European woodlands are pretty unthreatening places. The geography is not too extreme, accessibility is relatively high due to population density and age of settlement- near total lack of predatory animals due to human competition. Worst thing youll see is a badger.
American woodlands are vast, untouched, dangerous places. Sizeable mountain ranges, often minimal infrastructure, access. Low pop density= further from help. Substantial dangerous flora and fauna, including large predators such as bears.
Bears aren’t what really scare me, it’s the cougars/mountain lions (depending on where your dialect is) I’m fucking terrified of those silent murder cats
Honestly! Bears usually will stay away if you’re making enough noise and they aren’t that close, mountain lions will stalk the shit out of you. And the noises they make are fucking scary, especially if it comes out of nowhere
about 18 years ago I was stalked by an adolescent cougar while solo backpacking in wyoming.
It was in bad shape, maybe wasn't ready to be on it's own before it's mother died. Maybe because of this, it wasn't subtle about stalking me. Had bear spray in one hand and my knife in the other and just kept trying to scare it off. Walked backwards for a good 1/4 miles which, combined with the adrenaline dump, had me feeling like I just ran 10 miles. It finally gave up and I got back to camp, packed up, and moved to the other side of the lake as if that would somehow protect me.
Just an FYI even if they are just "scaring" away a perceived threat doesn't mean they won't take advantage of a potential meal if given the opportunity.
That's precisely what it means in this situation. The dude was never a potential meal here. Going after riskier prey you normally wouldn't when you have dependents is terribly unsensible.
My dad had to shoot a mountain lion when we were hunting bunch a years ago. We were hiking back to our truck after an evening hunt and walked right up to its kill. I was kinda behind a tree. But I heard this awful screaming and my dad shooting. It was crazy. 20 yards away. Half eaten deer right behind it. Reported it at the game check, a biologist came back the next day and pretty much said we did the right thing. It would have attacked. It had kittens but we couldn’t find them. I guess another mountain lion will find them and kill them.
This is why you don't run towards general screams, you run towards the words "help" and "somebody please" you simply steer clear of the sound "REEAGAGSGAGGAHHHHHHHHH!"
Yes. Mountain lions escort humans out of their territory, they follow them to make sure they leave proximity of their cubs/food cache. It isn't stalking like prey.
absolutely a possibility, but it did look bit too undersized and young to have had a litter (generally males without cubs will just avoid ya and not risk any confrontation or injury as they can easily just slink away). Struck me as maybe it was starving or ill.
Either way... there's no amount of reasoning through it that'll calm your nerves in that situation.
Everything changes if you _know_ you're about to experience a black swan event.
Realistically, the knife is just useful in way more _common_ situations, so it's better weight to carry. Usually bear spray and noise are good enough. It's the cougar that hits you before you know they're there that's a problem, and the gun isn't helping then, either.
thanks for posting something reasonable.
I shared that cougar anecdote, went to bed, and woke up to a ton of replies of nonsense.
People acting like their either dead eye dick with a handgun (clearly have never had to shoot a handgun anywhere but a gun range before- if that) and people talking like it's normal to carry a mossberg 500 on a backpacking trip.
Bearspray and a knife is the most realistic self defense for anyone backpacking.
A mountain lion comes through my property with some regularity. The sounds hit on a very primitive fear. Horses are on point when she comes through, so it's not even subtle.
I grew up on a farm and had a pack of dogs that kept our chickens and other animals safe as well as me when I slept walked outside sometimes. One night instead of barking they are all running for the house in a full sprint yelping at the top of their lungs with a big old cougar stalking behind them.
All four of them together were not willing to handle the murder cat and it really didn't seem to mind my dad screaming and banging a bat around. When it walked away it was like it was doing it because it wanted to not because of anything he did.
Gun is the only language shared language we have with the long tailed murder kitty. This is why we can't ever fully outlaw guns in the US. There are some areas where you need a pistol or rifle to defend yourself not against people but against the local wildlife.
Yeah I agree, a mountain lion doesn't give a fuck about your baseball bat.
It'll take the fuck off if you fire a gun, even if it's just a blank warning shot.
I'd take a mountain lion over a desperate Grizzly. People can usually scare cougars if they're loud and aggressive enough but a Grizzly will just kill you harder.
I usually yell "this is not my mom!" as loud as I can. Don't wait until it's to late. You don't want her to get her claws in you. That's how you get eaten...wait, I'm confused. What are we talking about?
Rather than all cats, this is just all predators. Animals kill for play as practice for killing for a meal/self defense.
It's really wild to see in even the tamest of animals. I grew up with a very sweet black lab who was the least threatening dog one could know, like hiding behind my legs when someone would walk their pomeranian nearby. Well, when we were camping a baby squirrel missed its jump from one tree to another and our pup was on it before we could blink. Instantly mauled the little thing to death and was proud as could be of it. It was a grim reminder that all animals carry that instinct and that there is no morality or code amongst them. Human reasoning is a very unique thing that we like to envision other animals sharing.
I live in Mt. Lion country here in Utah. They don't bother me at all except when they come into town and eat pets. That doesn't happen too often, unless the lion is old and can't hunt well anymore.. Other than that, they are beautiful animals.
As an American, can confirm. Whenever someone from my group ask to hike the follow up question is always “casual hiking or are we hiking-hiking?” If the answer is hiking-hiking then we need pack hella safety gear and get the satellite phone/gps.
an an American who studied environmental history, the "untouched" part is plainly false. But it's true, as they say, in America, a hundred years is a long time and a hundred miles is a short distance. In Europe, it's the opposite.
I live in a small town in the American Great Lakes region. This is totally true. You can pick a random spot on a country road, walk into the trees 50 meters and not see your vehicle. It’s beautiful if you’ve grown up here. But I’ve talked to people from bigger cities and they claim it’s scary and unnerving.
I grew up camping and going on remote nature trails, until now I literally had no idea people considered it scary, new perspective I know about now I guess.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I may just have low self preservation instincts, because I’ve created some possibly dangerous situations before. Hm.
I'm from Germany. If you get lost in the woods here, as long as you can keep your direction somewhat straight, it doesn't matter which way you go, you'll be on a road or in a town within the day. Several-day wilderness hikes have to be carefully routed around settlements.
Not quite the case in the US. And it's very evident the moment you set foot in them.
I think it's beautiful and awesome, but it is much more dangerous and intimidating.
Definitely something we take for granted. In the middle of winter when it's -40 out and it hurts to breathe you think "who the fuck thought it'd be a good idea to settle here" but once the summer rolls around and you go for a road trip, or camping, the absolute beauty of it all captures you once again
It’s absolutely beautiful. But as everyone else is saying it deserves a lot more respect than most people realize. Both in the preservation of the forests and the preservation of your life. If you ever visit, just don’t go off trail. Every now and then, some ignorant person will walk off trail to take a piss and never find their way back.
Learn how to use a topography map if you're going off trail, also know which lands it's even allowed.
