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Scariest thing to happen while caching.


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Fell 20+' off a large leaning, downed tree two Summers ago , when a hairless bear false-charged me. 

Had my little colt out, since I Didn't realize what the heck it was.  He turned a couple feet away after throwing spit on me.

Later found that mange was around that area.  Had three more false-charges that year.  Weird...

Still have a shattered coccyx, and broken trochlear groove's now fixed.  Still healing.   :)

 

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Similar to Max and 99, my scariest moments were on kayak trips. In my cases, all scariness resulted from my own carelessness. In the first instance, I paddled down a river to find caches on a small island, stayed too long, and ended up paddling back in the dark dodging sandbars. In the second, I was paddling down a river that empties in the Pacific. I came to a downed tree in the river that I had easily ducked under on previous trips. This time, the river was running too fast and I capsized. It's a minor miracle the kayak didn't end up in the ocean. I just barely managed to hold on to the tree while keeping one leg in the kayak to keep it from floating away.

 

Again, both scary moments could've been avoided if I had made better decisions. Live and learn!

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Walking along a narrow, icy trail, I felt my footing begin to slip.  Conscious of the steep dropoff, I tried crawling on my hands and knees.  It didn't work.  On all fours, I slowly slid off the trail and plunged 15 feet straight down into an icy creek.  There was a scary moment where I felt suspended in midair before falling.  I felt like Wile E. Coyote when he looks at the camera before falling off the cliff in just about every Roadrunner cartoon.  Fortunately, I survived with just a badly pulled leg muscle and yes, I found the cache

Edited by The Leprechauns
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ooh! Got a few stories:

 

1. A self-imposed risk, but nothing happened that posed danger, we were getting a cache on a 4m high beam across a country road's arch bridge over a stream: a nano on the height sign. To mark the find after shimmying over to the center, I posed for a phoon pose photo. Probably the closest I've come to potential hospitalization or mortal wounding if anything were to have happened... I didn't strike the best form, but I'm glad I got it, and got down safely :)

 

2. Another time, hiking in winter with a couple friends for a 5/5 wilderness cache, our day long excursion took much longer than expected and we ended up way past midnight with no cell reception taking what we thought would be a faster trail off the main route we took coming in. It was an ATV trail that ended up crossing a small lake, and had holes and marshy growth coming through. Coyotes howling in the distance, we didn't want to tread back an hour or two to where we veered off so we pushed on carefully, finding the hardest ice we could step on and even had to makeshift an extra couple of inches to jump at one point to get to hard land, then bushwack to the nearest trail again. Yeeshk.

 

3. A bigger concern one time for me, caching along the rim of a reservoire (typically quite shallow) in winter with a friend, we came to an area where the ice we were on was covered in a mossy growth; clearly the marshy area had frozen underneath. It was hard to tell what might be ground and still ice. Well I found a soft spot and a leg fell through - thankfully the ice was hard for my other foot and I came back up, but it was a few inches of air and soft muck underneath. Don't know how deep it would have been, but that was a wakeup call for sure.

Similarly, later that trip we were following a stream - definitely shallow, maybe knee-thigh deep - my friend was ahead of me, testing ice (we just didn't want to get wet in the cold, not for fear of drowning).  I heard a big crack and saw him drop into the water - he didn't go under, but he struggled with his footing and leaned forward to stabilize with his hands; then his hands broke through and I could only see his back just barely above the ice level while he struggled to get his footing and not be pulled under the ice by the current, as shallow as it was. He got back up, but he was soaked. It was a scare, but he insisted he was fine and we continued on, off the stream :)  It wasn't too cold so he was able to keep warm until we got back to the car for him to dry a bit and change.

 

4. One final one that could have gone south really quick if we weren't prepared - my first 5/5 I went with some non-cacher friends to find the final in a desert. We took lots of water, with a city car, and I was the only one with a GPS.  This was when smartphones were still relatively new to geocaching.  The cache required travesing 20-25 minutes through an underground cave (which once or twice a year can be affected by earthquakes) and another 100m+ hike over July desert to the container, without losing the cave entrance. We were prepped for desert and lack of mobile signal, but we didn't have any backup plans so if something went wrong, there could have been big problems!

 

Learned a lot over the years :)

 

Great thread idea, btw!

Edited by thebruce0
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Okay for me was both in the same day. 

