camping trip gone wrong

31 True Stories Of Deeply Disturbing Camping And Hiking Trips Gone Terrifyingly Wrong

1. the hanged man.

Hiking the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania for a week in…2006 and my brother and I came across a young man who had hung himself. We sprinted up to the bluff where he was strung up. I wrapped my arms around his waist to take weight off his neck while my brother cut him down with his Leatherman. He had thrown the rope up over a tall branch and lashed it off with a clove hitch at the trunk like you’d hang a bear-bag. Must’ve climbed the branches and dropped once laced in. We probably shouldn’t have even tried, he was dead for sometime before we happened across him. Fortunately no critters had come to tear him apart before we found him, it would’ve only gotten grislier from there. Called 911. Ended our trip pretty damn quick. I don’t know why we tried, it was very obvious he had been dead for some time. Don’t know how long, he was very cold and smelled pretty bad. Intuition to help someone and adrenaline that clouds your judgement I guess? It was kind of a fucked up day so I don’t really remember my thought process.

2. The Man In The Black Coat

When out exploring an old abandoned quarry with some friends we found this dude stood staring at this rock, occasionally twitching, but he never turned around. We were pretty creeped out so didn’t investigate, and left pretty soon after. Later on that night we found out that another friend was driving down the lane that runs parallel to the quarry found a guy in a black coat stood in the middle of the road, and wouldn’t move. She was pretty freaked out and had to reverse all the way back up the lane in the dark because he was still there. Pretty sure it was the same guy, otherwise it was just a big coincidence.

3. The Altars Of A Serial Killer

Bushwalking in NSW (Australia) me and my friend came across this weird platform looking thing made out of rocks. Later that year the cops arrested some bloke on suspicion of the murders of a series of backpackers who had gone missing over the course of a few years, and at the sites of several of the murders slightly off in the bush were these ‘altars’. Current affairs show runs footage of one (the trial and run up to it were all over the news) and yeah it’s that thing we found. The ‘altars’ were typically no more than 300 yards from the victim’s shallow graves. The guy who was arrested and subsequently convicted for the murders is Ivan Milat, Australia’s worst serial killer. The cops are pretty sure that at least one other person was involved in the murders than the one now in jail for the crime, they just couldn’t prove it.

4. Abandoned Trailers, Dead Junkies, And Ghost Towns 

I’ve spent various stretches of time backpacking and camping throughout the US and seen some strange things. My brother and I came across an abandoned trailer town, of sorts, that scared the hell out of us. We also came across a rundown town (really, really small) out in New Mexico that seemed to have one person living in it. We based that on the fact that there was still some food and supplies there that were fairly fresh (perhaps just a few days old). Spent a couple days there trying to find the person, just to find out why they were staying in the town. Never found a person. We found the skeletal remains of an unknown number of deer (ranging from bucks to fawn) ensnared in a barbed-wire fence that encompassed a 10×10 area in the Ozarks. A few of the skulls topped the fence posts, and there was one post in the middle of this area that had decaying deer bodies (looked to be two, but there were only 6 hooves jutting out of the wreckage) wrapped around it. We found a dummy hanging from a tree while in the Yukon territory of Canada. Literally out in the middle of the woods. No reason for it, as far as we know. And we also came across a dead junkie on a road out of Olympia. Obvious OD, as he had his arm tied and a needle in hand. Eyes were glazed over and staring straight ahead, mouth slightly ajar.

5. The Cave And The Candle

Took my young children to a cave not far from the house. Popular spot, but we had the place to ourselves. You can walk through it in about 30 minutes without too much difficulty. It has a tiny exit at the opposite end. It was pretty muddy, so we decided to turn around and head back to the entrance. Halfway back, there was a lit candle sitting about eight feet up one side. It was definitely not there on the first trip. I went into full-on protective-dad-mode knowing there was likely someone hiding in the dark while we walked the rest of the way out.

6. The Circle In The Ground

I was backpacking in New Hampshire and camped out for the night after a day hike. I wondered off from our fire to go take a piss and stumbled upon a circle etched into the ground with tuning forks surrounding the circle standing up straight…It looked like a creepy ritual circle and it bugged me out so I booked it back to the group.

7. Something Bizarre 

I was backpacking in Yellow Stone above the tree line at about 10,500 feet. We are hiking on a ridge above a lake when all the sudden we come across a horse skull. No body just the skull, pretty cool looking. We get to our campsite not to far away from the lake near where we found the horse skull. When we get climb down to the lake we find the body of the horse rotting on the edge of the lake with with negative film strips floating in the water and laying around the shore near the body.

8. A Severed Bull’s Head

I wasn’t hiking at the time, but when wandering in the woods one day in high school some of us found a severed bull’s head tied to a tree by the horns. It was about 5 or 6 feet off the ground. It looked like it had been there a few days. I have no idea why someone would do something like this.

9. The Man In The Blue Jacket

Over the years when I have told this story, many people haven’t believed me, but it’s true as the sky is blue. Me and my brother were hiking out in our new backwoods (we had just moved in to a new house) and we stumbled upon a small open grass field. In the center of it, there was a person with a blue jacket crouched over. We thought it was a friend of ours that we had recently met, so I ran out to meet. I did not have my glasses on, but I got pretty close enough to see that it was a grown man leaned over the carcass of a deer, stabbing it with an unsharpened stick. He looked up, and saw me. I was pretty freaked out, so I turned around and yelled at my brother to run, and so we started to sprint as fast as we could back home.

10. A Cage In The Mountains

A cage. Not like a trapping cage or anything but something that could easily hold 5-10 average sized people. I was hiking in the mountains just above the house i lived in, at the time, in Missoula, Mt. Took maybe 45 minutes of walking, mostly uphill and without a path, to get to the spot. Round steel bars for the edges and rope instead of chain link for the walls and ceiling. It was all set up just on the far side of the ridgeline I was walking, so it couldn’t be seen I suppose. Nothing around it, no foot prints or tire tracks or anything. The rope looked undamaged as well. No idea what it was for but it definitely creeped me the fuck out.

11. A Homeless Man’s Diary

I once found the diary of a homeless person. In it he wrote over and over again about how his 3rd grade teacher was the only person to matter to him. The guy’s bad writing made it even weirder. I found the homeless person’s things in a secluded den in a park which look like he has been there for a while. He left his bag there and several empty cans. I left the journal there as it would have been wrong to take something not mine. But there was no way I wanted to meet this person based off of the writing.

12. “We Had Seen These People Climbing Not Two Hours Before”

Last year I was with a buddy of mine and we were going to do the Heart Creek scramble in Alberta, but due to some health conditions he has it was going too strenuous to complete and we figured we’d make it an easy day and just do the simple trail. Now we’re both climbers and have been to Heart Creek for rock climbing in the past and had a great time so it wasn’t a surprise to see the sporadic climbers on the mountainside as we went. Heart Creek is also pretty popular and easy for people who just want to go for a nice nature walk and maybe have picnic. Anyway, so we walked in, enjoying the day watching climbers on our way by. We saw a couple even doing some multi-pitch climbing which means basically leap-frogging up the route. We settled in for lunch about a half hour later and left a couple hours after that. On our way back I remember seeing a climbing shoe in the creek and thinking “Oh! Someone must have lost this!” I picked it up when my buddy got my attention and I looked further downstream. Both climbers, a young man (29, or so, I learned later) and his partner were both lying the creek bed, rope and harnesses still attached, dead. It was very surreal, we had seen these people climbing not two hours before, making their calls, having a good time. The first reaction I had was that I remembered that there was a family right behind us, a husband and wife with a young daughter who were playing in the creek on the way down. We ran back and stopped them and explained as quietly as we could what was ahead and before we knew it, looky-loo’s had come by. It turned out that the husband was an off duty RCMP officer and so he took control of the situation. I learned later we weren’t the first on scene and that the authorities had been called. It was a very quiet ride back into town that day though.

13.  Someone Watching The Campsite In The Dead Of Night

I work in the outdoor field and lead trips regularly. I once led a trip to the top of Mt. Stringer in NC. It’s a tough climb to get to the top and about 6 miles from the nearest road. I was leading a group of 8 middle school kids and had one co-instructor. We were camping out on top of the mountain and it was a beautiful night with a full moon. The kids and the other co-instructor went to bed in their tents. I chose to spend the night in a hammock that night. I was really into a book I was reading so I stayed up and read until about 10:30 pm. I turned my headlamp off to settle in for the night. Everything around me was rather bright from the moon and from the position I was in, I could see down the trail we had hiked to get to the top. I laid there enjoying the scenery and noticed something moving on the trail. Bears are common in the area so I perked up. As it got closer, I could tell it was a person. We were in the middle of nowhere and there was someone hiking up the trail with no headlamp or any gear. I was just frozen watching this person move closer to our camp. They arrived at the top of the mountain where we were and just stopped. I watched as what appeared to be a man surveyed our camp. I really could only see the outline of him. He stood there for what seemed like thirty minutes but may have been 10. He then turned, sat down under a tree facing our camp. He was sitting up in a way that I knew he wasn’t trying to sleep. He just sat there staring at our camp. I had no idea what to do. I decided to wait it out. I waited, just staring at the man while he stared at my camp. This went on until about 3:30 am. Then, he stood up, took a moment to survey my camp a few minutes longer and then went back down the trail he came up on. I, to this day have no idea what that was all about but it freaked me out. I was paranoid that we were being followed for the rest of the trip.

14. A Tragic Climbing Accident

My friends and I found a 22 year old girl, face down in the mud, both legs broken with compound fractures. She had no cell phone, no water, no food, and nothing to keep her warm. her friend was dead. A little backstory – my 2 friends and I were hiking in a pretty popular spot in our area. It’s a 150-ft waterfall that takes about 45 mins of uphill hiking to get to. We decided to go bouldering around the bottom of the waterfall, there are various little pools and boulders where the water runs off from the waterfall. This bouldering trail is not on the main trail, and not many hikers ever veer off of the main trail. When we found her, obviously we called 911 and gave her any supplies we had. Eventually a helicopter showed up and they flew her to the nearest hospital. Turns out she was hiking with her friend the NIGHT BEFORE when they both fell off of the waterfall. Her friend must have gone to get help, but unfortunately died less than 100 yards from where we found the girl. So no one knew she was hurt or that she was even there. It’s a miracle she was still alive and mind blowing to think what she had gone through when we found her 20 hours later. Before we found the hiker, we were climbing rocks in the area and taking pictures. We didn’t even know the poor girl was in the background of these photos!! look towards to right side of the frame in the background.

15. A Destroyed And Abandoned Campsite

I was once canoeing the boundary waters between Minnesota and Canada. These aren’t your normal backyard ponds. The boundary waters are thousands of enormous lakes interconnected with each other (think mini-great lakes). We had been canoeing and camping along the lakes for about a week at this point. We didn’t really have an itinerary, just planned to boat and camp, fish, and live off the land two weeks. We had a GPS and a sat phone to call a helicopter for pickup whenever we were done. Anyway, about a week in and we were set to canoe a few hours to the next lake. An hour or so in and we are in the center of a extremely long and narrow lake. Unfortunately, a storm started to blow in and the waves on the lake swelled to 2+ feet. Too much for our dinky canoes. We pull off to a random clearing on the shore and setup camp in rush to avoid being totally thrashed by a rainstorm. We just setup camp and hunker down for the night. By the next morning it had cleared up. We started walking up the coast of the lake about 200 feet from our camp looking for a good fishing spot. What we actually found was another campsite. However, it was ABSOLUTELY wrecked. Trash strewn everywhere, tent collapsed and torn, clothes on the ground. At first we were just like disgusted like what assholes did this? or left their shit out to be bear food? The more we looked around though, the weirder things seemed though. For one, their garbage was still hoisted into a tree to keep it safe from bears, but the whole bag was ripped open despite being 30 feet in the air. Second, literally everything except the canoes were still at the campsite. Clothes, packs, food, rope, pans, like a serious set of hiking equipment. Enough for 2 or 3 people. Half of it was trashed and torn open, mostly the packs, tent, and clothes. The other half was totally untouched but thrown on the ground. Like somebody NOPE’d the hell out of there in nothing but their long johns ditching hundreds of dollars of gear in the process. We waited a couple hours and eventually called it back to our helicopter crew– but they hadn’t been aware of anybody else or gotten any distress calls. We eventually just left everything and moved camp. Everybody was pretty upset by it and a day or two later we ended the whole trip early because it seemed like nobody wanted to be out anymore. It was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen. First thought was bear attack, but there was food left uneaten, and I’ve seen bear attacks on camps before, but nothing like this. Bears rip open packs and go after food, and are generally pretty easy to scare away. What still sticks with me is why all their clothes and packs were still there with half being totally destroyed and half being untouched. I still don’t get it. I’ve done a lot of other camping and hiking, rafting and biking, all around the country and I’ve never had any other weird experiences like that.

16. Someone Ate My Lunch And Drank My Beer

This happened to me back in the ’80’s, when I was in my 20’s. On occasion I would go car camping with my yellow tiger cat, Oberon. He had an overbite, drooled, had a monster purr, and was awesome in every way. He loved riding in the car. My solo camping was stupid, and I cannot recommend it, but I needed the aloneness and I needed the bravery. I would drive up roads, some BLM, some National Forest, some disused logging roads…I would not go too far, find a spot that appealed to me, pull off the road as far as I could, set up a small camp and stay for a night, or two, just reading, bird watching, painting, being with my cat…just spending time being me. One day I went up a road, and found a pretty meadow, with a small stream curving around through trees, a perfect place. The cat and I walked around a bit, checking it out. At the side of the meadow near the road was a large flat, round rock. A perfect table. I always packed good food, and I liked a bit of elegance. I set out a place mat, cloth napkin, an unopened bottle of dark beer, my sandwich, still wrapped in foil, on my plate, cookies, and a bowl of kibble for Oberon. He had wandered a bit, and I went to get him. We went into the trees, and wandered around for a bit. It was a very lovely day, warm, sunny, with a light breeze..and the whole area was beautiful. We were not out of sight of my car, and the rock for very long, maybe fifteen minutes. I picked up the cat, and walked back, looking forward to lunch. When we got to the rock it was gone. Eaten. The foil was crumpled into a ball, the beer was empty, with the opener next to the bottle, cookies gone, sandwich gone, napkin folded loosely, and knife laid across the plate. It was an Oh Shit feeling. I ran for the car, tossed Oberon in, started the car, turned around, headed back down the hill. Then I thought, what if whoever ate my food was hiding in my back seat?? I stopped, heart pounding, checked out the back, all okay, and headed back to town and friends. Who were understandably freaked out by my story. I still camped after that, but it took awhile for my courage to return.

