Campers Beware
Here is a very creepy thing that happened to me. One winter, I was pushing my limits and winter camping a lot, but I had this crazy tent with a fireplace. The limits part was just the fact that I was solo and pretty remote in these places. This was rural southwestern Colorado canyon country. There wasn’t that much snow at all on the ground, but it was zero degrees that night.
Well, it was a full moon and I was restless. So at about 2:00 in the morning, I got out of my tent with the fire still going and went for a long walk. I ended up climbing up some stuff that was probably a quarter or half a mile from my tent and vehicle, but up above it so I could still see down on my tent and campsite clearly.
It was really beautiful down there, dimly lit from the inside by the stove’s fire and dimly lit from the outside by the big moon. I was enjoying myself and just about to head back down when I suddenly heard distant gravel crunching. I had been there since noon that day and not a single vehicle had driven past, so I was kind of put off and decided to stay up there until whoever it was drove past.
The noise slowly grew louder and, eventually, I could see that it was a car on the same road. So, I stayed put and watched. It was going really slow. I could see a lighter being used quite a bit by the driver. It appeared to be a really old car. So I’m just watching, still in a very wistful mood and feeling somewhat powerful from my perch.
They approach the bend where they’ll be able to see my tent from, and round the corner. Their brake lights immediately come on. They slow way down and seem to pause and stare at my tent for an eternity. I was now on high alert and feeling very nervous. I had nothing to defend myself with, just a hatchet down by the tent for firewood.
But they eventually start driving again. I’m pretty relieved but still shaken up. I’m now thinking about what to do if they come back. So, I decided to chill for a little longer and make sure I see them actually exit the area. Nope. They turned around a bit down the road and came back. I watched as they parked a ways down the road, got out, and started walking down the road towards my camp.
I watched the distant shadow approach my tent, look all around the outside, mess with my vehicle, and then walk back to its car and leave. I did not go back down to my tent for the rest of the night. I just stayed where I was and never took my eyes off the tent until the sun came back up in the morning. By then, I had already started to wonder whether I had imagined the whole thing.
As I approached the campsite, I saw that there were clear footprints in the snow on the outside of my tent, indicating that it really did happen. I kept imagining what it would have been like to have just woken up and not known what happened, just seeing the footprints. After that incident, I never went camping again unarmed.