What's The Scariest Thing You've Seen While Hiking At Night? (r/AskReddit)

serious late night hikers what is the creepiest thing you have seen while hiking I was in the woods with three friends at night a friend's house was nearby and I was getting hungry so I went inside to find some food another friend came inside with me two friends were still outside later on one of the two who were outside comes in and sees the indoor friend on the couch next to me they panic and immediately run back outside I poked my head out the door asking what's going on only to hear them yell as loudly as they cannot snot Kevin everyone comes inside and calms down a bit and the story comes out they thought the friend who was indoors with me Kevin had been outside with them this entire time why because in the darkness of the woods they saw a silhouette about the same height walking alongside them silently then at some point it ran away and they were chasing it thinking Kevin was running off for some reason the reason my friend yelled that's not Kevin was to stop the last outdoor friend from chasing whoever was out there deeper into the woods we still have no idea who that was or why they didn't ever speak I used to often spend my summers bouldering with my friends by a relatively large forest that was about an hour and a half away from where I used to live we used to spend some of the nights camping out there just to save some travel costs and time anyway I think this was roughly like the third or fourth time we were out there camping my friend had left all her climbing gear and her rucksack just outside her tent oh we definitely think she did anyway the next morning we found her boots a few clothes and all her chalk powder had disappeared we figured that it could have been completely feasible that she misplaced it although we were quite sure that they were next to her tent we didn't really want to believe that they were stolen anyway we didn't read too much into this and just stupidly said to ourselves that perhaps she had left it by the builders and some animal took an interest to it I know it sounds stupid but it was very reasonable to this at the time anyway fast forward a year we are at the same spot as usual sitting by the temps and chilling after having some food mind you it's pitch black out and only the camp area is lit by the fire I go somewhere a bit out of sight for a slash and what do I see a in a full-on ghillie suit laying on his stomach looking right towards our campsite I kinda stood there frozen as this dude clocks that I've seen him and he just melts it out over there I don't know whether the event of the year prior was related to the ghillie guy but this definitely has stuck to all of us we haven't been back there since which is a dang shame Lowell imagine just seeing a ghillie suit guy just chillin sniper like not hiking so much as car camping but we were way the Frick out there in the middle of nowhere on BLM land in Colorado we drove for an hour and a half down a forest service road and didn't see another soul you could see headlights and hear cars from miles away from our campsite it's not like somebody could have snuck up unnoticed we had three cars with us and eight people just got done eating dinner cleaned up it was getting dark so we went back to the cars real quick before hitting our tents for the night somebody had slashed the front right tire on each of the three cars with what appeared to be a box cutter everyone thought it was a prank that had become very apparent very quickly that it wasn't all of us were beyond spooked like panicking scary to watch spooked we all had spares and one dude had a gun so we threw on our doughnuts well that guy literally guarded us and got the heck out of there I still have nightmares about it sometimes just knowing there was some person probably watching us maybe wanting to harm us makes me feel physically ill to this day the probably drugged dudes protecting aggro I go hiking in the woods that permeate my town sometimes so late that I get to see the Sun Rise out there the strangest thing I ever saw was what I could only describe as a shanty town was built up seemingly overnight deep into the woods simple little hovels made of scrap metal and bedsheets and a small fire pit that someone had made out of an old tire with the fire still burning but that wasn't the weird part the weird part was that this was well past midnight when I found this place and it was quiet as a grave but there was no one there someone made the trouble of getting a fire going and then left it from the look of it this place could hold about a dozen or so people and yet there was nothing there but the fire they abandoned and whatever possessions they had left in the shanties it was probably a homeless camp when they hear someone coming they go into the woods to hide from whoever it is especially if it might be law enforcement I go out for walks very late at night fairly often so I've seen a few things the creepiest though happened about two months ago I left the house around 1:30 a.m. and it started off as a normal walk I wandered around the town till about 2:00 a.m. when I decided to go home I was walking back the route I had came when I noticed a black van meander down the street didn't really pay too much attention to it though at first I didn't pay attention though when I