 

1. Since I got home a little early from work so I headed straight for a cache in old Katy. I've been eyeballing this one for a while now. I looked in google maps and there looked like a trail by a residential neighborhood so I thought it would take 30 minutes tops. It had been raining and I walked towards the entrance but there was no trail. It was all 2-3 foot tall grass the entire way. I didn't have any weapons or water on me but I decided to go for the cache anyways. This was going to be extra difficult since I am a member and this is a Premium cache but the size of the cache was fairly large so I thought I can find it.

 

I went in and the mosquitoes started like a cloud around me. I had mosquito repellent which I had 3/4 left and I wound up using the entire bottle on this cache (still got bitten all over my legs). So I slowly make my way to the cache and I see the map and I am standing right on it. I looked around for 20 minutes or so, picking up random objects and nothing. Its 7pm already in the middle of the woods, still day light out but I decided I needed to leave. After encountering a small snake I realized I was closer to the neighborhood if I went straight north instead of taking the long path back. I am slowly trecking over tall grass and spider webs and when I finally get to within 100 feet from a house. There are these 7-foot tall spiny bushes that seem like they go on for another 50 feet forward. For a moment I thought I could die here after not finding my way out. By now I was 2x as far as the entrance I came in from and its 7:20pm and I could feel a couple of rain drops on top of that. 

 

I decided to stay near the edge and find an area where the spiny bushes end. Indeed about 50 feet away I found the only area without this obstacle. I did have to cross a small embankment that was filled with water that went sideways as far as I could see. I tested the waters with a tree limb I broke off and found out it was only a couple of inches deep, and I stirred the water to scare anything that might of been there. I went through it with no problem but getting my socks dripping wet. I had to step a little more tall grass and found my way to the neighborhood. As I was 100 feet from my car it started to rain extremely hard. Phew I made it! But no cache :(

 

 

 

2. That same day it had stopped raining and still daylight out I decided to go to a cemetery cache right near that area. I had no idea where the cache was, I had to go by the clues of pictures people posted. I brought my backpack and careful not to disturb others, there were 2 other cars there. I walked around slowly trying to find a very specific tombstone to get the cache. Unfortunately, there were about 30 with the same design as that one so it was taking longer than normal. The sun creeped down and as I walked I almost ran into a lady that had been there (I could only see clearly about 15 feet in front of me, the humidity fogged my glasses). I decided to walk to the edge of the cemetery to take a break. By now I was the only person there. I decided to get my flashlight out of my backpack. I could not find it. By now it was night time, I didn't know where my car was, and had no flashlight. I saw a road in the distance so I walked through the middle walking by countless tombstones (some had fresh dirt still on them). I thought I saw something in the distance. Then I hear a couple of piano notes playing a scary tune. I am like heck no I walk to the edge again. I am walking on this little trail in the rear of the cemetery and of course hear the sounds of screaming goats, which maybe was possible. 

I finally decide to just use the flashlight on my phone and I walked through the middle of it, in nearly pitch black out. Finally see my car parked and I get in. The road was too narrow to turn around so I had to drive to the back of the cemetery and make a 3 point turn. Of course from the rain has turned the dirt a bit muddy when I turned around and accelerated my car didn't move..but the second time my car went forward and I had was so glad to just get out of there! No cache again :(

 

 

 

 

 

PS this is what the screaming goats sounded like 

 

 

Also this is what the piano sounded like in the middle of the cemetery.

 

Edited by Gabeman26
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And I thought the big spider and tail end of some snake going into hiding were bad from today! Looking at a spider identification chart, it could have been a brown recluse or Black Widow, had that shape, maybe three-four inches long -- total length, not just the body.

Edited by Jayeffel
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I'd have to say a cache in Washington Heights, Manhattan, NYC.  Seemed a nice street to park on, except for someone seeming to be selling drugs from his vehicle.  Found the cache, and headed back.  Seemed to be a vehicle checking out the cachemobile.  We ran towards it, and the vehicle drove away.  Glad it didn't take us longer to find the cache!  

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Driving through snow, ice and strong winds in Iceland (I was caching as I went, at least where the cache wasn't buried under snow) in sub zero (C) conditions when I have never driven in such conditions before. The wind on a hill top almost blew the car off the road - my car suddenly went sideways across the road, but luckily I managed to correct and drive on...but slower and I changed down a gear. That was so scary for someone who does not live where it snows (or not very often). My adrenaline must have been flowing.

 

Snakes: 1. Stepping over a fence and missing by mere centimetres stepping on a snake. The snake pulled its tail away just a fraction of a second before I placed my foot down.

