Solo experiences

“I have seen a lot of opinions on solo backpacking, but not many experiences. What is the weirdest, scariest, most wonderful thing that has happened to you?

I think the one I most remember was a solo trip during a very difficult time of my life. I went to the Pecos Wilderness for 5 days and then to a place in the Rio Grande gorge that I know to fish and soak.

I saw NOBODY in the Pecos Wilderness. I'm not much of a talker, but it was weird. What I really remember was my imagination taking off now and then. I can especially remember one night in the tent when I keep imagining a bear outside. If it was a bear, it was a ghost bear.

I also remember the astonishing landscapes and not a soul to be seen or heard.

When I came out my car had been broken into. They took my food, clothes and cowboy boots with a hole in the sole, but left some cassettes etc. I figured they must have been illegals from Mexico working there way north. I shrugged and went on.

I shrugged and went on, kind of disappointed that several days worth of backpacking food was gone.

I also had the Gorge to myself, but again I kept imagining that I heard things. I was convinced for awhile that I could hear teens from the local town breaking into my car above me! Soaking in a hot spring helped me calm down.

In the end, the two weeks I spent solo on the trail and on the road sustained and restored me. When I returned to my other life, I was ready for anything.”

“my very first backpacking trip was solo.”

“That's a good story Path.
I had an interesting solo hike when I lived in Alaska. I was living in Valdez, working as a chain and rodman on a survey crew. One weekend, I decided to climb one of the mountains in the area, and name it after my family. I packed a day pack, my Smith and Wesson 357 and my machete (no trails when I as going). It was raining, but only a light drizzle. The hike up was uneventful, and much easier after I got past the treeline. The way down, however was a different story. I pretty much slide down on my a$$ because it was so steep, and the jungle was so damed slippery. I'd stop every 100 yards or so to get my bearings. During one of those times, I saw a good sized black bear about 20 feet away from me. It was sitting on it's hanches from what I could tell, and just looking at me. I grabbed the gun (just in case) and sat there for about 5 minutes just staring back at it. It was a pretty cool experiance, and I think we were both caught off guard by the encounter. After 5 minutes, he got down on all fours. I didn't take any chances and shot the gun off in the air and the bear took off.

The ride down was uneventful after that, but I will always know that there are bears on my mountain!”

“Never had a bad experience solo backpacking, but solo motorcycle camping found me in a state park, being forced to pull over by the incoming storm (Indiana, June, 1996).

First, it rained 5 inches that night. The floodwater came up through my tent, but my bag kept me warm. I was soaked, but I was warm. So I went back to sleep.

The winds picked up, and up, and up. Finally, they shattered a tent pole on my little TexSport dome tent. In the dark I sloshed to where I remember there being a concrete bathroom structure.

When some lightning struck, I saw about 30 people huddled under the overhang.

"Dang, we didn't think thar was nobody in thar!" "Yeah, well, g'nite." And I proceded to try to go back to sleep. Then one of them asks "hey, anyone else here for the Christian convention?" 30 hands go up. "Well, we could sing!"

It was a long night.

In the morning, I found out a tornado had ripped through the picnic area, adjacent to the camping area. A tree had fallen on the car to one side of my tent, another tree had been blown in from somewhere else to the empty spot on the other side. My motorcycle, however, was still standing, and the plastic bag I put over the radio, not even rubber banded down, was still there keeping it dry.

Tornados is weird.

But ever since that night I have trouble sleeping in high wind. God bless Mountain Hardwear tents.”

“Went to dolly Sods WIlderness, WV camped in midwinter below freezing, ran out of dry wood, went to look for small branches in pitch dark woods in the middle of wilderness alone, and stumbles upon a bundle of dry sticks sitting on a stone in the middle of the woods, with the moon lighting that exact spot. (if you have seen The Blair Witch Project you already know I was freaking out). I took it back to the fire threw it on, it burst into flames, and I took a pic of it.”

“I've done several solo trips out here in Colorado. My first trip was to the Lost Creek Wilderness. I packed light and power hiked all day. I did a 24 mile loop in two days with my dog in tow. It wouldn't be that big of a deal, except my dog is a dachshund! He's a great sleeping bag warmer, but a bit slow on the down hills. On the second day it rained, and my dog just sat down in the mud and refused to move. I thought I was going to have to carry him out, but after reasoning with him for some time (when you are solo hiking reasoning with a dog doesn't seem that strange) I convinced him it would be better to go on.