saw it slowly drive by me for a second time I wasn't entirely sure it was the same van though so I just continued walking but this time I kept an eye out and lo and frickin the hold about ten minutes later the same thing black van came down the street again this time I knew for sure because it didn't have license plates now I was fairly scared so I picked my pace up a little bit when the van came around again this time it stopped in the middle of the road a few houses in front of me I stopped turned around and booked it back in the other direction I made a few turns on two different roads and then ran right into someone's yard I waited behind their fence and the same frickin van came down the street I assumed that when they couldn't find me they finally decided to freak off but I waited in that yard for about 20 minutes before I ran back to my house and practically threw myself through my bedroom window that's terrifying this happened to me a few years ago I used to go to school at the University of California Santa Cruz I'm a runner and the campuses in a beautiful redwood forest so I would run on the trails one day I left a little later than usual on a run through one of the more isolated trails here's where it gets weird I was about 15 minutes running deep into the woods and still hadn't seen anyone else around suddenly up ahead I saw what appeared to be a homeless man in ragged clothing walking on the trail now he was walking further into the woods and this path went very very far and the Sun was setting aka this man was spending the night in the woods I wanted to reach my usual running checkpoint before turning back so I decided to keep my distance and run by as soon as I passed the man he called out to me what came first light or sound in my head I was like WTF this guy is notes but I decided to humor him and yelled out light without looking back he said well I think it's sound Bluenose and started mumbling to himself I continued on I reached my goal and started to head back it was really dark now and I was feeling sketched out that I had to pass this guy again to get back he seemed pretty crazy and potentially dangerous but I didn't have a choice I got past the point where I first passed him but he was nowhere to be seen there weren't any other branches off the trail and if he had headed back I would have seen him by then he must have gone off the trail suddenly a girl from up on a hill screamed for me to stop I stopped and looked up on the hill but it was too dark to see anything I was freaked out I called out to ask if she was alright and eventually saw her climbing down the hill was really steep so she put in a lot of effort to get up there and away from whatever was after her she said that she was on a run when a scary homeless guy started harassing her and he chased her up the hill but he didn't know where he went she was going to spend the night there until I came along because she was too scared to go back down at this point we both wanted to get the heck out of there who knew if this creepy man was like lurking around watching us from the dark so we ran back together and made it to the road she thanked me and we parted ways never ran back on that trail again Santa Cruz can be a pretty weird place I've heard legends of students flunking out of school there and then just living in the forest maybe this guy was a student from years past I grew up in Santa Cruz and spent a lot of late nights wandering around the west side and paga NIP so many weird encounters with people tripping or suffering from mental illness 90% of the time if you just remember their human and acknowledge them like you did they're much less likely to go off on you some of those dudes can be scary as Frick though walking home from a party late late late at night I'm just enjoying the beauty of the city at night when I notice a man walking about a block behind me two blocks later he is getting closer so I cross the street what a coincidence his route needs him to cross to half a block later I cross back oh heck no yet he crossed back to about two three blocks ahead I see a homeless person pushing a shopping cart IST srt jogging towards them and call out excuse me excuse M II I'm so sorry but do you mind if I walk with you a bit because turn back towards my little shadow friend this butthole doesn't think I notice him following any homeless person turns out to be elderly black lady she doesn't miss a trick pulls out this big butt bowie knife from her cart and waves it at the man in the lamplight so he can see it what you gonna do you wanna play go home guy freaks off fast she was astounded that I approached someone like her especially since it was not immediately obvious she was female from a distance in the dark I was like I knew he was trouble I figured even if you were a man best take my chances that you werent she walked with me for a bit and we chatted about stuff nice lady my girlfriend and I had driven down an old dirt road that ran beside a lake on one side with mountains on the other we were looking for unexplored territory to hike in the dirt road became a trail and eventually was swallowed up entirely by the forest once the path became impassable by car we got out and hiked for quite some time and began making our way back to the car as the Sun was going down it was a challenge getting the car turned