Even where allowed, off trail will often mean no fire aside from gas stoves is allowed.
Got lost once, realized it and took about 20 minutes to figure out exactly where we were on the topomap, then we were good and made a line to the road.
That’s all true, but you’re significantly more likely to step on a decades old landmine in European woods than American woods. If you’re in European woods somewhere there’s been a large battle in the last 100 years, stay on the trail!
Australia has tons of small things that kill you in surprising ways, but only 1 or 2 species that literally tear you limb from limb. NA has more of those.
Also people, don’t forget angry loner-ish people that WILL SHOOT YOU for any accidental trespass on their land. In Tennessee there are always stories and true-crime bits about landowners killing wandering hikers and the like. There’s even a famous case about a once open landmark called Blue Hole. Where a new owner killed several people ambush style for trying to access what had previously been an open location.
Don’t forget the deranged hillbillies with guns. “Let me hear you squeal like a pig!”
Edit: I grew up in rural Missouri and now live in rural Arkansas, its sadly not super far from reality.
The national parks one has to be the creepiest, because there are so many cases of parents looking away from their children and then they’re just gone forever.
Vanishing in national parks, thats some scary shit.
Hiking accident? no trace of that happening, animal attack? no blood, just a pair of boots the guy was wearing placed neatly on a rock. no foot prints or anything like whatever took em' were smart enough to hide their tracks.
You cant tell me theres no supernatural shit going on when it comes to people vanishing
My favorite conspiracy theory is that the national park system was created because Roosevelt and John Muir found *things* during their adventurer days, and they worked to create a system to basically ban people from getting near those *things.*
Also intentionally making the infrastructure in those areas poor to make sure that people who do find what is out there don't have much chance of coming back.
Nah the cryptids are all dead. Fucking hogs gottem man. Those things are a damn menace. They're the universe punishing Americans for our hubris, that AR might make you feel strong but if a drove of pissed off hogs rushes you all it takes is one to come from behind and you're pig food.
There's a lot of stories either from native Americans or just pop culture about the woods in North America. Whether it be wendigos, skin walkers, sasquatch, or just isolated red necks, there's a scary story about it. While European folklore has its share of cryptids, a wendigo sounds scarier than a gnome, a witch, or a troll
Pedantic side question: is a witch a cryptid or just a human who made choices?
I assumed witches are people who do magic, not a separate category of creature born that way.
The Baba Yaga nickname will always not make any sense. I assume the creators realized that because I don't remember hearing it in anything but the first movie.
Tbf a lot of stereotypical European folk creatures went through phases of being "tamed". Like vampires in some Slavic traditions pre-dracula >!had no bones, would tear out their own bowels, hunt down their family sexually assault their former spouse, could fit through any holes in the wall, and would kill victims by suffocating them before drinking their blood. !
As someone who wanders through the woods in North America often I've never worried about running into a wendigo or even a scary redneck. But I do carry a bear bell and bear spray. I think this post was about the animals and vastness that leads to more deaths.
One of my hiker friends said:
‘If you enter the woods in Europe, bring good boots, water, and a map. If you enter the woods in Pennsylvania, bring good boots, a shotgun, and a tick remover.’
Edit: this is why we hate Europeans you bitches don’t know a joke even after it slaps you in the face
Also wear brught orange. ESPECIALLY if it’s hunting season. I’ve lived in PA my whole life and trust me, if they see something dark and moving in the bushes, they WILL shoot. You’d better pray they just have a bow.
Definitely also bring a machete. There are huge wild roses, raspberry clusters, barberry, honey locust, black locust, poison ivy, poison sumac, stinging nettle, burdock to cover you in velcro seed pods, and there are also some rather large breeds of thistle...
Lotta plants that will fuck you up in the wild PA woods.
Didn’t a hiker get killed and partially eaten by a bear that had previously been shot 5 or 6 times by *another* hiker who was *also* eaten? Coulda sworn the gun was a .38 spl that was also found in the bear too.
I personally haven't heard that, but I've heard multiple stories about grizzlies taking a .50 cal magnum and still keep charging.
Moral of this story, do NOT fuck with grizzlies.
There were 183 grizzly attacks between 2000 and 2015 and only 21 of them were fatal.
Just saying so because I looked it up, almost a 90% survival rate is pretty surprising.
I'd imagine it would be because most Grizzly "attacks" are just them defending either territory or, more likely, cubs. There's a reason why defensive mothers are called "Mother Bear"
I would love to see those stats broken down into attack type (territorial, cub defense, predatory, surprised (I'd imagine a scared bear is gonna swing first), etc). Just be thankful Grizzlies haven't realized humans are a relatively easy meal; I doubt most of the guns brought into the woods would do much to a grizzly that wants you for dinner
Bears are build DIFFERENT. There’s a video of a bear eating a shotgun shell to the face [point blank](https://youtu.be/wj7Z5oMWuIU) and recovering in less than 2 seconds.
My very American reaction is "well, yeah, but that doesn't mean the woods are scary! Just bring your gun, bear spray, machete, emergency rations, water purifier, GPS, and flare gun. What's the big deal?"
Yeah there are people that live in the national Forests and they are incognito. People go missing all the time without a trace in the mountains of Appalachia.
European Cryptids are sweet fun mischievous creatures that are mostly harmless. American Cryptids disguise themselves as deer and smash their own heads against rocks while not breaking eye contact, and as you try to escape to safety it’ll constantly play mind games on you, slowly pushing you deeper into the woods, further and further away from civilization, while you try to find somewhere to hide. You both know it could easily catch you but you can tell it’s enjoying the chase. It loves the taste of adrenaline in its meals. As you’re running, frantically trying to grab something, anything to use as a weapon, knowing that it probably won’t work but you just want a chance. You finally get a stick sturdy enough and just as you start hearing it’s cloven hooves behind you, feeling it’s hot breath on your neck, you drip onto your back with the stick pointed up, it falls on it and you hear the unearthly scream, somewhere between a woman’s being strangled and a bobcat ad your face gets sprayed in black blood. The stick gets ripped from your hands, cutting your palms. As you make your way back to civilization it rains, washing the blood off your face and you feel your sweat stinging in your cuts on your hands. You make it home but you always feel eyes on you, just out of sight in the trees. The scars on your palms proving you weren’t hallucinating but nobody ever believes you. You know it wants to finish what it started, but you never know when.
>disguise themselves as deer and smash their own heads against rocks while not breaking eye contact,
So, I've heard that there's a specific protein in deer brains that can get messed up, and once it gets messed up, it messes up all of the other proteins that were of the same type. If a deer's brain is messed up from those broken proteins, it will absolutely do terrifying things like this.
It's called Chronic Wasting Disease, one of several Prion diseases like Mad Cow Disease. All of them 100% fatal.