17. Dog Finds The Wrist Bone Of A Murder Victim

I’m pretty sure our dogs found a radius / ulna bone of the kidnapped and murdered girl, Heather Dawn Church while hiking off trail outside Colorado Springs. As a biology major who remembered some from my anatomy class, I thought the bones looked like they came from a small human. My friends convinced me I was being dramatic and I forgot about it. A couple years later her body was found in the exact same area.

18.  An Abandoned Bed

A shed behind an abandoned house with a steel reinforced door broken off the hinges. The windows of the shed were boarded up from the outside. The only thing inside the shed was a queen size bed with shredded, partly singed white sheets.

19.  Lost At Night

Per a friend from college, she was in middle school or so when she went on some hiking trip through the woods with a club she was part of. It had started to get dark so the older group leaders decided to lead everybody back. However, it quickly became apparent that they didn’t quite know where they were. It was getting darker and darker and they still weren’t able to figure out where they were. Eventually, they stumbled across a small cabin. Without many other options, the group leaders decide to ask whoever is in it if the group can stay the night. They approached the door and knocked but there was no answer. They knocked a couple more times and still no response. They tried the handle and found that the cabin was unlocked. As they entered, they were pretty freaked out by what they saw. Along the wall were several pairs of shoes. Scattered along another wall were a few bed frames. But the most startling thing was that the walls were just covered in chicken scratch writing. Everybody was freaked out but it was too dark at this point to risk wandering into the woods blindly again. The group hunkered down on the floor. They didn’t really get much sleep that night, but when daylight broke they got the hell out of there.

20. Heavy Footsteps, Upstairs

Not something I experienced, but my sister and her husband did. My family used to have a cabin on a lake in the Northwoods. It’s a lake with no public access. On the other side is/was an old Girl’s Camp that the state was letting fall apart. The camp had a large, two-story main house that was mostly intact at the time. My sister and her husband decided to check out the camp one day. They canoe’d over and started to walk around. They went into the Main House first. They walked around for a bit. And then they heard heavy footsteps upstairs. These footsteps turned into someone running heavily towards the stairs. My sister and her husband booked it out of the house, but they could hear the steps coming down the stairs and on the main level as they ran out. They opted to run around the house instead of heading back to the shore. They never saw who it was, but they heard them enter back into the house. And then they heard them storm back outside again. They went into the woods this time and heard someone running in the woods after them. They took the long way around the lake back to the cabin. My dad and I had to go back later that day to get the canoe. We never heard or saw anything.

21. A Make Out Session Gone Wrong

Me and my ex girlfriend decided to have a date night since we both had the day off of work. So we did the usual dinner and a movie thing, and afterwards we decided we’d go for a midnight drive. So we drive about an hour and a half out of town going nowhere particular. We just knew that we were going to get it on under the stars. After scoping out a random dirt road, I took my truck down it and parked in an open area off to the side next to forest. The entire area was surrounded by forest. After about 10 minutes of kissing we decide to get down to business. So we get in the backseat and start tearing each others clothes off. About 5 minutes in, headlights. Headlights heading towards where we were, but not directly at us. So we are both rushing in an attempt to get our clothes back on, thinking for some reason it might be the cops. (Which makes absolutely no sense now.) My pants are nowhere to be found and neither is her shirt. Now, keep in mind, the closest house to the road we were on is probably 30 minutes away. we kept fumbling looking for our clothing, and eventually found it and struggled to get them back on. Truck keeps getting closer, and closer. But like I said, not directly at us. Until we finally realize it’s not somebody coming to yell at us to get off their property, or the cops. In fact, they can’t even tell we are there because my truck is black and I’m parked almost into the thick forest area. Finally, an old beat up f150 parks his truck about 50 feet from us. Leaves his truck running and gets out. He walks to his truck bed, grabs his shovel, and just starts digging into the ground. He did this for a good 30 to 40 minutes while we just sat there in silence, afraid to move or speak on the off chance he hears us. He stops digging and lifts something out of the ground. It was a decent sized object but it was too dark to see exactly what it was. Picks it up, places it in his truck bed, goes back for the shovel and places that in the truck bed as well and drives off into the night. Me and my girlfriend decides it would be best to wait another 20 minutes before we even started the truck. To this day I have no idea what it could have been, but I really hope it was (at WORST) drugs.

22. The Fur Coat

We have a family cabin in the middle of nowhere, on a small lake with two other cabins, surrounded by forested area and flatlands both. About two miles away from the cabin and across the dirt road is a wildlife reserve. As kids we walked through there all the time. Had the opposite of helicopter parents. After about thirty minutes walking straight into these woods there was a collection of abandoned houses, an old settlement. We went exploring and found that the people who used to live there had just up and left. In each house, still dishes on the tables, clothing in the closets, cars parked in the clearings, all the strappings for horses in the barns. In one house, the floor had caved in and there were about forty pairs of women’s shoes scattered around the hole in the middle. No bones though, animal or human, nothing. We decided to stay away from the second floors of the houses after we saw that, we figured they’d be structurally unsound. A skeletal treehouse in the middle of the clearing. After we told my parents, my dad wanted to come and look too. In one of the houses we found a bedroom, fully intact. The sheets were still on the beds. The pillow still had the indentation of a head on it. But everything was covered in a thick layer of dirt and the dust on the floors only had our footprints in it. At the foot of the bed was this stunning enormous grey fur coat. There were a few moth holes chewed in it, and it was as dirty as everything else, but when we inspected it, we knew it was real fur, likely wolf or silver fox. It was gorgeous. Dad decided he was going to bring it back and clean it up and see if he could have it remade for my mom (Dad was a thrifty guy, haha). As we were leaving I got a chill on the back of my neck, and about sixty yards from the house, turned around and saw an old woman glaring at us from the window of the second floor. She had her hair in a loose bun and was wearing a blue shawl on her shoulders over a cream coloured blouse. I immediately felt super guilty. I grabbed my dad, who was about ten yards ahead of me, and told him we had better put the coat back, because the woman was still living there and we had probably scared her and she looked pissed. We turned back around and I pointed to the window I saw her glaring at us from. No one there. I said she must have gone downstairs, and as we approached the house, still carrying the stupid coat, one of the windows in another house suddenly slammed shut. I fucking ran as fast as I could into the woods. Dad, being dad, stayed behind and started yelling for the lady to come out, he was sorry, etc. Went upstairs, no one there, dust on the floor undisturbed. Then he smarted up and dropped the coat in a big hurry and we beat it back to the road as fast as we could. About five years later the government demolished the whole thing.

23. What The Park Rangers Are Left To Find

My son is in Cub Scouts and every year we take a trip to a cabin with the rest of his den. One kid’s uncle is a park ranger so last year we went to the park he worked at as it was near the cabin. He’d been a ranger for a good while and had some stories. The story of his first week on the job is the worst. First week on the job, the new guy, in a fairly large park. Its colder out so not as busy as summer. The park is notified of a possibly missing camper. Family cant contact the guy and he would camp there often enough. Of course they send the new guy to find him. Car is located by the campgrounds but dude is still nowhere in sight. Ranger goes deeper in the forest and comes across a campsite. There’s a smell and the ranger knew what was up but had to check to make sure. Dude set up camp, got in his sleeping bag and blew his head off with a shotgun. Ranger said the worst part was after radioing it in, remember, just his first week on the job, he had to stay at the campsite until other rangers and law enforcement and local medical examiner made their way up there. He said its a very common occurrence. People often think they are sparing their loved ones the horror of discovering them so instead they go out to to be middle of nowhere and do it, never mind the poor park ranger thats gotta find you.

24. Campsite 37

My girlfriend and a friend of ours went camping once up in Golden Ears Park. Once we arrived we noticed along with one other camper we were the only campers there for the weekend. As we walked throughout the park to take in our surroundings we noticed a campsite fully stocked with tent, coolers, camping chairs…it was like a photo from a magazine. We figured they left to grab supplies and thought nothing of it but after a couple of days and no activity of the campsite my girlfriend and her friend went to further investigate. What they came across next was something super strange. Coolers were full of rotten food and rusty knives…the tent looked pristine until you got close enough to smell it. The linger of urine, cat food and mold overtook all of your senses. They shook the tent to make sure no one was inside when no one answered they entered. Empty cat food tins scattered the moldy blankets, while large amounts of brand name clothing and shoes stuffed into several duffle bags lined the tent. Makeup…broken mirrors…wine bottles…batteries and cigarettes cascaded like water over the moldy blankets. A cellphone which with a closer look was all in Japanese along with several iPods. But the strangest thing was a journal written by a girl who was from out of town talking about the guy she was with and how sex with him for the first time was amazing and how she wishes he never would leave even though she has so many men after her. She talked about them fighting and getting evicted and how they needed this trip to figure things out. The last page was of them having a fight and how he was done and she would get what she deserved followed by a page full of random guys names and numbers. The date of the journal entry was 1 day before we arrived and their campers receipt hanging outside their camp spot was paid for in full for the next week. The campsite was strange and full of what looked like two people’s entire lives stuffed into an expensive tent littered with crack pipes and rusty tools. I will say though, their thermal blanket, axes and lanterns came in handy for those last couple of rainy night’s. Still not sure what went down in campsite 37 but even when we left 6 days later the campsite still remained..untouched.

25. A Very Disturbed Young Man

I have a bunch of woods behind my house, and when I was younger my friend and I would go camping in them. We were like 14 years old. We went farther than we usually did one day and ended up coming out on a neighbor’s property, so we just went back a little ways and started getting our shit set up. Friend leaves to go use the bathroom, and I hear him screaming and running back toward me. He’s not making much sense, was just sort of blubbering about Barbie’s and cat heads so I sort of force him to show me. We come out in a clearing next to the creek, and there’s hundreds of Barbie dolls strung up in the tree’s about eight feet off the ground, with dead fucking cat heads on them. As in, Barbie’s head had been yanked off and replaced with them. Not cat skulls either. I want to say the dolls bodies were dipped in red paint (I know it wasn’t blood because blood doesn’t “stick” and stay that thick) but I don’t know for sure what it really was. I started backing up toward our stuff, and my friend starts screaming again. He’s off to my side, and had just discovered the huge pile of cat remains, with a bunch of Barbie doll heads thrown in with them. We both threw up. We packed our shit up and went back home. But it doesn’t end there! That neighbor who’s field we stumbled into? They were friends with my mom, and started telling her about a bunch of their barn cats going missing, but they hadn’t thought anything of it since we have a lot of coyotes. (Still at that point hadn’t told my mom about our discovery in the woods because I figured she’d never let me leave the yard.) Then two of their goats went missing, and coyote’s wouldn’t have opened the gate and shut it back after slaughtering their goats, and there’d be some kind of leftovers. Neighbor’s husband heard someone fucking around in their yard one night, and saw some guy roaming around in their cow pasture. They sort of connected the pieces, realized someone was stealing their animals, so the husband went into 24/7 armed security mode. Week or so later, he sees the same guy go into his barn. Calls the cops. Turns out it’s some 16 year old kid that lived on the other side of his property that had just moved in. Kid admits to stealing his cats, goats, and trying to take a cow, right? K, fair enough, return them, then. Kid lives in a mobile home. No where to keep all these animals he’s been stealing. Kids dad ends up telling the cops that he knew his son was taking them and basically slaughtering them in the woods and doing weird shit with the bodies. The Barbie dolls? He stole them from his little sister. It wasn’t until a year or so after that my mom actually told me what had happened, which is when I gave in and told her about my friend and I basically stumbling into his fucked up shit. AFAIK, they got the kid for animal cruelty and a whole bunch of other shit, and his family moved away not too long after it so I really don’t know what happened with him.

26. “I Made A Fire And Stayed Up All Night Smoking Cigarettes”

So we weren’t exactly in the middle of nowhere. My family and I were camping at a campground on a lake here in the Ozarks a couple years ago. My sister, her friend, my cousin, and I are all in a tent together. I’m trying to get some sleep but it’s very humid and difficult to get comfortable. Around 3AM, I am looking straight up and notice a long flash of light outside of the tent. I look, and it blinks again about 3 seconds later, but not in the same place. It’s very close to the tent, less than 3 feet away. I couldn’t see it perfectly, obviously, but I could just tell. It’s not like an on/off blink, it fades in and out. It’s dead quiet, and no animal/creature could make a light as white and as bright as this. I couldn’t hear anything walking around the tent. It blinks again. Eventually, this blinking light makes its way in a circle around the tent, near the entrance where I was. That’s when I promptly rolled the fuck over and closed my eyes because whatever it was, I didn’t want to see it. About 30 minutes later I sit up to grab some water. I sit there for a minute wondering. There it is again, on the opposite side of the tent from me. Making it’s way around. I man the fuck up, grab a light and unzip the tent as it nears the entrance. It stops and goes dark. I go outside and nothing is there. I made a fire and stayed up all night smoking cigarettes.

27. Something Circling The Campground

A group of friends was staying at this remote cabin that one of my friend’s cousins owned. There were no roads leading to the cabin, and it was a good 3/4 day hike from where you parked the cars. I couldn’t go at the same time as everyone else due to work obligations, so I decided to head up the same day but later. It would mean I would have to camp for a night by myself though (the latter part of the trail is too dangerous to be taken at night, especially by someone who doesn’t know it). I didn’t care, I was kind of looking forward to it as I’ve never camped alone before. So I was in the middle of these woods when the sun went down. I got my camp set up in this small clearing. Probably 40 feet across. Get my camp fire going and pitch my small, one person tent. Do all that camping stuff like cooking hot dogs on a stick over the fire and smores. I probably stay up for a good 2 or 3 hours after dark (it was mid-autumn so the days were somewhat short). The entire time I thought I heard shit moving in the woods on the edge of the clearing. I didn’t think anything of it at first cause the woods are full of animals, but as the night went on I realized that whatever it was was just circling the clearing over and over. Once I started paying attention it made 4 or 5 laps around before I decided to get up and investigate. The noise stopped as soon as I stood up and I thought I heard some sound going away through the woods. I just shrugged it off thinking it was some fox that was curious that got scared when I stood up. I decided it’s time to sleep, doused the fire and climbed into my tent. I started to doze off and stayed in that half asleep half awake state for a while. I normally hear weird shit when I’m in this state, so I didn’t think much of it when I heard a voice. Something woke me all the way up though and I realized the voice is real and right outside my tent. It was just above a whisper and I’m not sure if it was another language or if they were just speaking English in such a way that I couldn’t understand. I lay there for some time, I don’t know how long, listening and waiting for something to happen. There was just enough moon light to light up the walls of the tent, so I could see when a hand pressed into the wall of my tent down near my foot. This freaked me out and I sat up quickly. Whomever was outside of the tent tore ass out of there. Like running full sprint through the woods. I got out of the tent and shined my flashlight around and saw nothing. I was expecting there to be a bloody hand print on the tent, but nope. Didn’t sleep that night, packed up camp at first light that morning and booked it to the cabin.

