win!

We packed up the car and headed to camp for the weekend. As we were setting up our tent we noticed we were the ONLY ones in a tent. We thought, ha, look at all these glampers in their fancy RV's and campers... We had all sorts of encounters: raccoons stole our marshmallows and we even busted an armadillo in our tent (who tore a small hole on his way out). There was a small storm through the night so the next morning we were cleaning up our site when some RV'ing neighbors came over and said they were happy to see we survived the night. We said, ehh it was just a small storm! They were like, no not from the storm, from the GATORS!! We were camping at an ALLIGATOR PARK. No woooonder everyone was in campers!! OMG we could have been eaten alive. Needless to say, we did not stay for night two...

My brother and I go camping at Enchanted Rock. I grabbed my Osprey, which looked full to the brim meaning it was safe to assume it had my tent, sleeping bag, and mat inside. Boy was I wrong! We get to our spot and I cannot find my tent inside. His was a one man variety. It drops to 28 degrees F that night so I wear everything I brought that night and jam myself in my sleeping bag which thankfully was inside. I made it through the night and woke up far wiser than I was before.

I went on a camping trip once in Oregon in late September to Badger Lake by Mt. Hood. Everything was fine and dandy except for yellow jackets, everywhere. When I mean everywhere, I mean like in the scrambled eggs, tents and our hammocks. It was the most yellow jackets I had ever seen in my life. Literally thousands of them. It made the weekend bothersome but it did not damper any shenanigans thankfully! Oh I and also almost threw a firecracker in my buddies face. He was not happy, luckily he didn’t get hurt :) fun times had by all!

Most memorable..probably not “best”…camping story…we got to our campsite just before dark and things became a comedy of errors and nothing, literally nothing went right..started raining soon after we arrived, camp stove flat out would not work, tent roof nylon ripped as a branch tore through it, air mattress sprang a leak leaving nothing but the hard ground…ended up spending most of the weekend in Kmart replacing gear…yes, checked gear prior to outing just didn’t work out..

Kodiak Island hosts the largest Coast Guard base in all of the United States. Alaska has more coastline than all the lower 48 states combined. I had the privilege of serving for a total of ten years in the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s at Kodiak. In 1985 my buddy Ike and I embarked on a commercial fishing boat to the big island of Afognak just North of Kodiak, for a ten-day elk and deer hunt. After a rough passage, we arrived at Duck Bay in Mary Anderson Cove. We took a small boat ashore where the giant spruce trees of the boreal rain forest descend from the mountains all the way to the high tide line. It was October and a light snow was falling. We climbed a hill late in the afternoon. Below was a beautiful gleaming frozen lake. We decided to split-up and meet on the far side of the lake. The lake was deceptively large and it was near dark when I reached the other side and Ike was not there. Then I heard three quick rifle shots, an indication of an emergency. I pushed on and a few minutes later I found Ike. He was soaking wet, exhausted and disoriented. I feared hypothermia was settling into his body. He told me he tried to cross the lake on foot and fell through ice. He was able to keep his head above water and his arms pulled his body out and stomach crawl to the shore. His rifle slipped from his arms before he took his icy plunge. He very slowly walks with me back to the small boat, then aboard the fishing boat to warm dry clothes and hot brewsky (coffey). This is only one of the many adventures I had while stationed in Alaska for over 17 years.

I'm a big fan of car camping. I have an SUV tent that attaches to my vehicle... I can sleep in the back of my SUV with the protection of a tent. One night, with my two cats and my dog in the back with me, I suddenly woke up to my dog barking and both cats screaming... A man was standing just outside the back window, just staring at me. I instinctively grabbed my knife and sat up, holding it. He just smiled and walked away... After my heart rate slowed down, I quickly packed up and drove away. Thank god for my overprotective babies. ❤

I have many memorable adventures. One that I had was when my cousin Don and I were going to Backpack into the Eddeeleo lakes. They are ten miles from Waldo lake which is or was the fifth purest water in the world or at least it did in the 70's. I had a 1962 Chevy pickup we were going to use to get us there. When I arrived at Don's house at 5am we noticed that my truck was leaking oil. So we had to wait several hours for the auto parts store to open. They didn't have the part so we tried the Chevy dealer and the nearest one that had the part was a hour away. We went and picked up the part and we were on our way. We were quite a bit behind schedule so we camped out at Waldo lake and started at first light in the morning. I started wondering about Don with some of his comments. We had camped for hunting and fishing before with our fathers , uncles and cousins but always by pickups not packing in remote. We got pretty eatten up by mosquitos there at Waldo. the farther we went away from Waldo to the Eddeelo lakes the mosquitos dissapeared. We arrived about noon and started fishing for dinner. fishing from a log extending into the lake I was trying to keep my lure close to the bottom of the lake. It got hung up and I couldn't free it so I thought that I would dive in and retrieve it.The water was super clear, it looked about ten feet deep, the water was fairly warm on top. So I striped down and dove in. I got about ten feet deep and the water was freezing cold and it still looked ten feet down so up to the surface I went. Went back to camp and set up the tent, gathered wood for the fire. Fixed lunch then went fishing again, caught several nice Rainbow Trout 20" size for dinner. We sat around the fire talking with a beautiful sunset. As soon as the Sun set the coyotes started to sing on the other side of the Lake. I could see that Don was getting nervous when then asked if they were wolves. I told him no it was just coyotes. i was getting tired and it was getting late and was going to hit the rack. He asked for my 357 that I had brought, I asked him for what. Don said just to be safe since he was going to stay up awhile longer. The coyotes keep up the howeling and sing most of the night on the other side of the lake. When I got up Don was already up with no firewood left that we had gathered and aslo what others had left. I asked how well he had slept, He stated that he had stayed up all night and he was leaving and then left. So after breakfast I packed then hiked out. I caught up with him at Waldo lake at the Truck. I thought we were going to have a enjoyable trip before Football practice and School started. I have many more but we can only enter one. Some with my cousin Don as the center of the piece.

So no shit there I was in the middle of a lake on the mountains near Colorado springs. We had rented a canoe at fort Carsons Mwr. We were fishing for dinner when my buddy gets up to take a leak. He slips falls on the canoe. Flips it and we lost most of our gear. He started swimming to shore and left me by myself. I was trying to keep the canoe from sinking as I didn't want to have to pay for it. Luckily I was able to get it out of the water. We kept fishing from the shore. Caught some rainbow trout and had them for dinner. The end...

My best camping stories are with my family. When my daughters were old enough to meet “boys” at the campgrounds I never had to worry they would come back to their tent. My brother in law snored so loud, so aggressively he sounded like a bear at times! Scared those kids everytime! Lol

We were going camping with the guys for the weekend and were allowed to bring dogs. We pull up to the campsite; the dog jumps out and spots a rabbit. And off we went, it looked like the keystone cops. The rabbit ran, the dog ran, we ran along with a couple coworkers. We ran forever before the pup finally ran out of steam lol. It’s funny now but not so much then.