I also had a good solo trip in the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness, without dog this time. In honor of the "Buff" Wilderness name, I did some hiking in the buff. Pretty interesting. I kept quite a bit cooler and dryer, but got a couple of strange looks!”

“I used to hike solo a lot. One time I was camped below the north ridge of Mt. Stuart in the Washington Cascades, sleeping in a meadow on a plastic tarp on a moonless night. I heard a lot of noise in a nearby bunch of willows, and thought "there is a black bear over there, and I should scare it off before it gets to my pack."

I assembled my black bear scaring equipment, a flashlight, a pot, and a spoon. With tools in hand, wearing just my underwear, I jumped up on a big boulder and started yelling and beating my pot with my spoon, thinking "that will scare him off!"

After 20 seconds of noise making, I shined my little flashlight out toward the original sound. Two unblinking eyes were reflecting light back at me, and they were small, and many many inches apart, and the massive skull they were part of was not running away in terror.

As we stared at each other, the big bear slowly turned and moved away, much to my relief. If he had attacked, I would have had to use the spoon and pot on him.”

“I do not go walkin in the woods and sleepin in the woods cept with my daddy - but we still say it is a solo.

One time in the Windtooths in Wyodaho, I was smellin aroun wher rats was and my daddy was writin. I did not no that the bushes was byside a clift, and I falled a looooong way down the clift to a rok and my daddy did not find me for the loooong time and I was skeerd til my daddy found me and climed down the clift and helped me get back up to the regler groun. We was happy then.”

“One of my memorable experiences was a few years back on a ginseng harvest. I had camped way off the trail on a small bench overlooking a small stream. I doubt many of you know about ginseng, but it is valuable stuff and I don't like advertising the plots I have found. I was being very stealthy in order to protect my stash so it was not much of a surprise that two couples set up camp below me and never knew I was there.

It was an unusually warm weekend for October so I was treated to some revealing poses on the rocks. Evidently these were very good friends, because they were all nude at one point. I quietly packed up my stuff and waited till dark. Once it was past twilight I slowly walked parallel to the ridge for several hundred yards to a gap that would take me out away from the trail, but towards the highway. I set down my stuff and made a few deep grunts and started rattling the brush with my hiking stick. I eased through the gap and went home.

In all the years since I have never seen anyone else at this spot during the harvest.”

“I didn't know ginseng grew wild in the US. I know there are many different varieties of ginseng, and some are worth a lot more than others. What kind do you harvest and in what GENERAL part of the country?”

“Hey! Quit trying to steal my ginseng!@”

“I want to go on a solo trip! But my mom is stopping me :(
Im gonna do it I am you just wait. And then i will have a killer trip report too!”

“Honesty is the best policy, but...

Tell your Mom you are hiking with some friends.”

“And you can service yerself when solo!”

“TMI! TMI!”

“Most of mine have been solo.

I don't have time enough in the day, and you don't have time enough at all for me to recount all the weird that have occured during the last 20 years of solo.

The most fun wasn't solo, and nearly every one except me was hiking naked.

Top that.”

“I hike solo 99% of the time. Thanksgiving weekend of 99. There was no snow, and it was unseasonably warm. I decided to hike an 11.3 mile section of the Superior Trail, between Tettegouche State Park, and Beaver Bay. and then turn around at the Beaver Bay trailhead and hike back. Not quite halfway is Mt. Trudee. now, this is not a real mountain, mind you, just a hill. but for Minnesota, a mountain. Just under a mile past Trudee is the Pallisade creek, and a couple of campsites. That was my goal for the afternoon. Not far, maybe 5 miles. easy, right?
I didn't know that Mt. Trudee was the ONLY place in the arrowhead region, maybe in all of Minnesota, with snow! I was alone, and the wind was whipping quite strongly, and it took me some time to get to the top of that hill. The rocks were icy and slippery. There were two and three foot drifts over the trail. I kept thinking that if I fell, and slipped down the cliff, no one would know. So I took it very slow. So... by the time I was over the top, it was dark. I had to pick my way down some very steep slopes, in the icy muddy snow, and some of that had wooden steps that were broken, or had slid out of place, and some of their mooring spikes were waiting just under the snow to trip me. It was a very long, picky trip down that hill. It's the most scared I've been by myself on a trail.
By the time I reached the bottom, it was dark. I had 3/4 of a mile through sloppy, wet, muddy trail to negotiate to a muddy, wet campsite. I was happy to light my friendly little alcohol stove, which I let burn while I made camp.
The next morning, instead of going on to the end of the section, I turned around and climbed back up Trudee, and back to Tettegouche State Park. It was a lot better in the daylight! I spent the next night there, in the car camp. I was the only one there.
I learned that weekend that it's just as important, maybe even MORE important, to know when to turn back as it is to have the courage and determination to keep on pushing.
It was scary on Trudee, but I was pleased with how I was able to handle it. One of the most memorable hikes I've experienced.