around but I finally managed and we were off it was slow going as it was a crappy road and getting dark fast suddenly we came to fork in the path that hadn't been visible coming the other way neither of us had any idea whether to go right or left so I just picked randomly hoping that both would end up taking us back to the main road as we rounded a small curve in the road our headlights fall upon a man dragging a large hockey duffle bag off the trail into the woods as soon as the lights hit him he just froze completely still driving past him felt like an eternity because we have been doing more that five miles an hour due to the crappy road my girlfriend and I didn't say a word to each other until we were well past him at which point we were like WTF was that and then the road ended just like where we had stopped the first time the forest had swallowed up this part of the road we were going to have to turn around and drive by the man with the human-sized duffel bag again I told my girlfriend to buckle up and hold on tight because at the first sign of trouble I was going to garnet we came to the spot where the man was and he was nowhere to be seen we eventually made it to the right path and got the Frick out of there the weirdest thing about it was that there wasn't a vehicle anywhere near the sky for 50 miles in either direction we would have seen it if there had been we traveled as far as possible both ways and there just wasn't and placed to pull off of the road of how the heck did he get there where was he going what was in the bag pretty late to the party so this will probably be buried but here it goes one night my friend and I decided to hike to the top of this small mountainous night for a meteor shower there were four of us all around sixteen at a time and thought it would be cool we drove over and started hiking we took a break about halfway when we noticed there was the guy following us in a business suit we were weirded out so we decided to stop back up and walk a bit faster but by the next time we stopped he was like 10 feet away so we bit the bullet to see if he'd just walk by he didn't he stopped and asked if we were there for the meet or shower and if he could walk with us weird a 30 something year old man in a suit wanting to hike with four 16-year olds but whatever as we were walking my friend and I noticed he was walking really close to our friend the only girl in the group like he could smell her shampoo clothes we got to the top sat down and he sat down almost right up on our friend with her reasonably freaked out I made an excuse on why we have to leave early and we promptly booked at the Frick out of there nearly running the entire way down when we got back to the car we thought cool we ditched the weirdo but no when we were all in the car our my friend pointed out that this guy is full-on sprinting down the trail and towards our car with a large being in a car we just drove out of there very shook up we chalked it up to some dude on some heck of a drug but two days later we all got a text linking us to a news report about a guy that had strangled his wife and then proceeded to kill another girl later that night on a hiking trail it was the by the same dude at the same hiking trail we never told our parents about the incident and never went back there ever of all the things in the woods its people that are the scariest it was in the summer around dusk and I was camping at a remote campground with my dad there was a lake right next to the grounds and my dad and I would trail glossa through the forest right next to the lake because if you went far enough there was a really pretty waterfall a few strange things happen this hike we found a slash pile that had a little kid's shoe on top when we came to a small clearing my dad had to take a leak too he faced one side of the clearing and I faced the other and we both clearly heard a child say I'm over here my dad thought it was me and when he realized it wasn't we spent half an hour looking for someone but we found nobody after that we gave up on going to the waterfall and started to make our way back to camp but there were clear sounds of something following us twig snapping bushes shaking we haven't been camping there since not so much hiking as walking home after work one night a lot of years ago I normally got off around 7:00 p.m. and my walks home were uneventful however this night I covered a half shift for someone and worked until 11 p.m. there was a trail behind some train tracks I would take home to avoid walking beside traffic and whatnot I came to realize that night those trails were a lot different at 11 p.m. than they were at 7 p.m. I happened across a guy who was laying by his bike moaning in pain it didn't sound like real moaning more like a kid's fake I have a tomash and can't go to school moan I also noticed his bike was standing up on its kickstand it didn't make sense to me he would set his bike up properly on LY to fall to the ground in pain he saw me and called out to me for help that I kept walking and turned to make my way back up towards the street as I turn I suddenly hear some shuffling around the previously heard gentleman yells at me I'm gonna kill you mother he hops on his bike and starts rushing towards me at this point I'm most of the way up the incline going towards the railroad tracks that