2. Hearing something hit the mesh fence beside me. A snake had struck, but the fence protected me. I moved onto the next cache. A DNF! That cache guardian was too protective.

I've had other snake encounters, such as snakes crossing in front, but those two were the closest. Australia has some of the most venomous snakes in the world. I think the one that tried to bite might have been number three on the list, but I didn't get as good of a look as I might, as I was out of there :o.

 

Spiders: Since taking up geocaching, my spider fears have dropped away. There are almost always spiders, so sort of got used to them. Now I get up close and photograph them rather then be scared. For those that are scared of spiders, try this. It makes them more interesting than scary.

Spiders.jpg

Spider guardian.jpg

Wolf spider.jpg

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3 hours ago, Jayeffel said:

And I thought the big spider and tail end of some snake going into hiding were bad from today! Looking at a spider identification chart, it could have been a brown recluse or Black Widow, had that shape, maybe three-four inches long -- total length, not just the body.

 

If it was more than a half inch, it's wasn't a brown recluse.   :) 

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24 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

 

If it was more than a half inch, it's wasn't a brown recluse.   :) 

 

When we first moved to Oklahoma, I saw something "fly" over my daughter's crib; we put it in a jar and called the exterminator. He said our house was infested with brown recluse, and the one we captured to show him was the biggest he had ever seen. We KNOW how to recognize those! 

 

6 hours ago, Gabeman26 said:

Okay for me was both in the same day. 

 

1. Since I got home a little early from work so I headed straight for a cache in old Katy. I've been eyeballing this one for a while now. I looked in google maps and there looked like a trail by a residential neighborhood so I thought it would take 30 minutes tops. It had been raining and I walked towards the entrance but there was no trail. It was all 2-3 foot tall grass the entire way. I didn't have any weapons or water on me but I decided to go for the cache anyways. This was going to be extra difficult since I am a member and this is a Premium cache but the size of the cache was fairly large so I thought I can find it.

 

I went in and the mosquitoes started like a cloud around me. I had mosquito repellent which I had 3/4 left and I wound up using the entire bottle on this cache (still got bitten all over my legs). So I slowly make my way to the cache and I see the map and I am standing right on it. I looked around for 20 minutes or so, picking up random objects and nothing. Its 7pm already in the middle of the woods, still day light out but I decided I needed to leave. After encountering a small snake I realized I was closer to the neighborhood if I went straight north instead of taking the long path back. I am slowly trecking over tall grass and spider webs and when I finally get to within 100 feet from a house. There are these 7-foot tall spiny bushes that seem like they go on for another 50 feet forward. For a moment I thought I could die here after not finding my way out. By now I was 2x as far as the entrance I came in from and its 7:20pm and I could feel a couple of rain drops on top of that. 

 

I decided to stay near the edge and find an area where the spiny bushes end. Indeed about 50 feet away I found the only area without this obstacle. I did have to cross a small embankment that was filled with water that went sideways as far as I could see. I tested the waters with a tree limb I broke off and found out it was only a couple of inches deep, and I stirred the water to scare anything that might of been there. I went through it with no problem but getting my socks dripping wet. I had to step a little more tall grass and found my way to the neighborhood. As I was 100 feet from my car it started to rain extremely hard. Phew I made it! But no cache :(

 

 

2. That same day it had stopped raining and still daylight out I decided to go to a cemetery cache right near that area. I had no idea where the cache was, I had to go by the clues of pictures people posted. I brought my backpack and careful not to disturb others, there were 2 other cars there. I walked around slowly trying to find a very specific tombstone to get the cache. Unfortunately, there were about 30 with the same design as that one so it was taking longer than normal. The sun creeped down and as I walked I almost ran into a lady that had been there (I could only see clearly about 15 feet in front of me, the humidity fogged my glasses). I decided to walk to the edge of the cemetery to take a break. By now I was the only person there. I decided to get my flashlight out of my backpack. I could not find it. By now it was night time, I didn't know where my car was, and had no flashlight. I saw a road in the distance so I walked through the middle walking by countless tombstones (some had fresh dirt still on them). I thought I saw something in the distance. Then I hear a couple of piano notes playing a scary tune. I am like heck no I walk to the edge again. I am walking on this little trail in the rear of the cemetery and of course hear the sounds of screaming goats, which maybe was possible. 