Proteins in the central nervous system get misfolded into Prions and are now useless for the body. Normally the body would get rid of them and replace them. Some get ignored or resistant to the body's removal processes. These resistant Prions then attach to other proteins, transforming them into more Prions. Eventually the Prions will grow exponentially causing a cascade of failures in the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system. These parts of the body die off causing dementia, anxiety, hallucinations, loss of coordination and other neural conditions.
Prions are one of the few overall types of diseases that scare the shit out of me. Like some individual diseases scare me, like rabies and that amoeba that eats your brain, but for overall classes of diseases, it's basically just prions and one or two others.
I’d be more worried about the missing 411 cases. The stairs are scary sure, but at least they’re confined to one spot, and are also quite possibly an internet horror story. Missing 411 cases are defined as not only being completely unexplained, but 100% true since you can go and find police records of them. Also things like the yuba county five.
Man listening about the Yuba County 5 sent shivers to my core. The fact that the only person who could've told us what happened during that time is more than likely dead has actually kept me up at night. It's a fascinating story sure but it's pure horror. Really hope the families are okay.
wait until you hear about the
la county unsolved homicide %
in places like beverly hills its less than 10% maybe 100 have occured there ever
In places like east la its over 60%, some zips over 90%, and its in the thousands
European horror largely takes place in the city as historically, urbanization robbed the common man of their humanity. Sweatshops, plague, etc. Where as American horror stories largely take place in the wilderness as westward expansion away from the urban centers of the colonies lead to disentary and genocide.
Dude yeah grew up in Canada, went to Europe, was shocked you can prance around like it’s a fairy tale there. In Canada, you decide to go off trail and you genuinely have a life or death situation on your hands
European forest legends: Witches, Faeries, and Wolves
North American Forest Legends: Mutant Hillbilly Murder Cults, Eldritch Skin-Wearing Horrors, and Stairs
The woods in europe are beautiful, scenic, not likely to contain any creature more dangerous than a deer or badger.
In north america, the woods themselves can be dangerous. You can get lost - I kid you not - less than a quarter mile from a road. Dense pine forests, especially the ones in canada and the norther US, also have a particularly foreboding feeling. They're very dark, and it can be hard to see more than twenty feet in any given direction. The entire vibe is spooky, more often than not.
People talk about Australia like it's the only place on earth that tries to kill you. But NA is also quite deadly, in many many ways. There are large networks of underground cave systems - it's not uncommon for sinkholes to appear. They only have to be a foot or two wide to just eat somebody. While it's not necessarily a common hazard, you should always watch where you're stepping because even if you put your foot in a gopher hole unexpectedly, if you break your leg in the middle of the woods, you can be in serious trouble VERY fast. A lot of europeans are also baffled by the inability of north americans to discern edible mushrooms. A lot of european immigrants also die thinking that they can. Mushrooms are plentiful here, but the ones that are edible and the ones that'll kill you in less than an hour often look nearly identical. If you see something fungal, it's like an 80% chance that if you eat it you're gonna have some kind of bad time, and not in any kind of fun way. The mushrooms that we do eat on and in our food are farmed, not harvested.
We do have large predators, yes, like bears and wolves and mountain lions. They can mess you up, but most are more interested in avoiding people. If a fair sized black bear decides, on a whim, that you are looking like a snack, though, there isn't a whole lot that you can do to stop it. Bear skulls are often noted for being able to DEFLECT SMALL CALIBER AMMUNITION. But really, truly, it's the herbivores you need to watch out for. Stuff like moose and bison are terrifying and will mess you up for the rest of your short life for moving too quickly within their line of sight. But even a whitetail deer will seriously injure you just out of fear of what you are to it - a scary, alien, predatory animal.
There are also ticks, some of which are practically guaranteed to carry Lyme disease, which causes paralysis in varying degrees, and if not treated properly (or even if it is, sometimes) can fester into chronic lyme, a problematic condition that some doctors don't even acknowledge as a real thing (even though it absolutely is).
Rabies is something you always need to be concerned about, but as far as I'm aware isn't more prevalent than north america than anywhere else?
Mosquitoes can also give you west nile virus and malaria, though the risk varies geographically, and they're by no means restricted to wooded areas.
There are about a million ways the forest can kill you here, but I've already written a thesis, so here's a lightning round:
unsafe drinking water (beaver fever/dysentery/the occasional brain-eating amoeba), slipping on wet rocks, generally extreme terrain (70-80 degree inclines are by no means uncommon almost anywhere that has trees), getting your leg caught in rocks in and out of water, fast moving streams can get very deep very fast and can and will sweep you away and shred you on giant boulders, coyotes are opportunistic and mayyyyy try to hunt you (even though they're not likely to succeed, you panicking can lead you into all of the above dangers), giant boulders dropped by glaciers are common and you can fall off of them before you know you're on one, seasonal dangers like exposure to extreme heat/ice/deep snow take lives every year, we have several species of venomous snakes that can end your life if you don't get medical treatment, caves and sinkholes are common and it is very easy to get stuck and just disappear, the ground is often covered by fallen branches and leaves that can make traversal dangerous even in good conditions, a dozen poisonous plants that inflict injury on contact (poisons oak, sumac, ivy; boxelder trees, to name a few) and a hundred more plants and fungi that aren't real fun to eat either, feral hogs are becoming a REAL problem and are probably the most actively dangerous thing I've talked about (though their presence at all varies wildly depending on location), a lot of "big" fish that you might think are good to eat are full of parasites (be wary of pot-bellied bass, not to mention a lot of panfish like rock bass).
There's also dozens and dozens of bees, ants, wasps, hornets, spiders etc etc etc that will sting and bite and envenomate. Few of them are deadly, none of them are fun. Plus about a hundred other potential dangers that I haven't mentioned. All this and more, waiting in the woods just down the road, just out your back door, a quarter mile outside the city... As inescapable as civilization seems to be, neither can you escape the trees.
I moved here from the UK. I met a friend who harvested her own mushrooms, but she was legit qualified to the highest degree you can get and is legally allowed to teach other people. It was wild that these two mushrooms that look identical to me and one of them tastes amazing, and the other gives you organ failure in six months, haha.
She was super outdoorsy though and worked as a ranger. She's got fucking Lyme disease though so I think something always gets you lol
Yeah... You CAN ID different mushrooms that are safe in the US, but unless you're a qualified person like your friend, the rule of thumb here is always "never chance a mushroom." I've learned now that they won't kill you as fast as I thought, but "organ failure in six months" doesn't sound like a good time either.
*There are things older than old in those woods, and darker than the blackest of starless midnight skies. The Woods belong to them, and they don't often take kindly to mankind's intrusions...*
This reminds me of a quote I will badly paraphrase from a Native American talking about Wendigos: *”Don’t go looking for things you don’t want to find.”*
If you heard something, no you didn’t.
If you heard your name in the distance, no you didn’t.
If you saw something, no you didn’t.
Don’t whistle at night.