ran parallel to the street I halt but up there and as I get over the tracks my would-be assailant proceeds to hit the tracks with his front tire and flips over his handlebars hitting the ground hard he is now moaning in pain for real and makes genuine calls for help I used a pay phone at a gas station to call the cops and explain what happened they get there and the officer explains to me this guy's a village idiot who does this crap to rob people and it's not the first time they had to pick his butt up after he biffed on a bike trying to rob someone I told the officer he threatened to kill me and he laughed dude wasn't even armed and apparently has had his butt kicked more times than he can count using that little line of his apparently has had his butt kicked more times than he can count using that little line of his one of those times he is gonna get killed I once shined my headlamp on a man masturbating next to a juniper tree when I was going out for a poopa by the juniper tree my riposte from a different are asked Redick post a while ago wasn't so much hiking but it was late at night I was walking around my neighborhood alone once enjoying the night air and watching the Stars there was this little pond near my house with a wooded area that had trees a bench and a rope swing that went out over the water i sat down on the bench to look at the stars and I heard some rustling off to my right towards the trees bears were not uncommon where I'm from so I took out my flashlight and shown it around over there I didn't see anything it freaked me out so I kept my flashlight on and my senses aware but I stayed on the bench to mull over my thoughts and watch the sky some more I don't know why I did that cause that's typical horror movie crap anyway a few minutes pass and I near nothing more so I leaned back into the bench and starts to relax a bit I'm staring up at the sky with my flashlight pointed downwards so as not to create any light pollution when I notice something in the tree in my peripheral vision I couldn't tell what it was but the branch was swaying slightly and the rustling noise was back to by immediately sat up and stared at it but hadn't shown my flashlight at it yet in case off P off some huge bird or something else I don't think I've ever been that scared I remember my heart was beating so fast and I could taste blood I stared at it for what seemed like forever and it slowly stopped moving but the shape was still there bears do climb trees sometimes so I was hesitant to run away in case that's what it was so I just kept staring at it after a while I mustered up the little raisin s companies to shine my god damned light at the tree it was a man a frickin man in the tree crouched in the tree like some silent naked monkey he had no expression on his face but his eyes were open really really wide when my light landed on him he started to move like he was going to come down if I didn't stick around to see if he did I jumped the bench and ran for the frickin hills I ran to my house and around to the back door and locked myself in without looking back once I went around and made sure every window and door was locked I even checked the Attic I never go out alone anymore edit I did call the cops but they didn't find him and nothing came from it I was hella paranoid for months after that and started carrying pocket knives and or pepper spray whenever I went out at night even if I wasn't alone be safe my dudes headed to fixed opposing tenses edit three thanks to all the lovely lads in the comments I've concluded that this was in fact a sea cat and I happened to just be in the wrong place at the wrong time still didn't recommend going out alone or unarmed at night though be safe please edit for I just woke up and holy crap I didn't expect this to blow up thanks for my first silver edit five never mind I guess he was a leprechaun on crack two cubs and no mother in other words I had probably come between them I've had this happen too they looked like they were right at the edge of being adults but they were the same size and clearly together I just started playing music loudly and singing the Cubs didn't like that they took off into the bush never actually saw the mother usually it's what I hear large fallen branches snapping just out of sight of my headlamp or waking up an hour later and hearing steps and leaves rustling but too exhausted and fearful to inspect or want to know probably nothing important anyway one time I returned to my car after a late night hike with friends and my SUV was covered in foot hand pawprints they were just surreal arge and even dragged a little in the dust it was on near a large military base in the mountains I think some local enlisted may have made them to scare us but it was just so well done pretty scary for all of us because it's what you'd imagine the Blair Witch would do no animal did it it was around midnight in a clearing for picnics in a large park that lots of people hike through pitch-black no one around I was with my boyfriend at the time we got pretty frisky at one of the picnic tables and I'm facing a river which is sort of illuminated from the moonlight he's facing the solid black tree line we're trying to have a good time and he becomes completely still and in a low voice says there's a man coming towards us I turn my head see only a white t-shirt