I finally decide to just use the flashlight on my phone and I walked through the middle of it, in nearly pitch black out. Finally see my car parked and I get in. The road was too narrow to turn around so I had to drive to the back of the cemetery and make a 3 point turn. Of course from the rain has turned the dirt a bit muddy when I turned around and accelerated my car didn't move..but the second time my car went forward and I had was so glad to just get out of there! No cache again :(

 

 

 

 

I love visiting cemeteries, but NOT under the conditions you describe. That would creep me out!

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Seeing this sent a shiver through me. I'm standing on top of a mountain, and there's lightning down below. Peril. I raced down the mountain in record time!  (I'd climbed up the nice-weather side, then uh-oh.)

92176c8d-6fd7-4491-973b-3a0d350d3420.jpg

I added the lightning bolt to the picture, but it's exactly what I saw; just didn't have the camera ready at that moment. That's Canmore, getting the first wave of the epic 2013 storm that did colossal flood damage two days later.

 

Similar experience on another mountain nearby. Wrapped in thick cloud, freshly-logged cache nearby, snow pellets falling peacefully (this is summer). I could've taken it in for a while. Then a flash and instant BANG, eyes get big, I'm outta here!   Don't want to be inside a lightning cloud!

 

Aaand same idea, this time on a flat-flat dry lake bed (I have a cache here, yes in the middle of nothing), and again a lightning storm is coming. I'm the tallest thing for miles around.  I lucked out; it and I went in slightly different directions.

f2f541c2-5350-4dc7-a78a-8b3e9726c709.jpg

 

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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I was part way up a big gum tree (eucalyptus) when suddenly a flash and a huge boom overhead. I muttered something, shoved the cache back in its hide and was down that tree as fast as could go. I needed to return the next day to make sure the cache had been returned properly, as it was more of a chuck the cache at its hollow in my rush to flee.

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Kayaking in Florida  I've had scary gator encounters.  Working up a small stream to a take out to start on a multi-cache , thought I was hearing an airboat and a motor boat up ahead (I'd even identified the motor as an Evinrude with starting problem, D'oh) . Surprised as it was a long way from any motorboat accessible ramp. 

 

I came around a bend and there were two large gators engaged in a fight, very loud, very violent.  I got my small rec boat turned about 180° in one stoke, made speed downstream. Yet, I did take out on the stream and i did find the cache ;-) - I waypointed the heck out of the boat, I did not want to be floundering around on that bank, hunting kayak.

Tore a muscle attachment on my scapula that day. Bothered me for years.

 

Another time, pushed up a small side stream off the beautiful Chassahowitzka River, looking for any kind of semi-firm ground as a take out, when a gator came along side the boat and did a large tail slap. I realized that the mound ahead that I'd thought might be a take out was a nest. 

 

I've since learned that females only defend eggs and babies when they peep.  It's the sound that triggers defense. There are people with license to remove eggs from gator nests, and they'll approach, turn off motor  and listen for peeping. No peeping, mom won't defend. 

 

Hearing peepers, I've moved off smartly a number of times.  I've even logged walked, rather than wade, in the presence of peepers.  Generally,  I'm more comfortable wet then relying on my balance; swamp logs are often slippery and rotted. 

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9 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

If it was more than a half inch

Thanks for info, not sure I ever heard how big they were, guess it's good they are that small! It ispossible it wasn't a black widow either, don't recall seeing any marking, since was right where I wanted to place my hand it somehow got motivated to move by a small twig, don't know where it decided to land. By my iPhone directions it looked like the cache was behind a boundary line with a No Trespassing sign on it. By the map on the cache page it looks that way also, but since there are many wonderful spots in the area I just don't know. May have to do more  checking.

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8 hours ago, Viajero Perdido said:

Seeing this sent a shiver through me. I'm standing on top of a mountain, and there's lightning down below. Peril. I raced down the mountain in record time!  (I'd climbed up the nice-weather side, then uh-oh.)

 

 

 

I was in downtown Singapore walking around the harbor areas, finding a couple of caches, and just seeing the sights.    The sky was overcast but didn't look a storm was coming though I heard a couple of rumbles off in the distance.   I was walking up some cement stairs, when I heard a crack and one of the loudest thunder booms I've ever heard.  I have no idea how close it was as it seemed to be behind me but it came out of nowhere.  I heard a couple more rumbles but nothing anywhere close to that one lightning strike.  

 

 

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4 hours ago, Jayeffel said:

Thanks for info, not sure I ever heard how big they were, guess it's good they are that small! It ispossible it wasn't a black widow either, don't recall seeing any marking, since was right where I wanted to place my hand it somehow got motivated to move by a small twig, don't know where it decided to land.