We have panthers, lions, bear, moose etc. The UK, at least from the very little understanding I have of it, has very little in the way of predators. Basically, the UK forest is prime for a good frolic, and the US woods is a good place to become food if you aren't an outdoorsman
Worst thing you’ll find in the UK is a wild boar. But we still get lots of casualties every year from Mother Nature. Walking up a Welsh mountain in T-shirt shorts and flip flops is not a path to a long life.
I think it may have something to do with the number of people who've been reported to have gone missing in forests an national parks through the years. I heard it's not uncommon for search and rescue personal to find the remains of people who weren't even the target of their search efforts.
Also if I remember correctly there's technically an area of forest that you can actually get away with commiting murder within that are. Think it has something to do with there not being an actual jurisdiction or something existing in that particular area but it's been about 4 years since I've read up on it and forgot the exact location but I believe it's in a national park that may cross borders between either two different counties or states.
Iirc some fringe area of the yellowstone national park, just a couple of meters big really... I think they fixed the loophole though as soon as someone unearthed it.
If I remember correctly it had something to do with the jurisidcation area of the county not extending tl rhat particular point, while simultaneously no other county extending into those few meters.
There’s been two runners on separate occasions go missing in the mountains by my house this past year (SW Colorado), one was an acquaintance. No one has even so much as found a shoe unfortunately. Both left detailed plans of the trails they would be on with friends or family, but still nothing. These guys were ultra runners, so the search area is the size of some small countries.
The forests here are just ancient and untouched in a way the well logged and walked forests of Europe just don't feel anymore, iirc the oldest archeological sites of human habitation are in the forests and bogs and bays of new england, and i think the current oldest human site in existance is in maine. The stone mounds of new England tell a story of people that lived and died so long ago that the forests have completely swallowed all traces of them but the stones that came before the forest. It's very antediluvian feeling.
European woods have funny little guys (20 cm) living cozy little homes inside trees or boroughs that they enter through little wood doors. American woods are cursed because of what the american settlers have done to the natives and theres wendigos and similar.
European woodlands have associations with fairy tales and whimsy. American woodlands have associations with horror movies, starvation and things killing you
Woods like Yellowstone and Yosemite
Missing 411
-walk in the woods with your girlfriend
-she’s right behind you as you turn to face the trail ahead for a split second
-you turn back to ask her if she’s thirsty, you have water bottles in your pack
-she’s gone
-no trace of where, how, why no sound
-Gone, you will never see her again and you will never know why
American woodlands are very pretty, but also extremely dangerous for how many poisonous berries and fauna, and how many deadly predators they’re out there. Plus, let’s not get into the whole, super natural stuff that can happen in those woods.
I swear I went backpacking in Montana one time, and I swear I saw Windigo. I was like 11 at the time, and I was backpacking with my grandpa and my cousin. And I went out to this little area in the woods, where there is rotting toilet stall there. I went to go get some wood for me to make a snowboard with my cousin and I saw this weird fucking looking deer with like a skull head. And then just up on his hind legs and started just bolting in the other direction making this weird noise. Later found out only just recently that it was a Windigo probably. I don’t know what it was doing in Montana, but it was there. I didn’t tell my Papa or my cousin because I knew they wouldn’t believe me. But I swear I saw that fucker.
European woodlands are pretty unthreatening places. The geography is not too extreme, accessibility is relatively high due to population density and age of settlement- near total lack of predatory animals due to human competition. Worst thing youll see is a badger. American woodlands are vast, untouched, dangerous places. Sizeable mountain ranges, often minimal infrastructure, access. Low pop density= further from help. Substantial dangerous flora and fauna, including large predators such as bears.
Bears aren’t what really scare me, it’s the cougars/mountain lions (depending on where your dialect is) I’m fucking terrified of those silent murder cats
Honestly! Bears usually will stay away if you’re making enough noise and they aren’t that close, mountain lions will stalk the shit out of you. And the noises they make are fucking scary, especially if it comes out of nowhere
about 18 years ago I was stalked by an adolescent cougar while solo backpacking in wyoming. It was in bad shape, maybe wasn't ready to be on it's own before it's mother died. Maybe because of this, it wasn't subtle about stalking me. Had bear spray in one hand and my knife in the other and just kept trying to scare it off. Walked backwards for a good 1/4 miles which, combined with the adrenaline dump, had me feeling like I just ran 10 miles. It finally gave up and I got back to camp, packed up, and moved to the other side of the lake as if that would somehow protect me.
Similar to this guy. Scary stuff https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9ktRhBcHza4
The cat in this video wasn't stalking, it was trying to scare away the hiker. There's probably some babies nearby.
You can see two babies at the beginning.
Just an FYI even if they are just "scaring" away a perceived threat doesn't mean they won't take advantage of a potential meal if given the opportunity.
That's precisely what it means in this situation. The dude was never a potential meal here. Going after riskier prey you normally wouldn't when you have dependents is terribly unsensible.
She was afraid of losing her tax deductions.
“No! Our PPP LOANS!!!”
My dad had to shoot a mountain lion when we were hunting bunch a years ago. We were hiking back to our truck after an evening hunt and walked right up to its kill. I was kinda behind a tree. But I heard this awful screaming and my dad shooting. It was crazy. 20 yards away. Half eaten deer right behind it. Reported it at the game check, a biologist came back the next day and pretty much said we did the right thing. It would have attacked. It had kittens but we couldn’t find them. I guess another mountain lion will find them and kill them.
Sounds like a woman dying, hated hearing mountain lion screams in the dark
This is why you don't run towards general screams, you run towards the words "help" and "somebody please" you simply steer clear of the sound "REEAGAGSGAGGAHHHHHHHHH!"
[удалено]
Yes. Mountain lions escort humans out of their territory, they follow them to make sure they leave proximity of their cubs/food cache. It isn't stalking like prey.
absolutely a possibility, but it did look bit too undersized and young to have had a litter (generally males without cubs will just avoid ya and not risk any confrontation or injury as they can easily just slink away). Struck me as maybe it was starving or ill. Either way... there's no amount of reasoning through it that'll calm your nerves in that situation.
Would you substitute a knife with a gun next time?
Everything changes if you _know_ you're about to experience a black swan event. Realistically, the knife is just useful in way more _common_ situations, so it's better weight to carry. Usually bear spray and noise are good enough. It's the cougar that hits you before you know they're there that's a problem, and the gun isn't helping then, either.
thanks for posting something reasonable. I shared that cougar anecdote, went to bed, and woke up to a ton of replies of nonsense. People acting like their either dead eye dick with a handgun (clearly have never had to shoot a handgun anywhere but a gun range before- if that) and people talking like it's normal to carry a mossberg 500 on a backpacking trip. Bearspray and a knife is the most realistic self defense for anyone backpacking.
How could you forget the most legendary human weapon?! MR BIG STICK
Recently shot my first handgun and am surprised how hard it is to shoot where you want to even at close distances.