28. My Full Name Written In The Snow

This past winter I hiked one of high peaks in the ADK’s with a buddy of mine and camped out overnight. Everything was fine the entire first day we were there. Had a great night’s sleep and woke up early to hike back to the parking area. On the way back down the trail, my friend and I noticed that someone else had been hiking as well. About a mile after walking, I stopped and saw that my full name, first and last, was drawn into the snow on the side of the foot path. I didn’t do it, neither did my friend. It was snowing a bit throughout the night and if it was drawn the day before, the snow would have covered it up. We got a bit freaked out and decided to hustle back to our car so we could get the fuck out of there. We finally get back to the parking area and I go to sign myself out of the registry book. When I turn the page to where I signed in, I see that someone had scribbled out all of my information to where you couldn’t read it anymore. No one else had signed into the book besides myself for 3 days. I will NOT be going back there.

29. Bottles, Family Pictures, A Letter, All In A Cave

A few years ago I was backpacking in Eastern Washington with some friends of mine. I don’t know how well you guys know Eastern Washington, but its pretty much dust, sagebrush and dirt. We decided to hike up onto the top of this canyon, and from up there you could see miles and miles of straight nothing. After a few hours of traversing the top of the cliff, we eventually found a little crevasse that kind of took us a little ways underground, into a pretty decent sized cave. The cave was filled with little bones, like mice and bats. In one of the corners of the cave, there was a rock fixture that jutted up from the ground and almost made a separate “room” so to speak. In the room we found lots of scratches on the walls, photographs, and three bottles with notes in them. While this was kind of off-putting on its own, we figured it was just some sort of joke and we’d find silly S.O.S. notes in the bottles. The scariest part about it all was the photographs were super ordinary, of families and normal people, and two of the notes in the bottles made no sense at all. While it was English, it was pretty much straight gibberish, none of the words made sense in context with the other words. The third bottle had a super ordinary letter talking about what they’ve been up to; something you’d send to a fairly distant relative after not talking with them for a while. I don’t really know what to think of it all, I feel like it could easily have been someone just joking around but it was almost too strange for that.

30. As If Someone Stood There All Night

Camping in the back country in Quebec, pretty much all alone for what we thought. We heard shuffling outside of the tent one night but wrote it off as a raccoon or possum. Woke up in the morning with scattered cigarette butts all around the front of our tent as if someone stood there all night keeping an eye on us. Nothing happened after that except some spectacular storms and bear sightings.

31. Who Would Do This?

This at Oleta River in Miami Florida.

Eric Redding

More from thought catalog.

5 Lessons I Learned From ‘Sex And The City’ That Were All Wrong

The 6 Best Doctor Who Companions of All Time

7 Action Rom Coms To Watch After ‘The Fall Guy’

7 Red Flag Phrases Only Narcissists and Toxic People Say On Dating Apps

Why ‘Bridgerton’ Season 3’s Omission Is A Win For Body Positivity

9 Best Quotes From Sex and the City That Still Describe Modern Dating For Women Even Today

25 Campers Share Their Most Ridiculous Camping Fails

This article is brought to you by Wenzel, whose butterfly chair is made with powder coated steel and water resistant polyester to ensure your next camping fail isn’t related to your gear. 

If there’s a law of playing in the wilderness, it’s that the unexpected will happen and things will go wrong—hopefully hilariously wrong and not dangerously so. No matter how much experience you have, no matter how many hours you’ve logged in the backcountry, no matter how expensive your RV or fancy your sleeping bag , Murphy’s Law is cackling behind a tree, just waiting to watch your camping fails.

Look at the short version of my own litany of camping fails: The time I yorked all over the Appalachian Trail because I decided to hike through a case of food poisoning. The time I left my shoes outside my tent and got a scorpion stuck to my hand the next morning. The time we had to make an emergency late night pizza run in a tiny Southern town because we forgot to pack any food. The time other campers left so much trash I was afraid it had attracted bears, and checked into a motel. The time the firewood was wet, so I just went home. And the time I brought a whole beef brisket on a backpacking trip to impress my attractive wilderness partner.

It’s not just first-time campers who fall victim to Trail Fails, either. Everyone has these stories of wilderness woe, and there’s a lot you can learn when things go sideways.

That’s why we asked dozens of outdoor enthusiasts to share their stories of backcountry bummers and RV park regrets. This is what we learned: weather is going to happen. Important gear is going to be forgotten. Animals and humans alike are going to do weird things. Nothing is more inevitable than the dark, the cold, the wet and the poop .

25 Campers Who Bounced Back From Epic Camping Fails

1. hot stone treatment.

“I was with a group that included one person who had never camped before. It was surprisingly cold for the season, and her borrowed gear wasn’t warm enough, but one of the guys in the group promised he had the perfect plan! He put a big rock in the fire and left it there while we ate and hung out. When it was time to sleep he wrapped the hot rock in her towel for her to put in her tent. But the rock was clearly too hot—the towel caught on fire.” — Emily V.

2. Cathole Catastrophe

“The first time I ever dug a cathole, I squatted to do my business. I then turned around, and the cathole was empty. Confused, I turned around a few times and eventually found my soil…under my shoe. I have since learned to have amazing aim.” — Emily G.

3. Not My HayDay

“I once saw a guy in a new Class A RV try to turn around next to an alfalfa field. The sprinklers had been moved a couple hours before and he ran onto the wet portion, and sank to his axles. It took two diesel trucks and a tractor to pull him out. Fortunately there was no damage to his rig and no cost except for a ‘thank you’ to the farmer.” — Brent D.

4. Bear Kibble

“I invited my younger sister for a spontaneous overnight trip at a campground at the northern end of Shenandoah National Park . Despite meticulously putting every last crumb of food in the car, it didn’t occur to me to put up the dog food. We woke up in the middle of the night to a black bear chowing down! My sister was terrified and I was worried the dog would attract the bear’s attention, so I set off the car alarm (briefly!) and then we made a run for it. We spent the rest of the night in the car.” — Stephanie J.

5. T-Shirt TP

“I learned on my first big multi-day backpacking trip to always bring more toilet paper than you need. By day 3 of the 6-day trip I ran out and got a stomach bug. Yikes! I came home with several fewer t-shirts since I had to cut them up for TP. So now, I always bring a few rolls—plus a t-shirt I don’t mind losing.” — Kayla H.

6. Underwater Camping Fail

“Campsite selection is a fine art. Sometimes those attractive, flat spots free of plants and rocks can, in fact, turn into lakes after a significant rainfall. My boyfriend and I had set up camp on a sunny afternoon on the rim of an alpine lake basin in New Mexico. The clouds started rolling in, dumping hail and rain on us while lightning flashed as we huddled in the tent. Within minutes our whole tent was standing in several inches of water. Lesson learned: pay attent ion to drainage.” — Caledonia H.

7. Next Time, Boxed Wine

“We packed wine but no bottle opener. So I tried one of those life hacks where you wrap a towel around a wine bottle and hit the base against a flat surface to force the cork out. Except I definitely smashed the whole bottle in my hand, cutting my palm pretty bad. We proceeded to use a maxi pad, a hair tie, and rope hung from the top of my tent to keep my hand compressed and elevated until morning, where we then hiked out and back to a real med kit.” — Daniel B.

8. Hunting Island Hernia

“We were at Hunting Island and discovered that laying on a thin pad on the ground is not good for your hernia. Also, sand is unforgiving when you are used to sleeping in you soft, smooshy bed. My husband was so uncomfortable, and there was nothing we could do about it. ” — Kathryn H.

9. 1 Tent + 3 Grown Men = Ultimate Camping Fail

“I had a camping trip in college with a couple of buddies. We borrowed two tents from our old scout troop and got to the camping spot just as the sun was setting. As I pulled out my tent, I saw my friends off to the side cackling with laughter. Turns out, they had each assumed that the other had grabbed the tent. And that was the night that I learned that if you squeeze 3 fully grown men into a tent meant for two boys, that you don’t need sleeping bags even if it is 30 degrees outside.” — Alex N.

10. These Boots Were Not Made for Walking

“My new boots fit at home, but I didn’t realize my feet were going to swell so much on a three day backpacking trip! I lost 4 toenails and had the gnarliest heel blisters. Nothing teaches you to pay proper attention to footwear like destroying your feet! After that, I got way better boots.” — Katherine B.

11. Black Out in Vegas

“We lost track of time while enjoying a winter hot spring. We didn’t think about how early the sun was going down, and thought we had allowed enough time to get back to the car. But we got off course, had to double back, and by the time we actually were headed in the right direction the sun was going down. We had planned a day hike and had no flashlights, so literally were stuck walking through the Nevada desert in the dark for almost a mile with only the faint lights of Vegas in the distance for direction. This taught me no matter where I go be like a Boy Scout and always be prepared!” — Crystal C.

12. Spring Broken

“The time we went camping for spring break and lasted one night because the wind destroyed our tents. We gave up and went to a pancake house in Gatlinburg. We learned to heed the warnings of empty campgrounds. The only other group was in a rental camper and even they gave up!” — Bailey B.

13. Hot and Hypothermic

“On my first ever backpacking trip, I underdressed. I really was getting hypothermic, and no amount of hot liquids and clothing seemed to be getting me warm. The solution presented by my boyfriend at the time? Two naked bodies in two sleeping bags that zipped together. We weren’t quite that far along in our relationship, so I just thought it was a come-on, and it probably was. But as I got more clumsy and more cold, I finally gave in. And to his credit, it worked, very well actually!” — Anonymous

14. Solo and Spooked

“One time I camped solo , but realized I’m afraid of the dark. So I called my best friend at 4AM and made her stay on the phone with me until sunrise.” — Kara O.

15. Croc Crawling

“My first week on the PCT I hiked 22 miles in Crocs because my boots ended up being too small. Only lost two toenails though. From then on I switched to trail runners for all my hikes.” — Kristen D.

16. Leaves of Three, Let It Be

“Girl Scout camp. One of my tent-mates got her period (for the first time ever; we were 11) and used a handful of leaves as a makeshift pad because she didn’t want to tell anyone. Turns out, she grabbed poison ivy.” — Jennifer C.

17. Freezer on Wheels

“You need a ground pad even if you sleep on a van floor! I became truly hypothermic after I did that sans insulating under layer when I was 20. I then wore a hat for a year after that. Stay warm, friends!” — Cassandra G.

18. Cold, Wet, and Humbled

“I planned a weekend camping trip on the mainland in Washington. I worked so hard to make sure everybody had all the materials gathered up, bags packed, and everything was ready to go because I was sure they would forget something. When I got off of work and loaded everyone up in the truck and went to the campground, we got there and it was raining heavily (though not unexpectedly), and I had forgotten everything I needed for a change of clothes, coat, or even pants. Everyone else had what they needed. I spent the night cold, wet, and humbled.” — Tim B.

19. Ranger Recommendation

“Once I headed to an upper meadow at Sequoia, at the suggestion of the rangers who had just been there. They assured us there was no snow and it was lovely. Never take this for granted, things change quickly at high altitudes! The hike to said meadow was hip deep snow for what seemed like hours, no clue how long it was. There was indeed one spot in the meadow, clear for our tent, and it was lovely, but not sure I’ve ever been so cold, tired, and wet. You gotta prepare for everything, and even rangers can be fallible!” — Winnie W.

20. Sleep and Slide

“I was free-style camping in Andermatt, Switzerland with my husband and two kids. We set up our borrowed pop-up tent on the side of a hill. The next morning we woke up in a different place, having slid down the hill!” — Toni G.

21. The Silent but Deadly Camping Fail

“I was backpacking in the Smokies during the Blizzard of ‘93. I had taken a day hike and the rain began to fall. I made it back to the tent, soaking wet and hoped for it to stop. Later that night I was so glad to hear that the rain was no longer striking the tent. What I didn’t realize is that snow doesn’t make a sound as it falls on your tent. I woke up the next morning to feet of snow and below freezing temps, and abandoned everything to try and get out alive.” — Eddie Y.

22. Sleepless In The Snow

“The first time I went winter camping , I didn’t think I needed a ground pad. I was tough and hardy and no trail princess! Of course, all that backwoods bravado was undercut by the fact that I didn’t realize that your ground pad was as much for insulation as for comfort. Stuffing some hand warmers into my ski overalls didn’t do me much good, so I laid there freezing for hours until dawn, rueing my poor planning.” — Anonymous

23. Flip Flop Fail

“ We first started camping long ago, we used an air mattress because we didn’t know about those nice individual, thin pads you can use. My husband has a condition where he doesn’t roll over in his sleep, he FLIPS his whole body at once. All night, I was woke up being bounced. It was terrible. We laughed about it and didn’t use one again.” — Cindy P.

24. Minimalist Backpacking

“I went on an overnight trip but couldn’t fit all my gear in my pack, so I sacrificed my sleeping bag (since It was summer) and packed extra clothes and a blanket, which were cotton. Those scattered summer storms might leave beautiful sunsets, but create very humid camping conditions. Needless to say, the dog and I had a serious snuggle fest that night!” — Olivia K.

25. Dump and Ditch

“My friend took out the Airstream on her own for the first time. Everything went as planned until it was time to dump the ‘black’ tank. She had watched her husband do it several times and was certain it would be something she could handle. She hooked the ‘slinky’ up to the trailer & receptacle perfectly! Then she released the valve and the sewer tank must have been full. Raw sewage starting spilling over the dump station! She was so grossed out that she closed the valve, unhooked the slinky from the trailer, left it there and drove off!!” — Peg B.

This article was brought to you by Wenzel

Try Wenzel’s solar shower on your next camping getaway!