 

Said something here about it years ago, IIRC.   :)

Got bit in the thigh by a brown recluse in a beach outhouse when I was a kid (in NJ).

I thought no big deal, but got to look at his dead carcass before going home.  Supposedly didn't go that far north.

Next day the dead skin got my parents freaking, and luckily knew what I saw when talking to the doctor. 

 - They said it was the most common "complaint" for bites, but few actually were recluse.

Two inch gross hole in the thigh that took months to heal, and sick for weeks.

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1) My whole story is in one of the GPS books, but short version, my wife and I went after a cache after dark. We were approached by a guy saying he needed money to fill up his gas tanks of his trucks. We said we'd go get him some gas because we didn't have cash. He tried to get us over to his 2 trucks to prove to us his gauges were on E. We finally left and found the closest police station. When we told them what had happened, they jumped up and ran out the door. Turned out there had been a recent rash of robberies where people were lured to trucks, knocked out, robbed, and then released later.

 

2) My 12-13 year old daughter was climbing a tree. She decided not to use ropes because it was such an "easy" climb. She fell 15 feet and landed on the back of her neck. She crushed 1 vertebrae and fractured 3 others. She had to lie motionless in the hospital for a week while they decided how they were going to repair it. She had to get a halo and did recover a number of months later. 

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I had a few scary moments...

 

1. Lightning. On several occasions, I somewhat underestimated the speed of an approaching thunderstorm, and ended up making a hurried escape towards the car. At one time, it was particularly close. I was doing a night cache in a large urban park (mostly a wooded area). It was rumbling in the distance from the beginning, and by the time I had reached the last stage before the final, the thunderstorm was only a few km away (judged with the usual timing between lightning and thunder). The cache stage had a tricky field puzzle, and I couldn't figure it out immediately. I tried this and that, while the wind was getting stronger and the first drops of rain began to fall. I decided to get back to the car, and think about the field puzzle there. But within less than a minute, the few drops of rain became a solid rain, and I began to jog, and then run when the rain increased to a downpour. And about 200m from the car, a flash of lightning struck in front of me, immediately followed by the extremely loud bang. Must have been 50m away or so, but at that moment I was scared to death and really sprinted to the car as fast as I could. Never been so happy, when I was finally sitting in my own Faraday cage, protected by Maxwell's laws.

 

2. Dogs at night. Sometimes, I'm caching in urban parks or small woods near the town after dark. Also, people walk their dogs in the evening. Normally no problem at all. But sometimes, the dogs are not on a leash and react aggressive to moving lights (my flashlight) in the dark. Three or four times, I was very scared when I heard barking or growling coming closer, I could barely make out the dog, and no dog owner anywhere in sight. I always shout out aloud something like "Hello?! Anybody there? Please call back your dog!". And when the owner calls, but the dog is completely unimpressed and continues towards me ... well, there were moments when I only thought "Screw my legs and arms, but don't get the beast on my neck or face". In the end, I have never been bitten so far (only yelled at by the dog owner, why I was walking with a flashlight), but still ... dogs at night creep me out.

 

3. Spiders. This doesn't fit the subject of "scary" in the sense of "fearing to die". In my area (Bavaria), there are no spiders which are actually dangerous to humans. But I suffer from arachnophobia, and more than a few of them in one place completely creep me out. I once entered a small tunnel, and while there were a few spiders around near the entrance, I thought I could make it. But the "spider density" slowly increased and from one moment to the next, a sort of panic attack hit me. Rationally, I knew that the spiders were totally harmless, and I tried to tell this to myself. But it didn't help, I just had to get out of this tunnel as fast as possible. I even felt slight nausea coming. So I ran out of the tunnel like a bat out of hell, all the while cursing my own mis-wired brain.

 

 

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I live a fairly safe existence.   So far I've been able to keep my kayak stable but my wife capsized hers when she reached out to grab a cache container that had fallen from the end of my 20 foot pole.   The waters were calm and I got her into the kayak (and eventually the container back in place) but the domestic ramifications were scary.   I was glad I was carrying a hand pump.

 

Other than that, there have been brief moments.   I was coming back down after finding a cache near the top of Huayana Picchu when rains came in sooner than expected.   I slipped on a steep rocky trail -- my hiking stick prevented me from falling.  I paused to look down as the chasm where I would have otherwise been heading and realized the trip might have had a different ending. 

 

Then I was bushwhacking with friends in search of a series of caches in a very remote overgrown location, on a hike that had already taken its toll, before we even had to climb out of the canyon.  I ended up with a piece of wood in my eye.   Missed something more serious by that much, but my initial thought was more dramatic.