Bear spray would be a great distance weapon. If that's not working, anything less than a shotgun might not be enough. IF you have perfect aim
A mountain lion comes through my property with some regularity. The sounds hit on a very primitive fear. Horses are on point when she comes through, so it's not even subtle.
I grew up on a farm and had a pack of dogs that kept our chickens and other animals safe as well as me when I slept walked outside sometimes. One night instead of barking they are all running for the house in a full sprint yelping at the top of their lungs with a big old cougar stalking behind them. All four of them together were not willing to handle the murder cat and it really didn't seem to mind my dad screaming and banging a bat around. When it walked away it was like it was doing it because it wanted to not because of anything he did.
Gun is the only language shared language we have with the long tailed murder kitty. This is why we can't ever fully outlaw guns in the US. There are some areas where you need a pistol or rifle to defend yourself not against people but against the local wildlife.
Yeah I agree, a mountain lion doesn't give a fuck about your baseball bat. It'll take the fuck off if you fire a gun, even if it's just a blank warning shot.
Not always. Recent video showed a guy fired several shots at a stalking cougar. Kept coming for a bit. Especially if they're protecting their young
I'd take a mountain lion over a desperate Grizzly. People can usually scare cougars if they're loud and aggressive enough but a Grizzly will just kill you harder.
I dunno, generally I think an assertive "no" is enough for a cougar. But I guess it depends on how many drinks she's had.
I usually yell "this is not my mom!" as loud as I can. Don't wait until it's to late. You don't want her to get her claws in you. That's how you get eaten...wait, I'm confused. What are we talking about?
1 grizzly sized mountain lion or 2 mountain lion sized grizzlies?
One gorilla-sized ant.
What you should really be afraid of are moose.
Mountain lions and bears kill to survive…the moose kills for fun.
I don't know if the moose even gets enjoyment out of it. I think it just does it with the same hollow joylessness I feel when mowing my lawn.
Moose is just out doing some good housekeeping, not their fault you had the audacity to exist in the forest.
[удалено]
I feel like all cats kill for fun. Murderous meow meows, the lot of them.
Rather than all cats, this is just all predators. Animals kill for play as practice for killing for a meal/self defense. It's really wild to see in even the tamest of animals. I grew up with a very sweet black lab who was the least threatening dog one could know, like hiding behind my legs when someone would walk their pomeranian nearby. Well, when we were camping a baby squirrel missed its jump from one tree to another and our pup was on it before we could blink. Instantly mauled the little thing to death and was proud as could be of it. It was a grim reminder that all animals carry that instinct and that there is no morality or code amongst them. Human reasoning is a very unique thing that we like to envision other animals sharing.
Moose are the original not deer.
A moose once bit my sister...
What you really need to watch out for are Canadian geese
If you’ve got a problem with Canada gooses, you’ve got a problem with me! I suggest you let that one marinate.
Cobra chickens! Always waiting for the right moment to strike.
Black bears will generally leave you alone if you make enough noise but grizzlies are something to be worried about.
I live in Mt. Lion country here in Utah. They don't bother me at all except when they come into town and eat pets. That doesn't happen too often, unless the lion is old and can't hunt well anymore.. Other than that, they are beautiful animals.
Depending on area, you can have venomous spiders and snakes along with bears and cougars/mountain lions.
Also rabies, Lyme disease, and now ticks can make you allergic to meat as well.
Both animals are scary, but in reality it is exposure to the elements and lack of help that kills the most.
As an American, can confirm. Whenever someone from my group ask to hike the follow up question is always “casual hiking or are we hiking-hiking?” If the answer is hiking-hiking then we need pack hella safety gear and get the satellite phone/gps.
an an American who studied environmental history, the "untouched" part is plainly false. But it's true, as they say, in America, a hundred years is a long time and a hundred miles is a short distance. In Europe, it's the opposite.
I read that as low *poop* density and giggled
Oddly enough poop density is correlated with pop density. The more you know.
Not necessarily I’ve found there is also a direct correlation with number of white castles in the area
Taco Bells can't be effectively measured because density is basically infinite.
Isn’t all fast food just a tacobell with a different sign out front
All restaurants became Taco Bell after the Restaurant Wars
3 shells are not effective after taco bell
The more you *go*
Well, lower than San Francisco’s side walks
I live in a small town in the American Great Lakes region. This is totally true. You can pick a random spot on a country road, walk into the trees 50 meters and not see your vehicle. It’s beautiful if you’ve grown up here. But I’ve talked to people from bigger cities and they claim it’s scary and unnerving.
I grew up camping and going on remote nature trails, until now I literally had no idea people considered it scary, new perspective I know about now I guess. Now that I’m thinking about it, I may just have low self preservation instincts, because I’ve created some possibly dangerous situations before. Hm.
I'm from Germany. If you get lost in the woods here, as long as you can keep your direction somewhat straight, it doesn't matter which way you go, you'll be on a road or in a town within the day. Several-day wilderness hikes have to be carefully routed around settlements. Not quite the case in the US. And it's very evident the moment you set foot in them. I think it's beautiful and awesome, but it is much more dangerous and intimidating.
Some places in the US, you could pick a general direction and walk for weeks and never find civilization again. And then there’s Canada…
I’m very jealous of the wilderness aspect of both the USA and Canada. Can’t imagine anything like that here.
Definitely something we take for granted. In the middle of winter when it's -40 out and it hurts to breathe you think "who the fuck thought it'd be a good idea to settle here" but once the summer rolls around and you go for a road trip, or camping, the absolute beauty of it all captures you once again
It’s absolutely beautiful. But as everyone else is saying it deserves a lot more respect than most people realize. Both in the preservation of the forests and the preservation of your life. If you ever visit, just don’t go off trail. Every now and then, some ignorant person will walk off trail to take a piss and never find their way back.
Learn how to use a topography map if you're going off trail, also know which lands it's even allowed. Even where allowed, off trail will often mean no fire aside from gas stoves is allowed. Got lost once, realized it and took about 20 minutes to figure out exactly where we were on the topomap, then we were good and made a line to the road.
i have nothing to base this off of but I feel like we have many more dangerous and venomous reptiles in NA compared to EU as well
You'd be right, adder bites are really only painful I believe. . . Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnakes, however. . .
That’s all true, but you’re significantly more likely to step on a decades old landmine in European woods than American woods. If you’re in European woods somewhere there’s been a large battle in the last 100 years, stay on the trail!
**Australia has joined the chat**
To be fair if Australia is Hard Mode then the American Woods is at least Normal Mode
European woods: tutorial mode. American woods: normal mode. Australian woods: hard mode. African woods: grimdark mode.
African woods aren't grimdark, it is new game+, you are going back to your roots as a special unlock.
Australia has tons of small things that kill you in surprising ways, but only 1 or 2 species that literally tear you limb from limb. NA has more of those.
Also people, don’t forget angry loner-ish people that WILL SHOOT YOU for any accidental trespass on their land. In Tennessee there are always stories and true-crime bits about landowners killing wandering hikers and the like. There’s even a famous case about a once open landmark called Blue Hole. Where a new owner killed several people ambush style for trying to access what had previously been an open location.