Last weekend I finally hiked that section again. Not tough at all without snow!!”

“awww, mel, ya big tease! One of the few NOT nekkid?

bacpac, so yer gruntin' and brush rattlin' that one time has kept people away from yer ginseng plot for all these years? Who'da thunk it? Man, those Arkansas nude campers scare easy.”

“This is a long story and it only has a little bit to do with backpacking.
Up until about five years ago I was afraid to stay anywhere alone. When my boyfriend would want to go somewhere without me I would have a major panic attack.
I don't remember what made me see the light but one day I realized the reason for the irrational panic attacks and I have been fine since then.
When I was in sixth grade I lived with my grandparents during the school year because my family lived in a remote part of the Navajo Indian reservation. One spring day my Dad left me at my grandparents house and I cried and cried for him to take me with him. I never saw him again because a couple of weeks later he died. In some nutty way our brains work for self preservation I could not let the boyfriend go and I could not stay by myself.
Anyway--I am able to hike by myself and fly by myself and it is OK for the boyfriend to have a life that does not always include me. I feel that a great weight was lifted off of me the day I figured out my hang-up.”

“Kleety, Would you like to tell us something about the girlfriends you have run off with your grunts and bush rattlings?”

“Hi Everyone, I hike mostly by myself too, I find others can,t seem to keep up to me hehehe, I think the scariest and most memorable experience that ive had was accidently wandering in quicksand...yes quicksand I was hiking in Manitoba and cut across the woods to reach another trail and it was quite marshy and stepped in 4 ft of thick muddy clay ouch!! it was tough but after a half an hour of wiggling and struggling I pulled myself free, so watch it guys when hiking near marshland”

“I just competed my first solo hiking experience this past weekend on the AT in NJ. I completed roughly 18 miles in one full day and an hour of the second day. Day 1 I saw 6 people (all men) and day 2 I saw 1 man.

I was terrfied because there had just been some long and serious discussions about encountering dirty ol men on the trail on the women's hiker forum I belong to.

I guess I expected every man I passed to attack me and beat me senseless, leaving me to die on the trail.

Oh well, at least if God really was calling my number, I would have been doing something I loved.

I finally decided that fear is healthy, but I'm not going to be a slave to it. I also decided that if I waited to have someone to hike with, I'd never get any hiking done!!

I told a friend where I was going and then checked back in when I was done.

I was not naked or looking for ginsing or out to prove anything.

Adventure Girl, don't lie to your Mom, but be safe about how you approach your solo. Good Luck.”

“Well normally this is a long story but because I type slower than I speak I guess it will naturally be shorter.

A couple of staff and myself took eight teens to a First Nation?s camp in Alberta. We slept in teepees, did morning cleansings, played various group-building games, taught various skills, and had various cultural ceremonies (such as sweats). A solo was part of the experience so I slept near a youth that would not have gone otherwise. We made shelters across the river from the camp on the slopes of Phantom Crag. I was "visited" several times by a walking "person". By morning I was woke too many times to count, had "it" moving on the rock above my shelter, grab my feet while in the sleeping bag, and it stole by sock liners. I know it was not a person from my camp or any other person. The experience was powerful and authentic. The teen was visited this same night by something whistling. I found out later that the reason this area was called the phantom crag was that in the past two warring tribes fought a bloody battle in the area. Many warriors died on both sides. Tribe members went to the battleground and upon entering the opening saw a white entity hovering over the dead. They, as a result, had left the bodies to rest there. There were many other stories told by past participants with some seeing this white being.
It was a wonderful experience. I find Native spirituality the closest to my agnostic beliefs, mainly the power of nature.... nature not "created" but just the constant interaction of multiple life-forces. Anyway, I digress.”

“Indians use to have many uses for sock liners. They would use EVERY part of them, and NEVER leave any of it to waste!”

“Clever folks those Indians.”