 

Sometimes its just that initial thought.  I was biking slowly uphill, after finding a cache, when a wild turkey came directly for my head.  It surprised me and I went over the handlebars when the turkey declared victory and turned back.   But there was that moment, when things seemed like they were in slow motion, where I wondered what was coming.   My cut and scraped face looked worse than it was.  

 

I had a similar thought when a tree branch broke beneath me when I was climbing in search of a cache.   

 

But by and large, caching has been pretty safe.  Even property owners have been nice when I have looked for caches that turned out to be on their property without permission.  

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3 hours ago, baer2006 said:

I had a few scary moments...

 

1. Lightning. On several occasions, I somewhat underestimated the speed of an approaching thunderstorm, and ended up making a hurried escape towards the car. At one time, it was particularly close. I was doing a night cache in a large urban park (mostly a wooded area). It was rumbling in the distance from the beginning, and by the time I had reached the last stage before the final, the thunderstorm was only a few km away (judged with the usual timing between lightning and thunder). The cache stage had a tricky field puzzle, and I couldn't figure it out immediately. I tried this and that, while the wind was getting stronger and the first drops of rain began to fall. I decided to get back to the car, and think about the field puzzle there. But within less than a minute, the few drops of rain became a solid rain, and I began to jog, and then run when the rain increased to a downpour. And about 200m from the car, a flash of lightning struck in front of me, immediately followed by the extremely loud bang. Must have been 50m away or so, but at that moment I was scared to death and really sprinted to the car as fast as I could. Never been so happy, when I was finally sitting in my own Faraday cage, protected by Maxwell's laws.

 

2. Dogs at night. Sometimes, I'm caching in urban parks or small woods near the town after dark. Also, people walk their dogs in the evening. Normally no problem at all. But sometimes, the dogs are not on a leash and react aggressive to moving lights (my flashlight) in the dark. Three or four times, I was very scared when I heard barking or growling coming closer, I could barely make out the dog, and no dog owner anywhere in sight. I always shout out aloud something like "Hello?! Anybody there? Please call back your dog!". And when the owner calls, but the dog is completely unimpressed and continues towards me ... well, there were moments when I only thought "Screw my legs and arms, but don't get the beast on my neck or face". In the end, I have never been bitten so far (only yelled at by the dog owner, why I was walking with a flashlight), but still ... dogs at night creep me out.

 

3. Spiders. This doesn't fit the subject of "scary" in the sense of "fearing to die". In my area (Bavaria), there are no spiders which are actually dangerous to humans. But I suffer from arachnophobia, and more than a few of them in one place completely creep me out. I once entered a small tunnel, and while there were a few spiders around near the entrance, I thought I could make it. But the "spider density" slowly increased and from one moment to the next, a sort of panic attack hit me. Rationally, I knew that the spiders were totally harmless, and I tried to tell this to myself. But it didn't help, I just had to get out of this tunnel as fast as possible. I even felt slight nausea coming. So I ran out of the tunnel like a bat out of hell, all the while cursing my own mis-wired brain.

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the photographs for GCKQ73.  Some spiders. I completed this multi in a group. Three tunnels; the first over a km long.

Edited by Goldenwattle
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This was my log.

 

"I didn't find this cache, except for soda and glass bottles. I noticed the last cacher said they moved it to better cover. So l decided to turn over the small dead trees lying on the ground, when a swarm of bees surrounded me and I went running and got back to the playground, but not before getting about 10 bee stings on my head, arms, and legs. Not sure what can be done so others don't have the same encounter. Maybe the CO can check the cache and make sure it's not around dead trees on the ground or provide a hint to narrow a search?"

Edited by paticpatic
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1 minute ago, paticpatic said:

This was my log.

 

"I didn't find this cache, except for soda and glass bottles. I noticed the last cacher said they moved it to better cover. So l decided to turn over the small dead trees lying on the ground, when a swarm of bees surrounded me and I went running and got back to the playground, but not before getting about 10 bee stings on my head, arms, and legs. Not sure what can be done so others don't have the same encounter. Maybe the CO can check the cache and make sure it's not around dead trees on the ground or provide a hint to narrow a search?"

OUCH!!

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I'm not a big risk taker.   But I can think of a few cases where I was a bit scared or concerned:

 

1.   Old bridge remains:     Out with friends on a trail.   Got to this remains of an old railway bridge, with long drop below.   Needed to walk on a narrow section and not fall off.   And I'm afraid of heights.    My friends talked me through it; the alternative was several extra miles of walking.   