Related Campgrounds:

• Stony Creek Campground ,  Tulare County, CA

Popular Articles:

• Get the Latest 2023 Camping Travel Trends
• How To Find Free Camping in National Forests
• The Checklist Every First Time RVer Needs
• Find Free Camping With The Dyrt Map Layers
• The Ulimate Boondocking Guide To Free Camping
• Everything You Need To Know About Wifi For Your RV
• 7 of The Best Overland Routes in North America
• 14 Wilderness Survival Tools You Should Have in The Backcountry
• Here's What To Add To Your Primitive Camping Checklist

Meghan O'Dea

Meghan O'Dea is a writer, world traveler, and life-long learner who grew up in the foothills of Appalachia. College led to summer stints in England and Slovenia, grad school to a sojourn Hong Kong, and curiosity to everywhere in between. She has written for the Washington Post, Fortune Magazine, Yoga Journal, Eater Magazine, and Uproxx amongst others. Meghan hopes to visit all seven continents with pen and paper in tow.

More Articles

This Olympic National Park Rainforest Is One of the Quietest Places On Earth

This guide to the Olympic National Park rainforest is brought to you by Gregory. They make tough hiking backpacks that conform to your shape, ensuring…

How to Get Started with Canoe Camping

Canoe camping is one of the oldest forms of travel and exploration of the wild places in the United States. Native people from tribes across…

CURRENT PRICES END MAY 12

Outside Festival feat. Thundercat and Fleet Foxes.

FROM JUST $44

Everything That’s Ever Gone Wrong on My Camping Trips

What I learned and how to avoid my mistakes

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Download the app .

Is going camping dangerous? I’ve been doing it for 40 years, and it hasn’t killed me yet—but that doesn’t mean it’s always smooth sailing. Here’s everything major that’s gone wrong on one of my trips. Hopefully my experiences can help you avoid something similar.

My Puppy Ate a Toad!

What happened:  My wife and I saw Bowie, our middle child, playing with something in the grass. I went over to make sure it wasn’t a rattlesnake, and came back to inform my wife it was just a frog or toad. “Don’t let him eat that!” she shouted. It was almost too late—I was able to pry his jaws open and pull it out of his throat. A few minutes later, he started foaming from the mouth and become more and more lethargic as the hours passed.

What I did about it: As soon as he started showing signs of a reaction, I rinsed Bowie’s mouth out with fresh water, then threw two 25-milligram Benadryls down his throat, lifted his snout into the air, and pinched his nose closed until he swallowed them. Benadryl is amazingly effective for dogs, counteracting allergic reactions they may have to stings, bites, and stuff they shouldn’t eat. The maximum safe dose is one milligram per pound of body weight; Bowie was six months old and about 50 pounds at the time. (Consult your vet before administering any medicines to your dog.) I then sat up all night, holding Bowie in my lap while his heart rate fell, became irregular, and then returned to normal. By the morning, he had fully recovered.

What I learned:  Humans can be really bad at assessing risk. We spend too much time worrying about dramatic situations, like encountering mountain lions, and not nearly enough worrying about more mundane, common things, like poisonous amphibians. When I got home, I familiarized myself with poisonous toads—it turns out this one was a Colorado River toad —and brushed up on the first aid procedures associated with exposure to them. I got it right this time by happenstance, but now I’m confident in the appropriate steps to take should one of our dogs ever eat a poisonous toad again.

I Forgot My Tent Poles!

What happened: Arriving in camp one evening, I tried to set up my tent, only to discover that the poles were thousands of miles away at my apartment in Brooklyn.

What I did about it: I rigged a support structure that suspended the tent from overhanging trees. It worked, but had it rained, it wouldn’t have.

What I learned: Always lay your gear out to check for missing or broken parts before packing everything up for a trip.

My Sleeping Pad Got 17 Punctures!

What happened: On the first night of the infamous puppy-toad trip, we slept on an expanse of sand close enough to the trailhead that it seemed to be a popular spot, judging by the litter hiding in the bushes. We woke up the next morning to find our brand-new, ultralight two-person sleeping pad partially deflated. The next night, after hiking much farther into truly remote backcountry, I inflated the pad but it wouldn’t hold air. I found one hole, patched it, and blew it back up, only to have it deflate again. That continued until I was out of patch material. I eventually counted 17 pinholes, but there could have been more. My conclusion: there must have been tiny shards of broken glass in the sand we slept on that first night, and they they got rolled up in the pad when we packed up camp.

What I did about it: I pulled out my first aid kit and tried creating patches using duct tape, superglue, and nitrile gloves. None of that worked, and we slept on the ground. It was miserable.

What I learned:  When it comes to comfort, nothing matches the packed size and weight of an air pad, but care must be taken to protect them from damage. I’d pulled the pad out of the tent and laid it on the bare sand to deflate it and roll it up. From here on out, I’ll do that inside the tent and ensure that outside debris stays out of the tent.

My Dog Fights Bears!

What happened: I once arrived at a campground well after midnight, opened the car door to let out Wiley, my oldest dog, only to have him get into a fight with a black bear five seconds later. And that was only the start of Wiley’s bear-fighting career. He’s since scrapped with them in our yard at home, on backpacking trips, and at our cabin.

What I did about it: Well, I yelled and swore a fair bit, but that was pretty ineffective. In the end, the bear ran away, and I managed to grab Wiley before he could give chase. Since the areas where I live and recreate outdoors are all home to bears, my solution was to find Wiley a bear-fighting assistant . I guess two big dogs barking and making smells just scares bears, as we haven’t had an encounter since bringing Teddy, a rescue dog, home two and a half years ago.

What I learned:  People are terrible about leaving attractants around popular camping areas, and this quickly habituates bears to treating those areas as food sources. Dogs may be the best tool we have to haze bears, keeping them away from those places.

All My Raingear Failed at Once!

What happened: A rainstorm turned worse than expected while hiking an exposed ridgeline. My rainjacket and pants wetted out instantly, soaking me to the bone and filling my waterproof hiking boots.

What I did about it: I trekked out to a paved road and hitched a ride back to my car.

What I learned: Even the best gear can sometimes prove inadequate. Always take the time to read the forecast, look at historic extremes in a given area, and make a plan B.

This Baguette Is Terrible!

What happened: My wife and I visited Écrins National Park in France for a backpacking trip. Because we intended to be the first people to cross its high alpine pass that season, I wanted to pack light. And since my wife has celiac, I decided to pack a single gluten-free baguette rather than one bad baguette for her and a good one for me. That was a mistake.

What I did about it: For two days, I suffered through tasteless, grainy mouthfuls of something that definitely wasn’t real bread, in a nation famous for its bread.

What I learned: While weight is the single biggest factor in determining your ability to enjoy a backpacking trip, it’s not the only factor. I swore never to sacrifice flavor for ounces again. Nowadays you might spot me struggling up a mountainside loaded down by a Platypus bottle full of wine and  a nice hunk of meat , but once I reach camp, it’s going to be worth it.

My Friends Got Lost in Death Valley!

What happened: For a big group camping trip, I gave everyone detailed instructions on how to find our site in a very remote part of the park. One truckful of friends spent an entire day wandering around dirt roads, unable to find us, before they gave up and went home.

What I did about it: I worried that they’d suffered a breakdown or gotten stuck somewhere, so I went looking for them. But with no radios or satellite communicators in their car, I was unable to do much.

What I learned:  Now for group trips, I make custom geospatial PDF maps , then load them onto my friends’ phones and show them how to use them. And I do that whether I plan to travel with them or not. Since then I’ve had no problems adopting that approach, even with first-time campers.

I Was Eaten Alive by Sand Fleas!

What happened: It was a warm night on a beach down in Baja, Mexico, so I slept right on the sand. In the morning, I woke up covered head to toe in painful, itchy sand flea bites.

What I did about it: I scratched them, which was also a mistake. Cortisone provided some temporary relief, but it took the bites months to totally heal.

What I learned: Don’t underestimate how bad bug bites can be. (I know, I know, sand fleas are technically tiny crustaceans.) It’s always worth taking the time to set up a tent. And never forget the bug spray.

All the Kids Got Seasick!

What happened: I took my youth group out   to Santa Cruz Island, off the California coast, to go camping. The sea was rougher than expected, and every single one of them got seasick.

What I did about it: I grabbed onto their belts so they could vomit overboard, and generally tried to be sympathetic.

What I learned: Always make sure your destinations are worth it. That island is positively carpeted in cute little foxes, so the kids forgot how miserable the journey was once the first fox walked over to say hi.

I Lost My Canoe Paddle!

What happened:  During a 14-day Boy Scout canoe trip through Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, I tried showing off to the other kids by throwing my paddle down into the water so it’d bounce back up and right into my hand. It did not come back up.

What I did about it: One of the parents was smart enough to pack an extra paddle. I’d have been dead weight for the rest of the trip without it.

What I learned: Never take inappropriate risks with your equipment or treat it carelessly.

All of My Jeep’s Tires Went Flat!

What happened:   I borrowed one of the new Cherokees from Jeep for an off-road camping trip with friends. The tires that come standard   on most cars are designed for highways, not trails, and so these tires got one puncture after another. We eventually had to abandon the Jeep in a safe spot and return for it on our way out. Once back in town, we visited a tire-repair shop and had to buy two new tires just to make it home.

What I did about it: Between my friends and I, we’d all brought more than enough tire-repair gear. When we got to camp, I borrowed a more capable vehicle, went back to the Jeep, and pulled the wheels off, then all of us got creative trying to fix them around the campfire that evening.

What I learned: Nothing on your vehicle is as prone to damage as a tire, and nothing will strand you faster. Always run appropriate tires for the conditions you’ll face, and never forget your tire-repair kit and air compressor. Getting stuck in a remote area can have real consequences.

I Lost My Friend!

What happened: On a backpacking trip, a friend and I decided to split up. He didn’t show at our destination.

What I did about it: I got the local fire chief out of bed at midnight on Christmas Eve to initiate a search and rescue operation. My friend ended up making it out on his own after getting badly lost but suffered mild hypothermia.

What I learned: Never split up. This situation got so extreme so fast that it’s also what prompted me to start carrying a satellite communicator.

I Crashed a Motorcycle!

What happened: About halfway through a dirt-bike trip across Labrador, in Canada, I hit a giant pothole and flipped my bike while moving at about 50 miles per hour, landing on my head.

What I did about it: I don’t remember the next two or three days of the trip due to the concussion, but my friend and I managed to repair the bike enough that it got me all the way home to Brooklyn—or nearly. It gave up a few miles from my apartment.

What I learned: Quality safety gear is worth it. I wouldn’t have survived the crash without it. No matter who you are, how good you are at something, or how careful you’re being, accidents can and will happen.

• Indefinitely Wild

Popular on Outside Online

Enjoy coverage of racing, history, food, culture, travel, and tech with access to unlimited digital content from Outside Network's iconic brands.

Healthy Living

• Clean Eating
• Vegetarian Times
• Yoga Journal
• Fly Fishing Film Tour
• National Park Trips
• Warren Miller
• Fastest Known Time
• Trail Runner
• Women's Running
• Bicycle Retailer & Industry News
• FinisherPix
• Outside Events Cycling Series
• Outside Shop

© 2024 Outside Interactive, Inc

You are using an outdated browser not supported by this software. Please upgrade your browser .

• Housing & Real Estate
• Living on a Budget
• Personal Finance
• Camping & Outdoors
• Destinations
• Vacation Rentals & Hotels
• All Cars & RVs
• Maintenance
• Makes & Models
• All Shopping
• Beauty & Fashion
• Home & Garden
• Kitchen & Groceries
• All Reviews
• All Food & Drink
• Beer, Wine, & Spirits
• Food Trends & Trivia
• Restaurants & Dining
• Taste Tests
• All Lifestyle
• Entertainment
• Health & Wellness
• Life After 50
• All Gift Ideas
• Gifts by Interest
• Gifts by Price
• Gifts for All
• Gifts for Her
• Gifts for Him
• Gifts for Kids
• In The News
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions

Copyright ® 2024 Cheapism

The Wildest and Craziest Camping Disaster Stories

Nature of the Beast

Ah, camping: A relaxing opportunity to sleep under the stars and enjoy the sights and sounds of nature. Exposure to nature has been shown to pack a slew of health benefits , but the unpredictable elements of weather and wildlife — and other humans, of course — mean not every camping trip goes as planned. From pushy wildlife to scary weather and sheer bad luck, here are some of the wildest, craziest stories of camping trips gone wrong.

Related:  These Are the Worst (and Best) States for Camping

Polar Bear Attacks

It's hard to imagine a more remote, pristine area for camping than Norway's Arctic Svalbard Islands — where a sleeping Czech tourist discovered in 2015 that being in a six-person group campsite didn’t keep a polar bear from attacking and dragging him out of his tent . (The bear was driven away by gunshots and later killed.) Maybe a bigger campsite would be safer? Nope. A French visitor to the same archipelago  was attacked by another polar bear last month in a 25-person site. She was evacuated by helicopter and treated at a nearby hospital for "minor" injuries. Debate on instituting a Svalbard camping ban goes on.

Related:  Natural Wonders to Appreciate Before They're Gone

RV in a Flash Flood

Heavy rains sent a newly formed river surging straight through the campsite of a family in Utah's Zion National Park last year.  Check out the video — it's intense.  The family managed to ride out the flooding in their camper. "It just kind of made me realize how fast things can occur, and how people can just be so unprepared," camper Lola Thomas told 2KUTV. The floods were so mighty that they deposited piles of debris, including fender-deep mud and chunks of broken asphalt, that had to be cleared before the campers could drive on to their next adventure.

Related:  RV Nightmares, From Annoying to Messy to Costly

True Cause to Cry Wolf

Animal attacks also happen closer to home. A New Jersey family discovered this when a wolf ripped into their tent in Alberta, Canada’s Banff National Park and tried to drag the husband away. A nearby camper heard the struggle and came running to the rescue, helping drive the wolf off. NBC News quoted one of the family  as saying the incident "was something out of a horror movie."

For more great vacation guides and travel,  please sign up for our free newsletters.

When Animals (Probably) Attack

Attacks can be spooky as well as dangerous. A Nebraska biology professor camping in Minnesota's Itasca State Park with about 10 students scattered among nearby campsites in 2007 woke "to his head being tossed back and forth ," the sheriff's department told The Bemidji Reporter. Though the attacker may have been a small black bear, authorities couldn't find animal tracks, and nothing else in the campsite seemed disturbed. Did it happen? The claw-style "swipe" cuts to his face say yes.