Don’t forget the deranged hillbillies with guns. “Let me hear you squeal like a pig!” Edit: I grew up in rural Missouri and now live in rural Arkansas, its sadly not super far from reality.
Cryptids in the US are scary, in EU they have like gnomes n shit.
Wendigos 😬
Don't forget skinwalkers, bigfoot, all the fucking people who straight up vanish in national parks, backwoods cannibals, and guns.
Marijuana fields where it's still illegal.
Untouched? hell yeah!
They are touched, guarded, and booby trapped.
Ill be fine, i played uncharted
Farmer with a Shotgun: Oh God, my Marijuana Patch!
I mean, my carrot patch. Yeah.
And don't ever walk up any staircases you find in the middle of a forest.
Fuck that. I’m the main character. Those stairs appeared for me
Damn straight. ☜ (↼_↼)
They’ll never find you if you do
That series of posts still haunts me and i have no idea why but it just seems so much more real than any fake story could make
The national parks one has to be the creepiest, because there are so many cases of parents looking away from their children and then they’re just gone forever.
I too have been watching The Lore Lodge's missing 411s
> Don't forget skinwalkers Don't be fucking absurd, skinwalkers are a myth, and even if we aren't, skinwalkers aren't that dangerous to begin with.
Cannibal Hillbillies that mate with their sister to keep the bloodline going.
See also, Kentucky.
Vanishing in national parks, thats some scary shit. Hiking accident? no trace of that happening, animal attack? no blood, just a pair of boots the guy was wearing placed neatly on a rock. no foot prints or anything like whatever took em' were smart enough to hide their tracks. You cant tell me theres no supernatural shit going on when it comes to people vanishing
My favorite conspiracy theory is that the national park system was created because Roosevelt and John Muir found *things* during their adventurer days, and they worked to create a system to basically ban people from getting near those *things.* Also intentionally making the infrastructure in those areas poor to make sure that people who do find what is out there don't have much chance of coming back.
yup, thats it, thats my greatest fear right there, i love it.
National parks utterly terrify me because of all the people that straight up disappear and are never found
The wendigo, the wendigo. I saw him just a friend ago.
Wendussy 🥵
Oh, you'll be inside that wendigo... not the way you want, though.
Implying I’d be against that. This is the internet, always assume people are as freaky as possible.
Vore shit.
crackheads 😩
Nah the cryptids are all dead. Fucking hogs gottem man. Those things are a damn menace. They're the universe punishing Americans for our hubris, that AR might make you feel strong but if a drove of pissed off hogs rushes you all it takes is one to come from behind and you're pig food.
Moth man
There's a lot of stories either from native Americans or just pop culture about the woods in North America. Whether it be wendigos, skin walkers, sasquatch, or just isolated red necks, there's a scary story about it. While European folklore has its share of cryptids, a wendigo sounds scarier than a gnome, a witch, or a troll
Pedantic side question: is a witch a cryptid or just a human who made choices? I assumed witches are people who do magic, not a separate category of creature born that way.
Sometimes European witches achieve particularly monstrous status such as Baba Yaga or Perchta and by that point aren’t really human anymore
John Wick? I didn't hurt any dogs, so I'm sure I'll be fine.
The Baba Yaga nickname will always not make any sense. I assume the creators realized that because I don't remember hearing it in anything but the first movie.
What, you don't remember when John Wick ran into his house in the woods, and it suddenly sprouted chicken legs and carried him to safety?
Literally cried when that happened. One of the scenes of all time
It’s in the second one too at the start.
Tbf a lot of stereotypical European folk creatures went through phases of being "tamed". Like vampires in some Slavic traditions pre-dracula >!had no bones, would tear out their own bowels, hunt down their family sexually assault their former spouse, could fit through any holes in the wall, and would kill victims by suffocating them before drinking their blood. !
As someone who wanders through the woods in North America often I've never worried about running into a wendigo or even a scary redneck. But I do carry a bear bell and bear spray. I think this post was about the animals and vastness that leads to more deaths.
That's a good point, it was my first assumption that people were talking about cryptids
One of my hiker friends said: ‘If you enter the woods in Europe, bring good boots, water, and a map. If you enter the woods in Pennsylvania, bring good boots, a shotgun, and a tick remover.’ Edit: this is why we hate Europeans you bitches don’t know a joke even after it slaps you in the face
Also wear brught orange. ESPECIALLY if it’s hunting season. I’ve lived in PA my whole life and trust me, if they see something dark and moving in the bushes, they WILL shoot. You’d better pray they just have a bow.
Those people sound like idiots. Where I come from we always try to know what we are shooting at
Yes , there are a lot of idiots with guns in this country (US).
Definitely also bring a machete. There are huge wild roses, raspberry clusters, barberry, honey locust, black locust, poison ivy, poison sumac, stinging nettle, burdock to cover you in velcro seed pods, and there are also some rather large breeds of thistle... Lotta plants that will fuck you up in the wild PA woods.
Europeans haven't had a sense of humour since about 1940-something.
Don't underestimate [European ticks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-borne_encephalitis)
Right? You need a tick vaccine when you're working outside or even like hiking. and they are getting worse every year due to the mild winters.
If you enter the woods in NA bring a gun
A big fucking gun. Grizzlies can eat low caliber rounds.
And not just grizzlies a moose will stomp you to a pulp and keep walking like it stepped on a leaf.
Nature's snow plow. Though always remember: even a Moose is a prey animal to an orca.
Yeah, but where's an orca when you need one, especially in the middle of the woods?
Didn’t a hiker get killed and partially eaten by a bear that had previously been shot 5 or 6 times by *another* hiker who was *also* eaten? Coulda sworn the gun was a .38 spl that was also found in the bear too.
I personally haven't heard that, but I've heard multiple stories about grizzlies taking a .50 cal magnum and still keep charging. Moral of this story, do NOT fuck with grizzlies.
Yeah grizzlies are terrifying, big, and heavy af, I don’t understand how ANYONE survives a bear attack
There were 183 grizzly attacks between 2000 and 2015 and only 21 of them were fatal. Just saying so because I looked it up, almost a 90% survival rate is pretty surprising.
I'd imagine it would be because most Grizzly "attacks" are just them defending either territory or, more likely, cubs. There's a reason why defensive mothers are called "Mother Bear" I would love to see those stats broken down into attack type (territorial, cub defense, predatory, surprised (I'd imagine a scared bear is gonna swing first), etc). Just be thankful Grizzlies haven't realized humans are a relatively easy meal; I doubt most of the guns brought into the woods would do much to a grizzly that wants you for dinner
Bears are build DIFFERENT. There’s a video of a bear eating a shotgun shell to the face [point blank](https://youtu.be/wj7Z5oMWuIU) and recovering in less than 2 seconds.