 

2.  Tree Climb:   I generally avoid these, given my age and abilities.   But there was one which was a stage of a multi that I really wanted to get.  I was alone.   I reached the stage (about 50 foot up), but struggled to get down.   Eventually did get down in one piece, but ripped my jeans to shreds and got a scare.   Ironically, a friend of mine hurt himself quite badly on this same tree (at a different time).   

 

3.  Cave/Quarry:   I've done several of these now, and always with more experienced people, so not really scary.   Though I recall being a bit stuck in a hole on the first one I did and feeling panic.. until one of my friends gave me a good push and I got through.

 

4.  Alone in the desert:    Caching alone in the desert in Qatar.    Not recommended to do that alone as there are risks (the worst is getting stuck in quicksand like sand).    I couldn't find anyone to go with me, so I took some precautions; going in a section where the soft sand wasn't an issue.   Biggest risk was vehicle breakdown (I rented a 4 wheel drive),  especially punctured tires as rough rocks and completely off road.   I took enough water and snacks to survive for several days, and had phone numbers of locals in case I had trouble.   I didn't have any trouble, but I was feeling somewhat scared the whole time.  

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The two scariest things I've had happen were on my own caches. The first was when placing one at a beautiful spot I'd found that requires quite some bush-bashing and rock-hopping through thick scrub to reach. In the course of rock-hopping, I steppped onto a large boulder that had probably been sitting peacefully where it was for millions of years, only for it to decide at that moment it really wanted to be at the bottom of the hill instead of the top. Luckily I was able to leap back off as it slid out from under me, suffering only a substantial graze on my shin as it brushed it on the way past.

 

The second involved a water-access cache I was checking on. There'd been heavy rain in the days leading up to this, but that day was fine and sunny. I have some memories of driving out to the kayak launch point and paddling around the bay towards GZ, perhaps of even extracting the cache from its hiding place to photograph although that's pretty hazy. The next thing I remember is cooking dinner that evening and slowly realising I had no memory of what I'd been doing all day. From the photos I'd downloaded from my phone onto the PC (without remembering I'd done that), I figured out where I'd been and, sure enough, the kayak stacked up in the garage was still wet from when I'd hosed it down. The board shorts I'd been wearing had a large slimy stain on the back, suggesting I must have slipped at some point on the wet and mossy rocks and banged my head, although there was no sign of a head injury and the CT scan at the hospital was clear. I'd been wearing a hat, though, so that might have cushioned the blow enough to prevent any obvious contusions or lumps. Whatever happened, I somehow managed to paddle back to the car, strap the kayak on the roof, drive home, wash it down and stack it away, but from the timestamp on my photos from GZ (about 11:45 am), that process somehow took the entire afternoon. It gives me goosebumps just writing that. Suffice to say, that cache now has a new hiding place away from slippery rocks.

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39 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

The two scariest things I've had happen were on my own caches. The first was when placing one at a beautiful spot I'd found that requires quite some bush-bashing and rock-hopping through thick scrub to reach. In the course of rock-hopping, I steppped onto a large boulder that had probably been sitting peacefully where it was for millions of years, only for it to decide at that moment it really wanted to be at the bottom of the hill instead of the top. Luckily I was able to leap back off as it slid out from under me, suffering only a substantial graze on my shin as it brushed it on the way past.

 

The second involved a water-access cache I was checking on. There'd been heavy rain in the days leading up to this, but that day was fine and sunny. I have some memories of driving out to the kayak launch point and paddling around the bay towards GZ, perhaps of even extracting the cache from its hiding place to photograph although that's pretty hazy. The next thing I remember is cooking dinner that evening and slowly realising I had no memory of what I'd been doing all day. From the photos I'd downloaded from my phone onto the PC (without remembering I'd done that), I figured out where I'd been and, sure enough, the kayak stacked up in the garage was still wet from when I'd hosed it down. The board shorts I'd been wearing had a large slimy stain on the back, suggesting I must have slipped at some point on the wet and mossy rocks and banged my head, although there was no sign of a head injury and the CT scan at the hospital was clear. I'd been wearing a hat, though, so that might have cushioned the blow enough to prevent any obvious contusions or lumps. Whatever happened, I somehow managed to paddle back to the car, strap the kayak on the roof, drive home, wash it down and stack it away, but from the timestamp on my photos from GZ (about 11:45 am), that process somehow took the entire afternoon. It gives me goosebumps just writing that. Suffice to say, that cache now has a new hiding place away from slippery rocks.