Related:   Hiking Horror Stories — With Happy Endings

Shocking Experience

Experts say not to stand by trees during a thunderstorm, but at a campsite near California’s heavily forested Sequoia National Park, there’s not much choice. A lightning bolt hit the tree  over a dad and his 12- and 9-year-old kids, sending them into the air, tearing off their clothes, and knocking them unconscious. They were airlifted to safety with some injuries — severe burns, punctured eardrums, and brief paralysis. In a video that captures the instant, you can see the strike across the lake, looking and sounding like an explosion .

Stalked Into Sleeplessness

Nighttime visitors can be nerve-wracking enough to turn a night of camping into a disaster. Consider  the tale of this Pacific Crest Trail thru-hiker , who set up solo camp in California's Lassen National Forest in 2016 only to hear rustling and a strange moaning in the underbrush. Shining a headlamp into the night reflected a pair of glowing eyes. The mystery animal stalked the camper until he retreated to find other human, then circled that second campsite. Was it a cougar? Coyotes? Nobody knows. That’s good, because it means the mystery animal — or whatever it was — never came close enough to make contact.

Caught in a Storm

A pair of motorcycle campers in 2017 got caught in a severe thunderstorm that came rolling across Lake Michigan. With no vehicles to duck inside, they tried to take shelter  in a public bathroom, but it was locked — so they ended up huddled against a wall to wait out a  storm that was 100 miles long , 30 miles wide, and packed wind gusts of more than 90 mph. "Next time … we're taking the truck. Not the bike," the campers told Michigan Radio .

Close-Quarters Encounter

A family of five black bears couldn’t take a hint after being relocated around Hope, Alaska, for raiding garbage cans and campsites and beginning to charge at humans. A van-camper trying to relax after a long day during a 2015 visit “turned around to find that one of the bears had entered the van ," a Fish and Game spokesperson told the Anchorage Daily News. "That was very close quarters — feet, maybe even inches." The van occupants were fine — the bears ultimately weren't. They were put down as a public safety measure.

You may already know not to pitch a tent under a detached or dead tree limb that could fall — a so-called widow-maker. But what about when an entire, seemingly healthy, tree falls right onto your tent, roots and all? Three campers in Nebraska survived that in 2016 with one totally unscathed and the others somehow getting only minor injuries as the trunk of a tree fell across their legs,  CBS Colorado reported .

In a tale of a fly-in trout fishing trip gone horribly wrong in 1964, the plan was for five days — but the fishers’ pilot was a no-show for their planned return flight. The next day a heavy fog swept in and stayed, keeping the pilot away for days. Then there was a fire accidentally started inside the cabin, and the fish mysteriously stopped biting once the campers desperately needed them for food. The fog eventually lifted, allowing the pilot to seize a brief weather window and retrieve them from the remote cabin. “Signing a disclaimer from holding the outfitter responsible for accidents was a clue we should have heeded,” freelance writer Tom Huggler  recalled.

Sleepwalking Off a Cliff

A man camping in Kentucky's Red River Gorge drifted off in a hammock — then, watched by his friends, stood up and sleepwalked into a 60-foot fall , landing in a giant rhododendron bush, ABC News reported in 2014. According to rescuers, the bush may have not only saved his life but let him walk away healthy. “I was pretty shocked that I couldn't really find any discernible injuries,” a rescue ranger said of the camper, who was reached after three hours, put in a basket, and hoisted back up the mountain.

Boy Scout Chomped By Bear

A 12-year-old  camping with his Boy Scout troop  in New York's Harriman State Park survived a black bear chomping down on his leg. The kid screamed and kicked to drive the bear off, yet it came back in search of food. The troop moved to a nearby shelter and made sure their food was properly bagged to keep it out of the bear's reach, but they could see it coming close to snagging other campers' food. Ultimately, the bear had to be put down because of its aggressive behavior.

Snow Issues

Winter camping can be beautiful and peaceful in a way a bustling summer season often isn't, especially in the backcountry, but two people well-prepared with skis, snowshoes, and winter gear in 2002 found themselves in dire straits when trapped on a lake that became a mix of ice, slush, and meltwater from a roiling combination of unseasonably warm weather, a thunderstorm, and a resurgence of cold, windy winter weather. “We crunch across the ice for a while. But soon there’s no crunch, just a mush … Brian steps and the rotten ice gives way,”  David Sommerstein  recalled of the long, treacherous walk to safety.

CURRENT PRICES END MAY 12

Outside Festival feat. Thundercat and Fleet Foxes.

GET TICKETS

Start Your Free Trial

Powered by Outside

Lost: True Tales of Wilderness Treks Gone Desperately Wrong

From snowblindness to wrong turns, everyday wilderness adventures can turn ugly if you're not prepared for everything..

Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Download the app .

“We were tired, wet, and cold, and knew that we would not survive another night,” recalls Bob Morris, his memory still frighteningly vivid a few months later. “We were becoming truly scared.”

Lost and separated from their tent after a day of peakbagging, Bob and his wife, Blynn, both 43, had been forced to bivouac during a surprise summer snowstorm. The couple had set out the day before from a basecamp beside Gourd Lake to tag 12,296-foot Cooper Peak, an isolated granite spire deep in Colorado’s Indian Peaks Wilderness. On the way up the 4-mile off-trail route, Bob referred frequently to his map and compass, and the couple topped out as scheduled at 1 p.m.

After savoring the view, they began their descent. But on the way down Bob spotted a series of small lakes that he misjudged as being one large body of water and therefore Gourd Lake. “On the map, you see two distinct lakes and the mistake is obvious. But as we descended, they looked like one lake instead of two because the stream connecting them is large.”

“My wife said it looked wrong. She wanted to go back and make sure we were right. I convinced her we were on the right track,” recalls Bob.

The Morrises proceeded to drop into the wrong drainage. They soon realized their error, but then made another mistake that compounded their problems. “The prospect of climbing up the way we came down, through more talus, was daunting. To go directly east to Gourd looked impossible because of a cliff. We decided to go south and then east, walking a bearing with the compass,” says Bob.

Bushwhacking through thick forest, the couple hiked in circles until dark. Their situation worsened that night when the storm arrived.

In the morning, cold and miserable and confused by the fresh snow, Bob and Blynn tried to pick up where they had left off. But when Bob checked the altimeter on his watch, he realized they had overshot their mark and were now 800 feet lower than Gourd Lake.

After turning around to hike back uphill, the couple stumbled upon the Gourd Lake Trail, its outline visible in the melting snow. They were soon back at camp gobbling bowls of oatmeal.

EXPERT ADVICE

1. Leave bread crumbs Mark your descent route while you’re on the way up, says navigation instructor Bob Speik, who runs www.traditionalmountaineering.org. “Build a small cairn (or tie ribbons) that you remove on the way down.”

2. Trust the map “Bob began ‘forcing the map’- that is, deceiving himself into believing that the visible terrain somehow matched the map features,” says Kenneth A. Hill, Ph.D., author of Lost Person Behavior .

3. Listen to skeptics “When someone in the group thinks things don’t look right, pay attention,” says Don Davis, who manages Colorado’s Larimer County Search and Rescue. At the first sign of doubt, verify your location and route to everyone’s satisfaction.

4. Retreat “Bob’s reluctance to turn around is typical lost-person behavior,” says Hill. “More often than not, backtracking to a known location is the smartest option available.”

5. Stay level “Contour!” exclaims Greg Crouch, author of Route Finding: Navigating with Map and Compass. With a closer examination of the map and their altimeter, Bob and Blynn “could have stuck to the same elevation and just contoured around the nose of the ridge separating them from Gourd Lake.”

Lost in the Mist

“I was hurtling toward the crevasse, thinking, ‘You’re finished. You pushed your luck and now you’re cooked,'” recalls Sam Black of Vancouver. Luckily, instead of plunging into the blue maw of the Brandywine Glacier–and almost certain death–Black skipped across the opening to land on the opposite side. But he was still surrounded by crevasse-riddled ice. And lost.

Six days earlier, Black had embarked on what was supposed to be an overnight trek. The backcountry enthusiast planned to challenge his newfound route-finding skills on an ambitious, off-trail solo ascent of Brandywine Mountain, in British Columbia’s Coast Mountains.

On Friday night, he hiked to an off-trail campsite on a narrow ridge. The next morning Black opened his tent flaps to discover rainy, socked-in conditions; he couldn’t see 30 feet. He knew continuing would be foolhardy. As he attempted to backtrack, Black got hopelessly turned around.

The topo map he’d printed on 8.5″x11″ office paper turned to pulp in the steady downpour.Without a compass, he was lost at sea. He pitched his tent and rode out the storm.

When Black failed to return on schedule a search was launched, but SAR crews were hampered by low clouds. Black attempted on Tuesday and Wednesday to climb to the far side of Brandywine Mountain, where he knew a trail led to safety.

When the route became technical and slippery, Black stopped to consider his quandary. Somehow the dense fog and tricky terrain convinced him to make his biggest mistake yet. Until now he’d stayed off the ice, but in his mind, only one option remained. “I believed that traversing the glacier to go west was the only exit,” he recalls.

No sooner had he taken several tentative steps onto the ice than he lost traction–and went hurtling over the crevasse. Spared from death but deeply rattled, Black began picking his way across the glacier’s surface. Before he could slip again, a helicopter appeared and whisked him to safety.

1. Don’t play the victim There’s a word for a novice hiker attempting a highly ambitious solo trek, sans compass, with only a photocopied map, cautions Hill: pre-victim.

2. Track your progress “Black appears not to have done any navigation on the way to his first camp, since he was following a trail,” says Davis. “Continuously plot your location on the map, even when hiking on trails.”

3. Get the big picture “Maps printed from mapping software [on 8.5″x11″ paper] may not show the whole picture of the area that you are going to be in,” says Davis. Always get detailed topos.

4. Weatherproof your maps A map double-bagged in a pair of gallon-size zipper-lock bags is every bit as waterproof as a map case, advises Crouch.

5. Don’t budge “Stay put until help arrives,” says Davis. “During a search, the first place crews look is the route that the person is supposed to be on.”

6. Keep your head “Fear negatively affects problem-solving by reducing the number of options we can consider, and hypothermia impacts our ability to assess the quality of the decisions we make,” says Hill. Hence Black’s irrational attempt to traverse a glacier.

In Too Deep

What business Greg Cone and Glenn Zimmerman had being on North Sister – the expert-class peak in central Oregon’s Three Sisters group–is anyone’s guess. Its easiest approach, the standard route up the southeast ridge, involves churning upward through thousands of feet of shifting talus, plus a long traverse with gut-wrenching exposure. The right equipment and skill might land you on top; Cone, 46, and Zimmerman, 55, both of Eugene, had neither.

As near as searchers with Deschutes County Search and Rescue can determine (Cone and Zimmerman did not return BACKPACKER’s phone calls), the duo intended to climb North Sister from the difficult north side. What most puzzles rescuers is the approach route the pair chose. Rather than stroll in on the easy Pole Creek Trail, Cone and Zimmerman planned to bushwhack up the Alder Creek drainage.

“We’ve never seen anyone try to go in this way,” says Wayne Jack, who coordinated the search that extricated Cone and Zimmerman. “North Sister is a highly technical climb. At best, these guys were prepared for an easy dayhike.” Between them, Cone and Zimmerman didn’t have an ice axe, helmet, rope, picket, map, or compass.

At 2 p.m. on October 4, 2003, the pair reached timberline exhausted and hours behind schedule. Despite possessing a newly purchased GPS, the two hikers could not reconcile where they were with a safe route to the summit. Running out of time, they decided to return to their car. Midway down the Alder Creek drainage, they were overtaken by darkness. Late that night, SAR officials received a call about two overdue hikers. The women on the other end could only tell authorities to look around North Sister, since neither of their husbands had mentioned where they would park or what route they planned to take.

When searchers finally located the disoriented hikers the next morning, the volunteers checked the men’s GPS unit. Cone and Zimmerman said that it had malfunctioned. “They didn’t have the know-how to use their GPS unit to navigate from the parking area,” says Jack. “We found no waypoints punched into the unit.” Considering the hazards waiting up high, getting lost was probably a blessing in disguise for these two.

1. Get real “They overestimated their abilities and underestimated how long things really take,” says Davis. “That’s a common mistake.” You should also know what specialized gear your route requires, such as rope and an ice axe.

2. Do your homework “They made a critical error by failing to study maps,” says Speik. “A call to the ranger might have revealed Pole Creek Trail as the best approach and pinpointed the climber’s route that leads to the summit.”

3. Use trails “Bushwhacking is always a bad call when there’s an approach trail going to your objective,” says Davis. “There is no such thing as a shortcut in the backcountry.” If you do need to go off-trail, be smart.

4. Practice at home “Their GPS unit didn’t malfunction,” says Speik. “The users did.” Learning to use a GPS is best done near home, where there’s no penalty for mistakes. Also, pack extra batteries and a backup compass.

5. Leave word “Cone and Zimmerman even botched the ‘travel-itinerary-given-to-friends’ part,” says Hill. Tell someone you trust your license plate number, where you’ll park, your route, when you’ll call to say you’re safe, and who to call if you don’t.

Trail to Nowhere

Linda Voll is willing to admit that her fascination with big trees got her hopelessly lost on a nature trail, of all places. The 57-year-old Voll was visiting Michigan’s Upper Peninsula when she decided to check out the behemoths at Estivant Pines Nature Sanctuary. For a short dayhike on a nature trail, Voll was, if anything, overprepared. “Every walk I go on I carry raingear, plenty of snacks, a flashlight, water, warm clothes, plastic bags, and a Therm-a-Rest stadium chair,” says Voll. But there was one glaring omission on her checklist: a compass.

Earlier that week a violent gale had ripped through Estivant Pines, knocking down trees and obliterating trail signs. Still, Voll managed to stay on track until she decided to take a detour on an unmaintained spur trail that led toward the stump of a big pine. But on her way back Voll lost the path. “I had been following a game track. I looked around for the trail and couldn’t make it out,” she says. The park’s handout trail map offered little clue to her whereabouts, so Voll tried to retrace her steps. Nothing looked familiar. Flat gray light suffused the forest, further distorting her sense of direction. When she came across a fallen tree she knew she’d seen before, Voll realized she’d been hiking in a circle.

“I’ve always had a pretty good sense of direction, but I was so twisted around that I couldn’t trust my own instincts,” says Voll.

Tired and confused, she could feel panic creeping in. To calm herself, Voll sat down and dug into her pack for a snack. “I remember thinking, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ All I had to do was pick a direction, start hiking, and it might take a day or two, but sooner or later I’d hit Lake Superior.”