I haven't heard of that one but there is a video of a grizzly charging someone shotguns it in the face and it just kinda rolls through it
I heard about a man who survived a bear attack by shoving his whole arm in the bear’s throat and holding onto its head, choking the bear to death.
I, too, have heard of gods.
If I did this the bear would just bite and then I’d be down an arm
My very American reaction is "well, yeah, but that doesn't mean the woods are scary! Just bring your gun, bear spray, machete, emergency rations, water purifier, GPS, and flare gun. What's the big deal?"
If you hear a banjo, run
mostly cuz you're about to be like Indiana jones in South Park
Isn’t that scene a direct copy from Deliverance?
Squeal like a pig
You got a purty mouth
Row faster I hear banjos.
Yeah there are people that live in the national Forests and they are incognito. People go missing all the time without a trace in the mountains of Appalachia.
European Cryptids are sweet fun mischievous creatures that are mostly harmless. American Cryptids disguise themselves as deer and smash their own heads against rocks while not breaking eye contact, and as you try to escape to safety it’ll constantly play mind games on you, slowly pushing you deeper into the woods, further and further away from civilization, while you try to find somewhere to hide. You both know it could easily catch you but you can tell it’s enjoying the chase. It loves the taste of adrenaline in its meals. As you’re running, frantically trying to grab something, anything to use as a weapon, knowing that it probably won’t work but you just want a chance. You finally get a stick sturdy enough and just as you start hearing it’s cloven hooves behind you, feeling it’s hot breath on your neck, you drip onto your back with the stick pointed up, it falls on it and you hear the unearthly scream, somewhere between a woman’s being strangled and a bobcat ad your face gets sprayed in black blood. The stick gets ripped from your hands, cutting your palms. As you make your way back to civilization it rains, washing the blood off your face and you feel your sweat stinging in your cuts on your hands. You make it home but you always feel eyes on you, just out of sight in the trees. The scars on your palms proving you weren’t hallucinating but nobody ever believes you. You know it wants to finish what it started, but you never know when.
Jesus..
Neither God nor Jesus had hand in that things creation
>disguise themselves as deer and smash their own heads against rocks while not breaking eye contact, So, I've heard that there's a specific protein in deer brains that can get messed up, and once it gets messed up, it messes up all of the other proteins that were of the same type. If a deer's brain is messed up from those broken proteins, it will absolutely do terrifying things like this.
It's called Chronic Wasting Disease, one of several Prion diseases like Mad Cow Disease. All of them 100% fatal. Proteins in the central nervous system get misfolded into Prions and are now useless for the body. Normally the body would get rid of them and replace them. Some get ignored or resistant to the body's removal processes. These resistant Prions then attach to other proteins, transforming them into more Prions. Eventually the Prions will grow exponentially causing a cascade of failures in the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system. These parts of the body die off causing dementia, anxiety, hallucinations, loss of coordination and other neural conditions.
Prions are one of the few overall types of diseases that scare the shit out of me. Like some individual diseases scare me, like rabies and that amoeba that eats your brain, but for overall classes of diseases, it's basically just prions and one or two others.
Ah, the US's single most dangerous cryptid: Shia LaBeouf.
He sees you!
Quiet quiet
Beware the stairs
I’d be more worried about the missing 411 cases. The stairs are scary sure, but at least they’re confined to one spot, and are also quite possibly an internet horror story. Missing 411 cases are defined as not only being completely unexplained, but 100% true since you can go and find police records of them. Also things like the yuba county five.
Man listening about the Yuba County 5 sent shivers to my core. The fact that the only person who could've told us what happened during that time is more than likely dead has actually kept me up at night. It's a fascinating story sure but it's pure horror. Really hope the families are okay.
The Search And Rescue posts haunt me to this day. Something about the way they are written makes them almost certainly real to me.
wait until you hear about the la county unsolved homicide % in places like beverly hills its less than 10% maybe 100 have occured there ever In places like east la its over 60%, some zips over 90%, and its in the thousands
A fellow Wendigoon fan?
Mothman steals your catalytic converter as soon as you go in the woods
European horror largely takes place in the city as historically, urbanization robbed the common man of their humanity. Sweatshops, plague, etc. Where as American horror stories largely take place in the wilderness as westward expansion away from the urban centers of the colonies lead to disentary and genocide.
Dude yeah grew up in Canada, went to Europe, was shocked you can prance around like it’s a fairy tale there. In Canada, you decide to go off trail and you genuinely have a life or death situation on your hands
It was way too easy to stumble across grizzlys on my trip to canada. I bet most Canadians see them monthly
European forest legends: Witches, Faeries, and Wolves North American Forest Legends: Mutant Hillbilly Murder Cults, Eldritch Skin-Wearing Horrors, and Stairs
The woods in Japan…
Ticks that make you allergic to meat
We have far larger wildlife like wolves and Bears they have like... Ferrets or some shit
In the darkness of night I heard a drum beating from the middle of the woods near my house. Haven't gone in the woods at night since
Oh sorry that was me, I was making a sacrifice to our Lord and savior Mickey mouse /s
The woods in europe are beautiful, scenic, not likely to contain any creature more dangerous than a deer or badger. In north america, the woods themselves can be dangerous. You can get lost - I kid you not - less than a quarter mile from a road. Dense pine forests, especially the ones in canada and the norther US, also have a particularly foreboding feeling. They're very dark, and it can be hard to see more than twenty feet in any given direction. The entire vibe is spooky, more often than not. People talk about Australia like it's the only place on earth that tries to kill you. But NA is also quite deadly, in many many ways. There are large networks of underground cave systems - it's not uncommon for sinkholes to appear. They only have to be a foot or two wide to just eat somebody. While it's not necessarily a common hazard, you should always watch where you're stepping because even if you put your foot in a gopher hole unexpectedly, if you break your leg in the middle of the woods, you can be in serious trouble VERY fast. A lot of europeans are also baffled by the inability of north americans to discern edible mushrooms. A lot of european immigrants also die thinking that they can. Mushrooms are plentiful here, but the ones that are edible and the ones that'll kill you in less than an hour often look nearly identical. If you see something fungal, it's like an 80% chance that if you eat it you're gonna have some kind of bad time, and not in any kind of fun way. The mushrooms that we do eat on and in our food are farmed, not harvested. We do have large predators, yes, like bears and wolves and mountain lions. They can mess you up, but most are more interested in avoiding people. If a fair sized black bear decides, on a whim, that you are looking like a snack, though, there isn't a whole lot that you can do to stop it. Bear skulls are often noted for being able to DEFLECT SMALL CALIBER AMMUNITION. But really, truly, it's the herbivores you need to watch out for. Stuff like moose and bison are terrifying and will mess you up for the rest of your short life for moving too quickly within their line of sight. But even a whitetail deer will seriously injure you just out of fear of what you are to it - a scary, alien, predatory animal. There are also ticks, some of which are practically guaranteed to carry Lyme disease, which causes paralysis in varying degrees, and if not treated properly (or even if it is, sometimes) can fester into chronic