That is scary...and a mystery, especially without a lump on the head.

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3 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

It gives me goosebumps just writing that. Suffice to say, that cache now has a new hiding place away from slippery rocks.

That's fascinting... I think it'd be scarier if you found out you did things but had no idea why, or things you wouldn't do in your right mind now. But at least it looks like you were thinking clearly like yourself in order to do all that stuff and get you home to cooking dinner. :o

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Some of my scariest moments only ended up being scary when I thought about them later.  Almost all of them involve being in situations that could have ended with me being trapped, injured or dead with nobody knowing my whereabouts.  

Examples:

1. a storm sewer that involved climbing down an old ladder and on the way up I almost lost my grip and slammed my head against the wall about 6 to 8 feet from the bottom.

2. a stumble while walking down a steep hillside in a forest...and the realization that if I hadn't corrected my footing, I would have impaled myself on a small broken tree trunk that had splintered into a long, two-foot spike.  I ended up breaking it down flat with a few hard kicks.

3. reaching for a nano on a sign post the instant a huge truck swerved in my direction to avoid another car turning left...passing about two feet from my face.

 

Item 1 above is the primary reason I will never ever do another storm sewer/culvert cache.  Not only are they generally bad caches, they have the potential for being incredibly dangerous.

Item 2 above is always in my mind now when I'm wandering in the woods, trail or no trail.  

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22 minutes ago, J Grouchy said:

...a stumble while walking down a steep hillside in a forest...and the realization that if I hadn't corrected my footing, I would have impaled myself on a small broken tree trunk that had splintered into a long, two-foot spike.  I ended up breaking it down flat with a few hard kicks.

Been there, done that, have the scar on my shin from impaling myself on a sharp stick on a fallen tree trunk while traversing a hillside.  This was our first hunt for a difficulty 5 cache way back in 2002.  Seeing me bleeding profusely, my (then) 8 year old daughter asked "does this mean we can't find the cache?"  -- NOT "are you OK?"

 

I laughed so hard at her reaction that I decided we had to keep looking for the cache, which we found about 20 minutes later.  A fake rock on a hillside full of rocks and downed trees - whew!

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Maybe not scary, just high anxiety.  The place was the East Ohio Street Corridor Walking Trail in Pittsburgh, but “street” is an anachronism for “four lane highway,” and “trail” is wishful thinking for “sidewalk”.  The trail begins several feet above the highway and separated by a 4-foot high railing but then descends to the road elevation, narrows to about 3 feet wide, and is separated from the road by a standard Jersey barrier with no shoulder.  While signing a log at the third or fourth cache, it dawned on me that cars and trucks are whizzing by at 50 to 60 miles per hour, that there are hubcaps, trim, and other car parts on the trail, and that this portion of the highway was once known as the “Death Stretch”.

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On 7/14/2018 at 1:25 AM, Gabeman26 said:

http://whatliesbeyond.boards.net/thread/191/most-haunted-texas

 

Magnolia Cemetery is listed as one of the most haunted places in Texas :o

 

That's where I got lost.

 

So, did you ever find out what the piano music was????  I would have passed out on the spot!

 

My only scary moment was today (I am easily startled). I wanted to really check out this location before saying it needed maintenance, so I was deep in my own thoughts, picking through an area with a stick. 3 big dogs came running across the open, grassy area right up to me. Since I wasn't prepared for it, I screamed. And, then felt really stupid, as they were nice dogs. 

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On 14/07/2018 at 4:25 PM, Gabeman26 said:

Magnolia Cemetery is listed as one of the most haunted places in Texas :o

 

That reminds me of something scary that happened a few months back. This is goosebumps type scary, not dangerous scary. A group of us were doing a night cemetery cache, arriving there just on dusk. While we were standing around chatting in the car park, I happened to notice that one of the graves appeared to be glowing. At first I thought I was imagining it, or it was some trick of the light, but it became more and more apparent as everything darkened. Spirit lights? Ectoplasm? Nup, just solar powered LED garden lamps placed around the grave. I have no idea why, except, well, maybe the grave's occupant was scared of the dark.

 

Anyway, that scary moment gave me an idea for a bit of fun when I was posting our group photo in my log. Is something lurking in the shadows?

 

DSC_0293PlusFriendSmall.jpg.b032dfc42639a659ca88e726b6a12688.jpg

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