Resolved to hike until she was too tired to go farther, Voll resumed her search for a trail or road. Twenty minutes later she stumbled upon her car at the trailhead. “Two things I never do anymore: believe anyone who says a trail is easy to follow, or forget a compass,” says Voll.

1. Pack for anything “There is no such thing as being over-prepared,” says Davis. While Voll’s supplies would have seen her through an unexpected night outdoors, she obviously didn’t expect to get lost on a short nature trail; hence, no compass.

2. See the forest “Her main navigation error was being oblivious to her surroundings,” says Davis. “This is a common error that birdwatchers, mushroom pickers, and berry pickers make.” Map your bird sightings or berry patches as you go, incorporating your hobby into sound navigation. 3. Plan your escape “Before starting, Voll should have picked a safety bearing – a general direction that you’ll travel if you become lost,” says Hill. For any hike, it should be a direction that will lead you to a sure escape route.

4. Make an investment “With a $6 topo, $125 GPS, and some simple skills, she could have pinpointed her location within a few yards,” says Speik. Crack open the wallet if off-trail travel is in your future.

5. Don’t trust luck “Voll’s decision to travel a particular–apparently arbitrary–direction is not the most effective strategy for becoming unlost,” says Hill. “Fortunately, it worked.”

Robert Perkins, a fit 42-year-old professor, and his son Matthew, 15, had a big hike planned for a long August day. The pair would ascend central Oregon’s Middle Sister and South Sister, and exit to Devil’s Lake trailhead, where Robert’s wife, Mary, would pick them up. It was a fairly straightforward route for experienced, well-equipped hikers like this father-son team.

One thousand feet below the summit of Middle Sister, with evening approaching and a storm brewing, the pair reached a decision point. “It was getting late, and I asked my son, ‘Do you want to finish this mountain, or do you want to just go on over to South Sister where your mom’s meeting us?'” says Robert. “We didn’t have time to do both, and the weather was changing.” Matthew voted to keep going up.

They figured they could catch a ride to meet Mary once they were down. After topping out in near whiteout conditions, the two descended along the ridge they had climbed earlier. But in the fog they missed a crucial turn and decided to follow a drainage system that Robert guessed would eventually dump them onto one of the many trails that surround the peak. No such luck.

With night falling, it was clear they’d have to bivouac. Robert rose early the next morning, on a cloudless day, and ascended a ridge in order to get cell-phone reception. He dialed 911 and, adding to a string of miscues, gave the dispatcher incorrect coordinates. Rescuers went off on a wild-goose chase well north of the Perkins’ actual location. (Robert would later learn from searchers that the compass on his watch was miscalibrated by 28 degrees.)

Later, Robert called to leave a voicemail message for Mary, informing her that he and Matthew would hike out to Devil’s Lake trailhead. When she delivered the message to searchers, they abandoned Pole Creek and drove 50 miles around to a new location. But father and son, still confused about their whereabouts, hopped on a climber trail approaching from Pole Creek–taking them away from their rescuers and right back where their saga began.

1. Be conservative “Robert should not have let his son’s enthusiasm override his cautious instincts,” says Crouch. “Retreat is always an option up until the point that you lose control.”

2. Break the Chain “One mistake seldom gets someone into serious trouble. Chains of mistakes do that. The Perkinses should have aborted at the first complication; they shouldn’t have continued to the top in a grayout,” says Crouch. “By the time they made their navigation error, their late start meant not enough daylight to fix it.”

3. Put yourself on the map “If they could have found their location on the map ‘by inspection’–using major land features–they might have seen their bivouac was only about two kilometers from the well-traveled Green Lakes Trail,” says Speik.

4. Bring the right tools “A GPS and USGS quad would have overruled the maladjusted compass and saved the day for these adventurers and 40 volunteers,” says Speik.

5. Don’t be overconfident “Despite their experience, the Perkinses walked about 10 miles in what was obviously the wrong direction before coming out at the wrong trailhead,” says Hill. Make it a habit to double-check your route.

Popular on Backpacker

Join Outside+ to get access to exclusive content, 1,000s of training plans, and more.

Healthy Living

• Clean Eating
• Vegetarian Times
• Yoga Journal
• Fly Fishing Film Tour
• National Park Trips
• Warren Miller
• Fastest Known Time
• Trail Runner
• Women's Running
• Bicycle Retailer & Industry News
• FinisherPix
• Outside Events Cycling Series
• Outside Shop

© 2024 Outside Interactive, Inc

Letterboxd — Your life in film

Forgotten username or password ?

• Start a new list…
• Add all films to a list…
• Add all films to watchlist

Add to your films…

Press Tab to complete, Enter to create

A moderator has locked this field.

Add to lists

Where to watch

Directed by Matt Allen

The Truth... Can Kill.

An investigation into a camping trip gone wrong turns into a fight for survival when a team, including a brilliant primate specialist and led by a ruthless television producer, must come to grips with the possible existence of Bigfoot.

Adrienne Barbeau Brian Thompson Ben Browder Cheryl Texiera Hutch Dano Matt Riedy Shoshana Bush Christopher Soren Kelly Anthony Ray Parker Max Decker Ryan Lee Máire Higgins Lauren Ashlyn O'Brien

Director Director

Producers producers.

Chadwick Struck Mitch Dickman Samantha Sigler Matt Allen Michael Haskins Curt Bergman Angela Hollingsworth

Writers Writers

Matt Allen Scott Park

Casting Casting

Chadwick Struck

Editor Editor

Peder Morgenthaler

Cinematography Cinematography

Production design production design.

Chris Canfield

Art Direction Art Direction

Cami Walker

Composer Composer

Alan Howarth

Costume Design Costume Design

Midian Crosby

Rum River Productions

Releases by Date

20 aug 2019, 03 dec 2020, releases by country.

• Physical 18

96 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by haley ★★ 2

this is one of those movies that you turn on and then end up being on your phone for the entire duration instead of actually watching

Review by JSlattery ★★★ 5

An arrogant reality tv show producer rounds up a team to investigate the disappearance of a bunch of teen campers , allegedly at the hands of bigfoot! My quest to track down every obscure sasquatch flick goes on, this is a fairly recent entry in the genre. On the plus side the production values are decent, and it looks nice, on the downside we don't see a lot of the squatch, which is disappointing considering they obviously had a decent budget to work with. Also,spoiler alert, at one point late on the film completely changes track to become a 'backwoods horror', almost as if they got tired of the Bigfoot shenanigans and wanted to throw some torture and cannibalism into the pot..so to speak! An ok time waster.

Review by Zay ★★

Shao Kahn vs Bigfoot in the Colorado wilderness: 1, 2, 3 FIGHT!!! Hoax, like most other bigfoot films, chooses to hide the bigfoot in the shadows. Which is ok when their are likable characters but there aren't any characters you care about here. There are a few decent encounters with the bigfoot and the characters later in the film. Just as its building steam they introduce a cannibalistic backwoods family that adds absolutely nothing to the story. Not the worst big foot movie, but nothing worth noting either.

4.5 out of 10

Review by Eltopo68 ★★½ 1

I have hundreds if not thousands of movies on my shelves and in my streaming queue and yet when it's time to watch something I settle on another Bigfoot movie streaming on Tubi that ultimately leaves me unsatisfied for a true Bigfoot fix. Luckily, there's a copy of "Night of the Demon" about ten feet away from me and that will do just fine.

Review by MontyMole ★★ 2

HOAX - DIE BIGFOOT VERSCHWÖRUNG

Eine Gruppe junger Camper ist im Wald brutal ermordet wurden. Alle Spuren deuten auf eine übermenschlich große Kreatur hin. Die Öffentlichkeit ist aufgebracht. Ein TV-Produzent sammelt ein Forschungsteam um sich. Er will für seine neue Big Foot Show mehr über die bluthungrige Bestie erfahren. Doch was sie im Wald entdecken ist gefährlicher als alles, was sie sich je vorgestellt hatten.

HOAX vergeudet verdammt viel Zeit mit Unwichtigkeiten und ewigem im Wald umhergelaufe. Zumal die Gruppe hier mit Ausnahme von Brian Thompson (immer nett den zu sehen) eher uninteressante Charaktere bilden. Darunter die Klischeeblonde Instagramm Frutte die ein mächtiges Alko und Pillenproblem hat. Gähn. Aber, eins muss man dem Produkt hier dann doch lassen, er sieht…

Review by S̷ ̷Y̷ ̷S̷ ̷T̷ ̷E̷ ̷M̷ ̷T̷ ̷E̷ ̷R̷ ̷R̷ ̷O̷ ̷R̷ ★½

How aptly named considering the film is a hoax. I imagine to launder money or scam investors or something. It's an obnoxiously boring ChatGPT script written with a prompt of "a squatch movie meets Resident Evil VII."

Review by Janine ★★

This started out decent and had a good premise, but ultimately lost me halfway through

Review by Chris Brown ★★★½ 1

Starts by the numbers but stick with it. gets very brutal and gory. kind of shook me!

Review by Simon Lang ★½

Do you enjoy Bigfoot/Sasquatch flicks? Yes? Well then, skip this one and watch ABOMINABLE, EXISTS, or PRIMAL RAGE instead. HOAX isn't much more than its title suggests, a pointless and stupid borefest with mainly off screen kills, dull and stereotypical characters with undeveloped motivation, and a twist just for the sake of having a twist.

Review by maskull ★★

I was partially on board with this movie for most of the runtime. It was messy, and had no flow to it really, but it was a Sasquatch movie with people trapped in the woods, so that was enough to keep me on board....then the ending reveal happened and my brain was "No thank you!" and that was all she wrote. It just hadn't built up that much good will to make me go with the lame ending.

But it was cool to see Brian Thompson and a minuscule cameo by Adrienne Barbeau. So that's something at least.

Review by The_Ghoul ★

"What was that?"

After a group of hikers goes missing, a TV producer assembles a crew to discover what happened. There is some decent production value here but the story is a snore and the characters are bland and uninspired. In the third act, the filmmakers get tired of bigfoot and decide to switch gears to Texas Chainsaw Massacre - it doesn't help.

Highlights Include: * Adrienne Barbeau has a scene with a chimp * Brian Thompson deserved better

Recommended Double Feature: Primal Rage (2018)

Review by Stefano Monteforte ★★

After some horny, attractive teens take to the depth of the Colorado wilderness to break the slasher film commandments (and coincidentally, hear the entire Friday the 13th Part Two "Jason's out there" campfire story, almost verbatim), they're dispatched by what seems to be everyone's favorite hairy hominid. Luckily, a ruthless television producer (Ben Browder) has assembled a rag-tag team of caricatures for an expedition into these same woods, with hopes of scoring the next big reality show. More happens during their three days of field research than in ten fucking seasons of "Finding Bigfoot", mind you. A moderately entertaining, technically polished standard piece of genre fare, with woefully obvious nods to "Shriek of the Mutilated" and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is the end result. Worth a look.

Select your preferred poster

Vacation or Expedition Gone Wrong Movies

2. A Perfect Getaway

3. The Ruins

4. Triangle

5. The Hills Have Eyes

6. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

7. Eden Lake

9. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

10. House of Wax

11. Turistas

12. Wolf Creek

13. The Hitcher

14. Jeepers Creepers

15. The Descent

17. Vacancy

18. 127 Hours

19. Altitude

20. And Soon the Darkness

More to explore, recently viewed.

Horror Movie Camping Trips Gone Wrong: A List

• Movies & TV

Everyone loves a good toe-curling, teeth-clenching and spine-tingling horror story! Some of the most nerve crunching scary movies have been set in the woods during camping trips, and for good reason. The unfamiliar surroundings and vast rural settings mean that the fear of the unknown looms large. Exposed and vulnerable, the imagination plays tricks on you as you try and make sense of the rustling in the trees and the strange noises in the woods–what could it be? And will you get out alive?! Below are some of the scariest horror movies in which a short excursion or camping trip goes horribly wrong.

Long Weekend (1978)

This is a classic Australian horror film which carries a potent message about the power of nature over man. The film features a couple that goes camping on the beach with their dog and treat their environment with enormous disrespect while they are there. These repeated transgressions do not go unnoticed by nature’s omniscient presence and, eventually, nature strikes back in gruesome fashion.

Deliverance (1972)

This is  an American camping horror classic  which explores some incredibly dark and heavy themes, It’s best known for its visceral and graphic rape scene and the sound of dueling banjos. The archetype of the inbred country boy is epitomized in this film, and part of the fear and suspense factor lies in not knowing exactly what kind of sick and twisted deeds these depraved individuals are capable of.

Madman (1982)

Just when you think you’re on a safe, cozy camping trip, warm and toasty ‘round the fire, living vicariously through scary stories, this fantasy turns into reality as you are suddenly fighting for your life, on the run from a murderer who’s back from the dead. Similar in plot to Friday the 13th , this is another  good old-fashioned American slasher film  featuring a blood-thirsty, axe-wielding murderer and a bunch of hapless teenagers at summer camp. After one of the cocksure teens in the group says the name of the legendary murderer, the slayings begin as the teens get picked of one by one in the woods.

Wolf Creek (2005)

Everyone is familiar with the eerie archetype of the seemingly benevolent individual that actually turns out to be a psychotic murderer. In this gory Australian horror film, the ostensibly kindly person takes the form of a rural man named Mick Taylor who offers to help the backpacking tourists when their car breaks down. He invites them  back to his off-grid camp  just south of Wolf Creek, and the next thing they know they wake up bound and gagged in a shed with screams abound as their friends are being tortured. Even more chilling is the fact that the film was based on true events, inspired by the real-life murders of backpackers killed by Ivan Milat in 1990 and Bradley Murdoch in 2001.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

No list of camping trips gone wrong would be complete without this  found footage horror film documenting the story of three student film makers that venture into the woods to investigate the local legend of the Blair Witch. The shaky, handheld point-of-view camera work is what gave this film its charm and made it so suspenseful and memorable. It’s an absolute must for any horror film DVD collection!

More Stories

Official Trailer Drops for THE WELDER – Coming This February

Upcoming Horror Anthology FREE TO A BAD HOME Drops Trailer

Trailer Drops for DON’T F*CK IN THE WOODS 2 Hitting Digital October 11

SLAUGHTER DAY Collector’s Edition Blu-ray Coming September 13 from SOV Curator Visual Vengeance

Trailer Drops for A TOWN FULL OF GHOSTS

• Kindle Store
• Kindle eBooks
• Literature & Fiction

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Buy for others

Buying and sending ebooks to others.