approaching us at a brisk walking pace from the trees and that's all I needed to see I ran knowing my bf would catch up he did I was never down for midnight Forest stuff again haha if I had a group of friends who used to get together and play manhunt in a local park at night just a different way of saying a big game of hide-and-seek tag where three people start off it and everyone else goes and hides in the park as they find and tag people they become it as well until eventually there is only one three people left then we start again and play into early morning well one night I was it with my friend and his younger brother we were heading to the middle of the park to a hot spot for hiding-places there is a long stairwell that leads up a huge hill to upper Valley in an field we were slowly walking down those stairs maybe halfway down when we noticed two folks way below us thinking it was one of our friends we tell hey WH OSA of the normal reaction which is to call out your name then sprint away trying to avoid getting tagged a strange voice responds who the Frick are you at first started sprinting down at them like we normally would but then we realized they too were sprinting at us we don't even hesitate we turn around and sprint up the stairs as fast as we can adrenaline kicking it has sticking up on the back of my neck we make it up on top of the hill and pause when I look back and they are right behind us not more than 10 feet away which is absurdly fast because of how much distance we had had between us we lose our crap and start sprinting as fast as possible to the park trail that wraps around the entire park and leads to a road where one of our friends live and that we use as a meetup spot between games it's a two mile run back from where we are so we booked it sprinting as if our lives depended on it occasionally looking back and seeing the two people following behind as we get nearer our energy is spent but we push on and make it to the street looking back and there is no sign of the two strangers all of our group is back at the house lounging on the driveway having decided to prank us that night and while we were off in the park searching for them they would meet back at the house until we gave up we shared our story with them and some laughed and disbelief others wanted to search the park for those two randoms but we never discovered - they were all I know is that they were incredibly fast and shady as Frick ridet what's the story of the guy being chased by the dancing man it wasn't what I saw I saw nothing out of the ordinary however my dog got very agitated around a certain part of a trail and alternated between barking and snarling and hiding behind my legs it creeped me out enough that we hurried out of there fast this wasn't on a hike and this is pretty tame compared to some of these stories but it's a bit similar back in our old place one night my girlfriend and I were walking our dogs around the neighborhood she's a lot smaller so I was walking two of the dogs and she was walking one who was a former service dog he was a real gentle dog albeit a bit older a them snatching the ball away from the others during fetch he'd never shown a bit of aggression I walk a bit ahead of my girlfriend because of the two dogs pulling pretty hard on me but not too far maybe 10 or 15 feet ahead but around a corner as I found out later she slowed down in part because she'd noticed someone nearby acting strangely scoping out a house I think when he spotted her he said hi and she responded in kind asked how he was before he could answer the dog she was walking started to growl and she apologized commenting that he was a guard dog the guy looks at her and said well he's doing a good job tonight she was pretty spooked and hurried to catch up to me we were more careful on nighttime walks from then on I drove to her park to go hiking at night in the mountains so safe I know and I hadn't even turned off my car and I already feel like I'm being watched there weren't any cars around so I thought maybe it was just me being paranoid for some reason but for some reason I looked to my right and I see this weird-looking humanoid shape on top of the little bump hill about 50 feet away at first I though II was a weirdly shaped tree until I saw the arms move no wind at all so now I know there's a person staring at my car trying not to move for what I assume is for me to get out of my car and leave to a more secluded area as we were next to the road of course I left I don't go hiking at night in that particular Park anymore you have been visited by the IT lizard upvote or experience bad internet for nods like and subscribe you magnificent person [Music]

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Keywords: scary stories, scary, scariest, night hiking, night hiking tips, encounter, scary encounters, #updootst, updoot, reddit, r/askreddit, askreddit, ask reddit, r/, r\, best of reddit, reddit stories, reddit story, top posts, funniest posts, funny, funny posts, funny reddit stories, funny askreddit, reddit funny, askreddit funny, askreddit stories, reddit stories 2019, people of reddit, sub, reddit cringe, memes, toadfilms, updoot everything, updoot reddit, story, stories, rslash, comedy, fresh

Id: atYC2UiZr2U

Length: 26min 1sec (1561 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 08 2020