“Wow, Gekko - I have been interested in that Lost Creek Wilderness 24 mile route myself! Thought about doing it in three days. I hiked the Hankin's Pass trail in April & got stuck in waist deep snow.

I might do part of that loop solo this year.”

“Most of my thousands of miles in the NH White Mts. over the past 30 years has been solo, though sometimes that's a relative term with the trail traffic out there. I remember doing a hike in a horrendous October downpour, temps in the 30's, when I came across a young kid, sitting on the trail below the summit of Mt. Moriah. He was really hypothermic, had only can food to eat, but had forgotten a can opener(!), and all his stuff was so wet he never could have started a fire (had no stove either). He was slugging on a bottle of Southern Comfort, shivering like hell, but it was obvious he really needed help. It took me several hours and lots of pushing, and helping to carry his pack to get him back to my car at the trail head. At one time we had to cross the swollen Moriah brook, water past our waist. I had to do 2 trips to get all the gear across. Finally drove him home to North Conway. Figured I might have saved his life. Never could understand how characters like that end up in the woods in the 1st place.”

“My first backpacking trip (in 1973) was a solo trip to Cold Mountain (of the novel fame). There was no water up there. I had a one quart bottle and I used most of my water cooking rice. Needless to say, I was up and hiking back down early the next morning. Water never tasted so good.

My second trip was a November solo on the Art Loeb Trail in Pisgah Nat'l Forest, North Carolina. I never saw another soul for the entire three days and thirty miles. That was a good trip.

Hiking alone has never caused me the least bit of concern. People don't get out by themselves enough. Solitude is a necessity for the human spirit. Everyone should hike solo at least once.”

“Most of my trips have been solo. I tend to see a lot more animals when alone.

I once slept on top of a mountain in the Gospel-Hump Wilderness in North Central Idaho. I woke up an hour before sunrise and found that a big herd of elk had settled in around me for the night while I slept. There were a few big bulls and many cows. There were a couple of deer too.

Another time on top of Scotchman Peak in the Cabinet Mountains of the Idaho panhandle I was watching the sun set behind the Selkirk Range to the west. Suddenly a couple of mountain goats came out of the rocks, sat down near me and watched the sunset too.

Another weird solo encounter was five miles up Fish Creek off the Lochsa River. It was raining heavily when a big coyote jumped out of the brush and landed three feet in front of me. We were both very startled. I jumped up and it jumped right back into the brush and was gone.”

“I've put the full trip report on the Good, the Bad(lands) and the Ugly thread, but I'll comment on the solo aspect of my recent hike in T.Roosevelt N.P. in western North Dakota. The hiking solo itself was not strange. Not really different than the solo day hikes I've often done over the years. I like being able to set whatever pace is right for the moment, rest when I want, pick the route and campsite I want.

But camping solo for the first time was when it got weird. With no one to talk to and no real reason to generate any sounds after setting up the tent (too hot and tired to bother firing up the stove), I lay there a couple hundred yards up from the Little Missouri and could hear every little sound. Nature was not quiet and still. Birds chirped, whistled, screeched, warbled, etc., from every direction. Insects buzzed and hummed around. Things rustled in the bushes and grasses. Eventually the sun went down and coyotes howled, answered by wild turkeys from a grove some 150 feet below me. Something big enough to crack branches when it moved was in the thicket a hundred feet on the other side of the trail. Then something started a raspy bawling from the other side of the canyon, rrrrawwwww, rrrrawwww, rrrrawwww, over and over again in triplets, echoing down the canyon and eventually getting replied to in kind. Creepy for awhile, and then I got used to it and I faded out. I awoke to a cold night and an absolutely overpowering star display, tossed the fly over the net tent for warmth, and drifted in and out until morning.

Now I'll admit to suffering the effects of dehydration, but it was very unsettling to feel you were in a place where you played no meaningful part, other than to leave it alone. My thinking flew in many directions, and a lot of doubts found fertile ground for growth. An old H.S.friend I'd visited on the way out west had told me of another old and dear H.S.friend's death from AIDS and that kept coming to mind, which makes for troubling dreams.

So I don't know for sure how I feel about camping solo. I will do it again, hopefully when not so wiped out physically and with no new emotional burdens. But it was a very disturbing experience this time compared to when I have gone with a partner. I think I enjoy sharing the experience with another person to whom I have some bond, such as my brother or wife. But I'd need to see how I feel after several days alone (if I could stand myself that long).”