• Select quantity
• Buy and send eBooks
• Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Camping Trip Gone Wrong Kindle Edition

• Print length 3 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publication date October 5, 2013
• File size 372 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00FO7KA6S
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 5, 2013
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 372 KB
• Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 3 pages

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

No customer reviews

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Become an Amazon Hub Partner
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

Request another

Follow class ace :.

Trevor Noah weighs in on Kendrick vs. Drake, swerves a fan's gift at Hollywood Bowl show

LOS ANGELES − Former " Daily Show " host Trevor Noah wasn't afraid to get political during his Hollywood Bowl stand-up set Saturday night.

And we're not talking about the upcoming presidential election, which he was also asked about during an audience Q&A segment that capped off his nearly two-hour show. No, he waded into more controversial waters: Is he Team Kendrick Lamar or Team Drake ?

After pretending to close the show in an effort avoid such a heated topic, Noah fearlessly planted his flag in Team Kendrick while expertly remaining diplomatic.

"In general, I love both. You can't force me to not love both. I don't live in a binary world; I love Drake's music, I love Kendrick's music," he told crowd.

Full rap beef timeline: All nine Drake and Kendrick Lamar 2024 diss songs

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

"In this beef in particular, I think as an amateur fan of hip-hop, not as an expert" − he pauses to warn someone to put their phone away, though devices were not prohibited at the show − "I think in this instance, in my humble opinion, Kendrick won because first of all, he layered it."

His answer earned a healthy amount of applause from the LA crowd.

Noah explained, "Drake had some great rhymes. They were fantastic, but they were like, direct, you know? Kendrick was (doing) like, double, triple, quadruple entendre. And if you didn't get it, he was just like, 'I hate how you walk. I hate how you talk.' And I was like, 'Wow, what an effective way of communication.'

"And then he also made them bops as well! It's hard to lose a rap beef when it's that catchy," he added. Earlier in the day, "I didn't even know I was doing it, like, ' They not like us. They not like us .' Then you've won. When people are singing your demise for fun, I think you've lost the rap beef. So: Kendrick."

Saturday night marked the end of the North American leg of Noah's Off the Record tour (and the penultimate night for the nearly two-week long Netflix Is a Joke Fest ), which might have explained his willingness to throw caution to the wind by taking sides.

As the South African comedian said, he "can't be fired now" that he's done performing in the U.S.

Netflix Is a Joke: John Mulaney opens up about life with son Malcolm

Trevor Noah calls out LA drivers for cutting him off in Hollywood Bowl traffic

Otherwise, Noah stuck to less divisive topics during his set, which started with subjects you simply can't go wrong with when speaking with an LA crowd: weather and traffic.

After an opening set by his longtime friend Wil Sylvince , the visiting New Yorker chastised audience members as he pointed out the passive aggressive way LA drivers don't make eye contact as they screw over fellow drivers.

"I'm trying to come to the show with you!" he said. "People were cutting me off in the traffic."

He discussed his recent travels and bemoaned universally accepted annoyances, like being put on standby on a flight because of an airline's own mistakes. Noah admitted there's a part of his brain that makes him see the humor in the most inappropriate circumstances − and even if it's too soon to find something funny.

"I don’t find everything funny, but I find the funny in everything," Noah said.

Jerry Seinfeld's set: Comedy icon gives the keys to 24-year marriage

Such an instance was when news broke about the missing submersible (the one with five men inside headed to explore the Titanic wreckage but who died when the Titan imploded). The comedian's first thought: "We know there were no Black people involved in this story."

Whether it's a skiing accident, a camping trip gone wrong, a hot air balloon accident, "there were no Black people involved," Noah joked.

"I think Black people inherently live a life that is fraught with danger," he said, later adding, "Anyone who has Africa in their blood, their DNA, you won't seek out unnecessary danger. You can't. That, my friends, is the purview of white men. That is what white men are destined to do. And white men, I'm not shaming you. I'm encouraging you: You keep going, baby."

Trevor Noah evokes Dave Chappelle incident, graciously swerves a gift from a fan

As he segued into the second half of his set with a sip from a water bottle, Noah was interrupted by someone in the crowd who had a birthday card they wanted to share with Noah, who turned 40 in February.

"She's touching me! It's Dave Chappelle all over again!" he joked as the audience member approached the security-lined stage.

In 2022, during the inaugural Netflix Is a Joke Fest at Hollywood Bowl, a man in the crowd assaulted Chappelle onstage and was later sentenced to prison time.

"I just wanted to see how quick they were. Clearly I'd be dead," Noah said. "Just say it's a birthday card, (and) a person can make it all the way to the stage."

He immediately flung the gift to the side to the stage.

"I'll make sure to take it, but I'm not going to hold it. I like you, but I don't trust you," he told the fan.

"I hope you understand, from my perspective, if I just took every gift people gave me, they're like, 'It's for you!' I'd be like, 'Yeah, pffff,' " he said, making an impression of an explosion. "White comedian, I'd be like, 'Thank you, let's see what it is!' No Black people involved. None."

• Election 2024
• Entertainment
• Newsletters
• Photography
• Personal Finance
• AP Investigations
• AP Buyline Personal Finance
• AP Buyline Shopping
• Press Releases
• Israel-Hamas War
• Russia-Ukraine War
• Global elections
• Asia Pacific
• Latin America
• Middle East
• Election Results
• Delegate Tracker
• AP & Elections
• Auto Racing
• 2024 Paris Olympic Games
• Movie reviews
• Book reviews
• Personal finance
• Financial Markets
• Business Highlights
• Financial wellness
• Artificial Intelligence
• Social Media

How a beach trip in Mexico’s Baja California turned deadly for surfers from Australia and the US

The photos of the foreign surfers who disappeared are placed on the beach in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)

Relatives have identified three bodies found in a well as those of two Australian surfers and one American who went missing last weekend, Mexican authorities said Sunday. Baja California state prosecutors said the relatives had viewed the bodies recovered from a remote well about 50 feet (15 meters) deep and recognized them as their loved ones.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday called the recent deaths of two Australian surfers in Mexico a “terrible tragedy.” Albanese said he had requested an opportunity to speak to the brothers’ parents.

The photos of the foreign surfers who disappeared are placed on the beach in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. Mexican authorities said Friday that three bodies were recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend during an apparent camping and surfing trip. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)

• Copy Link copied

Surfers throw flowers during a tribute to 3 missing surfers in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. Mexican authorities said Friday that three bodies were recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend during an apparent camping and surfing trip. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)

A man holds flowers during a tribute to 3 missing surfers in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. Mexican authorities said Friday that three bodies were recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend during an apparent camping and surfing trip. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)

A demonstrator holding a bodyboard written in Spanish " They just wanted to surf and they were executed” protests the disappearance of foreign surfers in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. Mexican authorities said Friday that three bodies were recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend during an apparent camping and surfing trip. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two Australians and an American were doing what they loved on the stunning, largely isolated stretch of Baja California’s Pacific coast. Their last images on social media showed them sitting and gazing at the waves, contemplating the breaks.

What happened to end their lives may have been as random as a passing pickup truck full of people with ill intent. The surfers were shot in the head, their bodies dumped in a covered well miles away. How it unfolded was the stuff of nightmares.

Brothers Jake and Callum Robinson from Australia and American Jack Carter Rhoad had apparently stopped to surf the breaks between Punta San José, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Ensenada, and La Bocana, further north on the coast. They were attacked there on April 28 or 29.

As soon as police arrived at their last known camp site, it was clear that something had gone violently wrong.

There were bloodstains and marks “as if heavy objects had been dragged,” leading to suspicions of an attack, the Baja California state prosecutor’s office said in an attempt to reconstruct the scene.

A demonstrator holding a bodyboard written in Spanish " They just wanted to surf and they were executed” protests the disappearance of foreign surfers in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)

Chief state prosecutor María Elena Andrade Ramírez described what likely would have been moments of terror that ended the trip for the three men.

She theorized the killers drove by and saw the foreigners’ pickup truck and tents and wanted to steal the truck’s tires and other parts. But “when (the foreigners) came up and caught them, surely, they resisted.”

She said that’s when the killers would have shot the men. She said they were likely not attacked because they were tourists. “The evidence suggests they (the killers) did not know where they were from.”

Andrade Ramírez said the reconstruction of events was based on the forensic examiner’s reports, noting all three had bullet wounds to the head.

There was a hurried attempt to destroy evidence. The foreigners’ tents were apparently burned. The pickup truck was driven miles away and burned. The assailants’ truck was later found with a gun inside.

Then, at “a site that is extremely hard to get to,” the bodies were dumped into a well about 4 miles (6 kilometers) away. Investigators were surprised when, underneath the bodies of the three foreigners, a fourth body was found that had been there much longer.

“They had to have previous knowledge of it,” Andrade Ramírez said of the attackers, acknowledging the possibility they were behind the previous killing.

The well had been covered with boards. “It was literally almost impossible to find it,” Andrade Ramírez said. It took two hours to winch the bodies out.

A man holds flowers during a tribute to 3 missing surfers in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)

Surfers throw flowers during a tribute to 3 missing surfers in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)

Prosecutors have said they were questioning three people in the killings. Two were caught with methamphetamines. One of them, a woman, had one of the victims’ cellphones when she was caught. Prosecutors said the two were being held pending drug charges but continue to be suspects in the killings.

A third man was arrested on charges of a crime equivalent to kidnapping, but that was before the bodies were found. It was unclear if he might face more charges.

The third man was believed to have directly participated in the killings. In keeping with Mexican law, prosecutors identified him by his first name, Jesús Gerardo, alias “el Kekas,” a slang word that means quesadillas, or cheese tortillas.

Andrade Ramírez said he had a criminal record that included drug dealing, vehicle theft and domestic violence, adding, “We are certain that more people were involved.”

She emphasized that she could not discuss anything related to the suspects, or their possible statements, because that was not allowed under Mexican law and might prejudice the case against them.

Andrade Ramírez noted that the victims’ families said the brothers and Rhoad had come many times to the seaside spot and never had any problem. This time, however, “there was no way to ask for help when the attackers showed up.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday he had requested an opportunity to speak to the brothers’ parents Deborah and Martin Robinson.

“This is a terrible tragedy and my heart goes out to them. To identify these wonderful young men and they have been travelling in Mexico. We’ve been dealing with them through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. I’ve indicated that I wish to speak to them at an appropriate time of their choosing,” Albanese told reporters in the Queensland state town of Rockhampton.

Watch CBS News

3 surfers from Australia and the U.S. were killed in Mexico's Baja California. Here's what we know.

Updated on: May 7, 2024 / 4:08 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Two Australians and an American were doing what they loved on the stunning, largely isolated stretch of Baja California's Pacific coast. Their last images on social media showed them sitting and gazing at the waves.

What happened to end their lives may have been as random as a passing pickup truck full of people with ill intent. The  surfers were shot in the head , their bodies dumped in a covered well miles away. Here's what we know:

Who were the victims?

Brothers Jake and Callum Robinson from Australia and American Jack Carter Rhoad had apparently stopped to surf the breaks between Punta San José, about 50 miles south of Ensenada, and La Bocana, further north on the coast.

Callum Robinson's Instagram page showed several images from the trio's Mexico trip: enjoying beers with their feet up in a bar, lazing in a jacuzzi, eating roadside tacos, looking out at the surf.

Callum, who was six-foot-four, had played in the U.S. Premier Lacrosse League, which left a  message on its website  saying the lacrosse world was "heartbroken by the tragic loss" of the trio.

"We offer our hearts, support and prayers to the Robinson and Rhoad Families, as well as all who loved Callum, Jake and Jack," it said.

On social media, his devastated girlfriend shared a black and white photo of the couple kissing, with the message: "You are one of one. I will love you forever."

In another photo she shared, in which the two can be seen embracing,  she wrote: "My heart is shattered into a million pieces. I don't have the words right now."

Jake Robinson was a doctor in Perth, according to Australian media.

Rhoad was engaged and set to marry Natalie Weirtz on Aug. 17 in Columbus, Ohio, according to a  Zola  online wedding registry. A GoFundMe which was launched to "rally support for Natalie" had raised over $57,000 as of Tuesday morning.

"In the wake of the heartbreaking loss of Carter Rhoad, Callum Robinson, and Jake Robinson, our hearts ache with grief for their families, friends, and community," reads a separate GoFundMe set up for Rhoad's family.

What happened to them?

The three friends were attacked there on April 28 or 29.

As soon as police arrived at their last known camp site, it was clear that something had gone violently wrong.

There were bloodstains and marks "as if heavy objects had been dragged," leading to suspicions of an attack, the Baja California state prosecutor's office said in an attempt to reconstruct the scene.

Chief state prosecutor María Elena Andrade Ramírez described what likely would have been moments of terror that ended the trip for the three men.

She theorized the killers drove by and saw the foreigners' pickup truck and tents and wanted to steal the truck's tires and other parts. But "when (the foreigners) came up and caught them, surely, they resisted."

She said that's when the killers would have shot the men. She said they were likely not attacked because they were tourists. "The evidence suggests they (the killers) did not know where they were from."

Andrade Ramírez said the reconstruction of events was based on the forensic examiner's reports, noting all three had bullet wounds to the head.

There was a hurried attempt to destroy evidence. The foreigners' tents were apparently burned. The pickup truck was driven miles away and burned. The assailants' truck was later found with a gun inside.

Then, at "a site that is extremely hard to get to," the bodies were dumped into a well about 4 miles (6 kilometers) away. Investigators were surprised when, underneath the bodies of the three foreigners, a fourth body was found that had been there much longer.

"They had to have previous knowledge of it," Andrade Ramírez said of the attackers, acknowledging the possibility they were behind the previous killing.

The well had been covered with boards. "It was literally almost impossible to find it," Andrade Ramírez said. It took two hours to winch the bodies out.

Who are the suspects?

Prosecutors have said they were questioning three people in the killings. Two were caught with methamphetamines. One of them, a woman, had one of the victims' cellphones when she was caught. Prosecutors said the two were being held pending drug charges but continue to be suspects in the killings.

A third man was arrested on charges of a crime equivalent to kidnapping, but that was before the bodies were found. It was unclear if he might face more charges.

The third man was believed to have directly participated in the killings. In keeping with Mexican law, prosecutors identified him by his first name, Jesús Gerardo, alias "el Kekas," a slang word that means quesadillas, or cheese tortillas.