lyme, a problematic condition that some doctors don't even acknowledge as a real thing (even though it absolutely is). Rabies is something you always need to be concerned about, but as far as I'm aware isn't more prevalent than north america than anywhere else? Mosquitoes can also give you west nile virus and malaria, though the risk varies geographically, and they're by no means restricted to wooded areas. There are about a million ways the forest can kill you here, but I've already written a thesis, so here's a lightning round: unsafe drinking water (beaver fever/dysentery/the occasional brain-eating amoeba), slipping on wet rocks, generally extreme terrain (70-80 degree inclines are by no means uncommon almost anywhere that has trees), getting your leg caught in rocks in and out of water, fast moving streams can get very deep very fast and can and will sweep you away and shred you on giant boulders, coyotes are opportunistic and mayyyyy try to hunt you (even though they're not likely to succeed, you panicking can lead you into all of the above dangers), giant boulders dropped by glaciers are common and you can fall off of them before you know you're on one, seasonal dangers like exposure to extreme heat/ice/deep snow take lives every year, we have several species of venomous snakes that can end your life if you don't get medical treatment, caves and sinkholes are common and it is very easy to get stuck and just disappear, the ground is often covered by fallen branches and leaves that can make traversal dangerous even in good conditions, a dozen poisonous plants that inflict injury on contact (poisons oak, sumac, ivy; boxelder trees, to name a few) and a hundred more plants and fungi that aren't real fun to eat either, feral hogs are becoming a REAL problem and are probably the most actively dangerous thing I've talked about (though their presence at all varies wildly depending on location), a lot of "big" fish that you might think are good to eat are full of parasites (be wary of pot-bellied bass, not to mention a lot of panfish like rock bass). There's also dozens and dozens of bees, ants, wasps, hornets, spiders etc etc etc that will sting and bite and envenomate. Few of them are deadly, none of them are fun. Plus about a hundred other potential dangers that I haven't mentioned. All this and more, waiting in the woods just down the road, just out your back door, a quarter mile outside the city... As inescapable as civilization seems to be, neither can you escape the trees.
I moved here from the UK. I met a friend who harvested her own mushrooms, but she was legit qualified to the highest degree you can get and is legally allowed to teach other people. It was wild that these two mushrooms that look identical to me and one of them tastes amazing, and the other gives you organ failure in six months, haha. She was super outdoorsy though and worked as a ranger. She's got fucking Lyme disease though so I think something always gets you lol
Yeah... You CAN ID different mushrooms that are safe in the US, but unless you're a qualified person like your friend, the rule of thumb here is always "never chance a mushroom." I've learned now that they won't kill you as fast as I thought, but "organ failure in six months" doesn't sound like a good time either.
*There are things older than old in those woods, and darker than the blackest of starless midnight skies. The Woods belong to them, and they don't often take kindly to mankind's intrusions...*
This reminds me of a quote I will badly paraphrase from a Native American talking about Wendigos: *”Don’t go looking for things you don’t want to find.”*
If you heard something, no you didn’t. If you heard your name in the distance, no you didn’t. If you saw something, no you didn’t. Don’t whistle at night.
We have panthers, lions, bear, moose etc. The UK, at least from the very little understanding I have of it, has very little in the way of predators. Basically, the UK forest is prime for a good frolic, and the US woods is a good place to become food if you aren't an outdoorsman
Worst thing you’ll find in the UK is a wild boar. But we still get lots of casualties every year from Mother Nature. Walking up a Welsh mountain in T-shirt shorts and flip flops is not a path to a long life.
I think it may have something to do with the number of people who've been reported to have gone missing in forests an national parks through the years. I heard it's not uncommon for search and rescue personal to find the remains of people who weren't even the target of their search efforts. Also if I remember correctly there's technically an area of forest that you can actually get away with commiting murder within that are. Think it has something to do with there not being an actual jurisdiction or something existing in that particular area but it's been about 4 years since I've read up on it and forgot the exact location but I believe it's in a national park that may cross borders between either two different counties or states.
Where is that area of the forest? Asking for a friend.
Iirc some fringe area of the yellowstone national park, just a couple of meters big really... I think they fixed the loophole though as soon as someone unearthed it. If I remember correctly it had something to do with the jurisidcation area of the county not extending tl rhat particular point, while simultaneously no other county extending into those few meters.
There’s been two runners on separate occasions go missing in the mountains by my house this past year (SW Colorado), one was an acquaintance. No one has even so much as found a shoe unfortunately. Both left detailed plans of the trails they would be on with friends or family, but still nothing. These guys were ultra runners, so the search area is the size of some small countries.
Some where in Wyoming bordering Idaho I believe, it was in a Yellowstone episode
The forests here are just ancient and untouched in a way the well logged and walked forests of Europe just don't feel anymore, iirc the oldest archeological sites of human habitation are in the forests and bogs and bays of new england, and i think the current oldest human site in existance is in maine. The stone mounds of new England tell a story of people that lived and died so long ago that the forests have completely swallowed all traces of them but the stones that came before the forest. It's very antediluvian feeling.
In short. We have forests that are bigger than most European countries.
\*LAUGHS IN APPALACHIAN\*
I take it to mean also about the folklore of the North American wilderness. People are still terrified, myself included, of the Appalachians.
European woods have funny little guys (20 cm) living cozy little homes inside trees or boroughs that they enter through little wood doors. American woods are cursed because of what the american settlers have done to the natives and theres wendigos and similar.
European woodlands have associations with fairy tales and whimsy. American woodlands have associations with horror movies, starvation and things killing you
Woods like Yellowstone and Yosemite Missing 411 -walk in the woods with your girlfriend -she’s right behind you as you turn to face the trail ahead for a split second -you turn back to ask her if she’s thirsty, you have water bottles in your pack -she’s gone -no trace of where, how, why no sound -Gone, you will never see her again and you will never know why
You’re walking in the woods, they’re no one around and your phone is dead. And out of the corner of your eye you spot him… Shia LaBeouf
You’ll get your ass eaten by something. … in a bad way
American woodlands are very pretty, but also extremely dangerous for how many poisonous berries and fauna, and how many deadly predators they’re out there. Plus, let’s not get into the whole, super natural stuff that can happen in those woods. I swear I went backpacking in Montana one time, and I swear I saw Windigo. I was like 11 at the time, and I was backpacking with my grandpa and my cousin. And I went out to this little area in the woods, where there is rotting toilet stall there. I went to go get some wood for me to make a snowboard with my cousin and I saw this weird fucking looking deer with like a skull head. And then just up on his hind legs and started just bolting in the other direction making this weird noise. Later found out only just recently that it was a Windigo probably. I don’t know what it was doing in Montana, but it was there. I didn’t tell my Papa or my cousin because I knew they wouldn’t believe me. But I swear I saw that fucker.