Andrade Ramírez said he had a criminal record that included drug dealing, vehicle theft and domestic violence, adding, "We are certain that more people were involved."

She emphasized that she could not discuss anything related to the suspects, or their possible statements, because that was not allowed under Mexican law and might prejudice the case against them.

Andrade Ramírez noted that the victims' families said the brothers and Rhoad had come many times to the seaside spot and never had any problem. This time, however, "there was no way to ask for help when the attackers showed up."

What's next?

In a statement to CBS News, the FBI said it "continues to work with our international law enforcement partners in resolving this ongoing situation" and has been in contact with the family of the American victim.

"While we cannot comment on specifics to preserve the sanctity of the investigative and legal processes, along with protecting the privacy of those impacted, we can assure you that we are assessing every tip. If credible, we will pursue those leads with rigor," the FBI said.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday he had requested an opportunity to speak to the brothers' parents Deborah and Martin Robinson.

"This is a terrible tragedy and my heart goes out to them. To identify these wonderful young men and they have been travelling in Mexico. We've been dealing with them through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. I've indicated that I wish to speak to them at an appropriate time of their choosing," Albanese told reporters in the Queensland state town of Rockhampton.

AFP contributed to this report.

More from CBS News

Flash floods in northern Afghanistan killed more than 300 people, U.N. says

Northern lights set the sky aglow amid powerful geomagnetic storm

Transborder students who crossed from Mexico to U.S. set to graduate

Biden campaign ramps up outreach to Black voters in Wisconsin

Robbery gone wrong suspected as possible motive in killing of U.S., Australian surfers in Mexico

Family members confirmed the three bodies found in the bottom of a well were the missing surfers who disappeared last weekend while camping south of Ensenada

• Show more sharing options
• Copy Link URL Copied!

Three bodies found at the bottom of a well in a remote area south of Ensenada are those of two missing San Diego men and a visiting brother from Australia, Mexican officials confirmed Sunday.

The victims’ families, who traveled to Ensenada, were able to identify the bodies, so there was no need for genetic testing, the Baja California Attorney General’s Office said in a press release.

Mexican officials said a carjacking gone wrong was a possible motive in the fatal shootings. The group was last seen April 27 while on a surf trip.

Baja California Attorney General María Elena Andrade said that the preliminary investigation suggests the assailants wanted to steal the white Chevrolet pickup the trio was riding in, in hopes of taking the vehicle’s tires. Callum Robinson, 33, an Australian living in San Diego; his visiting brother, Jake Robinson, 30; and their friend, Jack Carter Rhoad, 30, a U.S. citizen and San Diegan, were traveling in Baja California when they went missing last weekend.

Andrade said it appears the victims resisted the robbery and were shot. She said she believed that when the attackers “realized they lost control of what was originally a robbery, they tried to get rid of the bodies by throwing them into a well.”

The 15-meter deep well was found on a remote and difficult-to-access oceanfront lot about 4 miles from where the victims had camped. Bottles, bags and uneaten food were found in an unoccupied brick house on the property, Andrade said.

At the isolated campsite officials found evidence including a shell casing, blood stains and drag marks that led them to believe the victims had been assaulted.

After an extensive search by several agencies, officials recovered the remains of four bodies from the bottom of the well.

A fourth body, unrelated to the investigation, was also found at the bottom. Officials estimated the body was there longer, between 15 or 30 days.

A coroner’s report released Sunday said the three men suffered gunshot wounds to the head. Officials estimated they died five to seven days ago.

Prior to holding a press conference at the prosecutor’s headquarters in Tijuana, Andrade met with relatives of the victims, as well as officials from the U.S. and Australia, she said.

A man identified only as Jesús Gerardo, alias El Kekas, was arrested on suspicion of forced disappearance as a result of the investigation. The suspect has a criminal record, officials said.

Two others, a man and a woman, who prosecutors said were still under investigation, were arrested on suspicion of drug possession. Andrade said the investigation is still open and that more people could be involved.

Previously, Ensenada officials said a woman was arrested in possession of what is believed to be one of the victim’s cellphones. A gun was also found in the alleged attacker’s vehicle, according to prosecutors.

On Sunday, Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila reiterated her call for a thorough investigation to “clarify all doubts surrounding these events.”

“I also ask the state judiciary to apply the law rigorously against those responsible for these regrettable acts,” she said. “Baja California is and will continue to be a state with safe tourism for the thousands of people who visit us from the rest of the country and the world. I send my condolences and solidarity to the families in this difficult moment.”

On Sunday afternoon, a group of Baja California surfers held a paddle-out memorial at San Miguel Beach in Ensenada to honor the victims.

“This goes not only for our fellow surfers who came to visit us but also for all the missing people in Baja California,” said Gino Passalacqua, vice president of the Baja Surf Club, founded in 1965. “We demand justice and that the authorities do something to stop this.”

Surfers from both sides of the border attended the ceremony.

Passalacqua said the tragedy happened at a popular spot for surfers, where many of them camp. “Part of surfing is being able to explore sites in peace and quiet,” he said.

Surfers felt it was important to draw attention to their safety concerns. “So we said we have to do something and we have to do something now,” he added.

The latest news, as soon as it breaks.

Get our email alerts straight to your inbox.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune.

More from this Author

Border & Baja

The call of Baja California surf is the stuff of legend. Has violence ended that dream?

May 12, 2024

Testimony details alleged motive in Mexico surfer slayings: ‘They had a lot of money, devices and the pickup’

May 8, 2024

Public Safety

Bodies recovered in Baja California likely those of missing San Diegans, visiting Australian, prosecutors say

May 4, 2024

Bodies found in Baja California near where surfers from San Diego went missing

May 3, 2024

Search intensifies for missing U.S. and Australian surfers traveling in Ensenada

May 2, 2024

Immigration

County moves forward with plan for a long-term migrant center after securing federal funding

May 1, 2024

More in this section

Two killed when motorcycle crashes while being chased by el cajon police.

A 42-year-old man and a 42-year-old woman died after the motorcycle they were on crashed into two vehicles on East Main Street around 11:40 p.m. Saturday, police said

Suspect arrested after man fatally stabbed in Encinitas

Deputies found the victim outside a home on Sprucewood Drive near Orangetree Court shortly after 10:10 p.m.; someone had called to report a stabbing

2 teens injured in shooting in Egger Highlands neighborhood

An 18-year-old woman and a 17-year-old boy were injured in a shooting on Elm Avenue near 18th Street around 9:15 p.m., San Diego police said

Four dead in state Route 76 crash near Fallbrook

A driver veered into oncoming traffic on state Route 76, causing a three-vehicle collision

May 11, 2024

Woman who sent drug-soaked letters to jail inmate sentenced to prison

Katherine Smothers sent multiple letters to an inmate at the George Bailey Detention Facility in Otay Mesa between December 2022 and April 2023

May 10, 2024

As deaths and lawsuits pile up, sheriff selects another medical provider for San Diego County jails

The Sheriff’s Department was not willing to discuss the new agreement, which comes after it cited its stark deficiencies identified by internal controls

Perth brothers Callum and Jake Robinson went for a quick surf weekend in Mexico. How did it go so wrong?

It was meant to be an idyllic surf adventure down Mexico's north-west coast. 

Australian doctor Jake Robinson, 30, flew over to San Diego, where his older brother Callum was based. 

Both athletic, outdoorsy adventurers who shared a love of the waves and adventure, they decided to grab a friend — American Jack Carter Rhoad — and head south for a quick surf jaunt. 

Like so many before them, they were lured by Baja California's crisp, sparkling waves, as well as the chance to camp on rugged and remote beaches among the wildflowers. 

Here, beaches are often referred to by their latitude and in late April, the men visited the K38 surf break. 

Rodrigo Leal Bravo from the local surf shop remembers them coming in to buy wax. 

"They were excited about their surf trip and they were on their way south," he told the ABC. 

He noticed the strong bond between the Australian brothers. 

"Their fraternity was so admirable," he said. 

Callum told Rodrigo they were heading to Punta San Jose, a remote spot which was about three hours drive from the surf shop. 

It's only accessible by unsealed roads and the mobile tower coverage is patchy at best, but Rodrigo says he wasn't concerned for their safety

"I did not think anything should happen to those big strong guys, right?" he said. 

But when Callum didn't show up to work in San Diego after the weekend, loved ones were confused, then concerned, and then finally panicked. 

Three bodies have been found where Callum, Jake and Jack went missing — though they are yet to be formally identified. 

"All three bodies meet the characteristics to assume with a high degree of probability that they are the American [Jack] Carter Rhoad as well as the Robinson brothers from Australia," said Baja California's state Attorney-General María Elena Andrade Ramírez.

Mexican authorities have also detained two men and a woman in connection with their disappearance. 

As the case is investigated, a devastating picture is emerging of what may have gone wrong on the scrubby cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. 

A weekend jaunt south of the border 

Callum shared glimpses of their Mexican surf trip on his Instagram account. 

The first photo shows their white Chevvy packed with boards and towels right near the water's edge. 

"....and it begins," Callum wrote as the caption, along with a surfer emoji and a picture of the Mexican flag. 

He then added more snapshots of their journey — taco stands, brightly coloured buildings, and Jack beaming with a boom box on his shoulder. 

The stories ended abruptly with a picture of Playa San Miguel, a crop of yellow daisies growing at the edge of the sand. 

They were reported missing about two days later, but in Baja California, timelines can be difficult to piece together. 

As each wave crests and breaks, as each taco is procured from a local food stand, and as each sunset melts over the Pacific, the days start to blend. 

Locals and tourists alike have vague memories of seeing a pair of Australian brothers and their American friend riding the waves on the northern Mexican coast in late April, but exact dates are difficult. 

Callum, a 190-centimetre-tall athlete with cascading brown hair, turned heads everywhere he went. 

"I remember seeing one guy that ... could have been like, a rugby player or division one football player," visiting American surfer Austin Pickle told the ABC. 

"They were smiling and you know, doing like the friendly surfer [chatty] thing. But yeah, nothing super strange.

"And then I just paddled in. I never saw them again." 

Ana Cristina Heym Cárdenas works in a cafe about an hour north of Punta San Jose.

She believes one of the men — probably Callum — came in the afternoon of April 28 to ask if she could break a 100-peso note so he could buy a taco from the stand outside. 

She was shocked to later hear that they disappeared. 

"It's not normal here — [the] disappearing of three people in this way and burning their car and all this," she said. 

"We know that some areas here in Baja California, they're dangerous.

"We feel very sad because there are good people here [in Baja] who like international tourists. We don't want other people thinking that it is too dangerous for people."

A gun, a burned-out car and a missing phone 

It's every parent's dream for their children to stay close in adulthood.

But Debra Robinson sensed something was wrong when her sons stopped picking up their phones during their holiday together in northern Mexico.

In late April, she got on a Baja Facebook group, posted a picture of her boys together and issued a plea.

"They were due to book into an Airbnb in Rosarito after their camping weekend but they did not show up," Ms Robinson posted. 

While others in the group tried to reassure her, reminding her that mobile reception in the area is patchy and roads are often unreliable, she insisted their disappearance was "out of character".

"Callum is a type one diabetic so there is also a medical concern. Please contact me if you have seen them or know their whereabouts," she wrote.

"Please please please."

Callum, Jake and Jack were soon reported missing, and Ms Robinson marshalled foreign agencies and police to search for her sons. 

While Baja California is plagued by drug cartels, crimes against foreign tourists are relatively rare, and well-populated areas are considered more safe. 

"It is an atypical, exceptional case," Attorney-General María Elena Andrade Ramírez told the ABC. 

"We have a tourist influx and a similar case has not occurred."

Yesterday, it was confirmed that three bodies have been discovered in what's described as a well close to where the men were last seen.

Forensic investigations are continuing to take place to formally identify them.

The details are not yet known, but at some point, Jake, Jack and Callum were separated from their belongings — including their Chevy, their tents and at least one of their phones. 

This week, that phone was traced to a 23-year-old Mexican woman, who has since been arrested. 

Her romantic partner and his brother have also been detained, and Ms Andrade Ramírez says they "may be directly or indirectly related to the investigation". 

All three suspects were allegedly in possession of illicit drugs, but this incident does not seem to be linked to organised crime. 

Another key part of the investigation is likely the remote ranch where the brothers' burned-out car was found.

The property is several kilometres from the initial search site and is located south of the city of Ensenada.

"We have secured a cell phone and a firearm," Ms Andrade Ramírez said. 

"The firearm was discovered in the pick-up truck belonging to an individual currently under investigation

"A criminal scene has already been processed where we found evidence that someone burned the remains of tents, clothes, drink bottles and some evidence related to this case." 

At this stage, investigators are treating this as a potential robbery gone wrong, with the suspects allegedly trying to steal the victims' car. 

"This aggression seems to have occurred in an unforeseen, circumstantial manner," Ms Andrade Ramírez said. 

"We pledge that this crime will not go unpunished."

'They were together doing something they passionately love'

With three bodies discovered — but yet to be identified — the Robinsons are on their way to Mexico for a task no parents should ever have to complete. 

The fact that crimes against foreign surfers are exceptionally rare in Mexico is no comfort when your babies are the unlucky ones. 

So far, the case appears to have eerie similarities to the slaying of two Perth-born surfers in Mexico in 2015. 

Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman were on the trip of a lifetime, surfing down the Baja California coast. 

But when they arrived in the badlands of Sinaloa, they were stopped, robbed and then killed by a gang.

But most surfers will tell you, chasing the best waves sometimes takes you to some dangerous places. 

"[Punta San Jose] is a beautiful place with perfect waves," Antonio Otanez from the Baja Surfing Association told the ABC.

"But it's very lonely there. And it's like one hour [away down] a dust road. There's no [phone] signal there."

Mr Otanez said the local surf community has been left devastated by the news, but no-one is hurting more than Jake, Jack and Callum's parents.

"Surfing is a passion they both share," Ms Robinson said of her sons. 

"Our only comfort right now is that they were together doing something they passionately love.

"We ask people to keep them in their thoughts and prayers."

• X (formerly Twitter)

Related Stories

Missing surfers' burnt-out car found in mexico.

Perth brothers disappear during Mexico surfing trip, with loved ones issuing desperate plea for help

What do we know about Baja California, the Mexican state where two Australians have gone missing?

• Missing Person
• Travel and Tourism (Lifestyle and Leisure)