First night in the woods alone?

[falling rain]

I can't remember my first night out alone, but I do remember sleeping in a small woods up on the ridgeway a week or so after watching the Blair Witch Project some years ago. I spent one night out on a 2 day hike at a place called Scutchhammers knob (I kid you not ) spooky night but I had a birch long log fire to keep me company. I think it's an old sheep drovers encampment and centuries old. Also not far away was a place called Waylands smithy which is an ancient burial place so all sorts of things were going through my mind Not the best nights sleep I've ever had out on my own.

 

[andyn]

LOL....i havent spent a night out on my own as i normally go camping with a group or a least my missus. But was going to be spending my first night out on my own next weekend.....So will now probably start thinking about this thread whilst im sitting there from 4.30pm in the pitch black.

Horror films will now be banned from the telly till i come back.

 

[DISCO]

as well as going away with my two mates i always try and get a few solo trips .as i feel you get so much from them epecially on a spiritual level may not be exactly the term i mean but when you are yourself you have time to think and put things in perspective.at night i think people think on a totally different level.what i mean is people seem to be scared irrationally like i hear something (axe murderer or monster etc.i remember i was out myself one night and heard a deer crashing through the woods. i wasn't scared of the unknown just scared this thing may steamroll right over me in my bag.anyway i would highly recomend solo trips for mind and body (as long as you don't get stampeded)

 

[Peewit]

At the age of eleven I wanted to sleep out alone. We lived on a small farm and I took my bag and groundsheet and hunkered down in the woods - well out of site of the house. At midnight my father let my faithful dog out. My dog came bounding up to say “Hello” – and then promptly ‘cocked his leg’ on the bottom of my sleeping bag!

 

[M@rk]

I spent my first night alone in the woods about 4 months ago. I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive but when I got out there it wasn’t scary at all which I was surprised at. I loved the time I had there and think I’ll be spending a lot more nights with the owls for company.

Last weekend I went on a one nighter with my girlfriend. It was her first night in the woods in the morning I asked her how she found it she reckoned it was all cool until something started snufferling about under her at about 2 ish and then the guy line on the hennessy hammock was twanged .
Now this I thought was scary stuff and asked her what she did coughed she said which seemed to work

 

[innocent bystander]

I can't remember my first night out alone, but I do remember sleeping in a small woods up on the ridgeway a week or so after watching the Blair Witch Project some years ago. I spent one night out on a 2 day hike at a place called Scutchhammers knob (I kid you not ) spooky night but I had a birch long log fire to keep me company. I think it's an old sheep drovers encampment and centuries old. Also not far away was a place called Waylands smithy which is an ancient burial place so all sorts of things were going through my mind Not the best nights sleep I've ever had out on my own.

Scutchamers Knob in Hendred. Cool.Done the waylands thing as well, and that is well creepy. Deer darting around in the bit of wood over the track. Dear, oh dear.....Past midnight....

 

[Stew]

My first night was fine but I do remember getting wigged out on a later night because I was paranoid that there was someone else in the wood.
I don't think that there was but it was just that I was too close to "civilisation" to not excpect someone to come wandering along.

In the end I just did a late night walk home. (whcih was a rather pleasant experience)

 

[monkey_pork]

I tend to agree with this, the only thing I've ever been jumpy about is other people (and deer ticks, but that's kinda different).

I've had a fantastic summers worth of sleeping out in my Aunt's fields, miles from anywhere, and with no one around except a handful of friendly neighbours out walking dogs, or tending their stock. I found I'd be asleep in minutes, surrounded by the noises of the nearby animals harmlessly going about their business (harmlessly to me anyway). Her neighbours peacocks got to be a bit noisy tho' first thing, but at least I saw lots of sunrises !

Ah, standing around naked in a damp, gently misty English country field, first thing in the morning making tea seems the most natural thing in the world.

 

[Graywolf]

I first started solo camping in New Zealand where my parents emigrated to in the 60s, I had found this beautiful spot in the bush with a river not 20ft away.Well I spent most weekends there on my own or with friends,but one night while on my own in the tent there was this crashing noise from above :yikes: Something crashed onto the roof of the tent and started ripping it to shreds,I managed to get out but had never been so scared in my life.Have any of you ever seen a possum ,twice the size of a cat with claws to match Freddies(Elm Street fame)
descend out of the darkness and rip your shelter to bits.Not the nicest experience.
Clayton

 

[M@rk]

Something crashed onto the roof of the tent and started ripping it to shreds,I managed to get out but had never been so scared in my life.Have any of you ever seen a possum ,twice the size of a cat with claws to match Freddies(Elm Street fame)
descend out of the darkness and rip your shelter to bits.Not the nicest experience.
Clayton

LOL Well that would scare the **** out of me

 

[bilko]

Thanks everyone for such wonderful replies.
other people are the worst thing as you never know their intentions but apart from that i plan to have a ball. Not sure about standing around naked though; i might get caught . I plan to be out next week sometime . Just hope this weather holds to give things a chance to dry off. I'll let you know how it went.

 

[gregorach]

Have any of you ever seen a possum ,twice the size of a cat with claws to match Freddies(Elm Street fame)
descend out of the darkness and rip your shelter to bits.Not the nicest experience.
Clayton

Yeah, I've had possum in my tent in Tasmania - noisy buggers, very inquisitive, and they can smell food from miles away. Fortunately this one came in under the fly, not through it, and shining my torch in its eyes discouraged it. I learnt a lesson that night - never leave your food, or your unwashed mess tins, in the vestibule of your tent.

Thank god I wasn't in bear country.

Personally, about the wierdest, most disturbing noises I've heard at night were made by seals - they make strangely human sounds. I also really don't like the sound of cattle grazing right outside my tent - they're bloody big clumsy stupid animals, and I don't fancy being trodden on.

 

[gaz_miggy]

my 1st time was when i locked my self out at about 1oclock in the morning it was 2 late to go next door and get a key of them so i just went down to the wood near my house. luckly the day b4 i was practiseing making a leaf shelter. i made a 2 man but made one side to small so i just used the other side as wood store to keep dry. so all i did was start a fire with my trusty magnesium stick wich i always have with me. made a heat reflecter so the heat came in to the shelter and got down for the night. it was lucky i made the shelter well cuz about an hour later the hevens opened. that night made me relizy why you realy do have to but a bout a foot thick of leves on top and why you need the roof steep.

 

[Graywolf]

Just remembered another time,while in a mountain hut in the Tararua Ranges,N.Z.their must of been a dozen or so people sleeping in it when a possum managed to get in ,someone woke up and all panic broke loose in the dark.Surprisingly no one was injured but several sleeping bags where ripped.
I have never slept out where they have large carnivores and could not image what effect they would have on the waking brain.
Clayton

 

[yarrow]

Many times has night drawn in on my camp fire. Way back I would lay awake just listening to the talk of the forest. Yes i was scared at times, but as the years went by i learned just what those bumps in the night were.

Forward a few years, thick forest in Germany, me and a good friend are out on his very first overnighter.As darkness falls we settle in and hear it; a low groaning the wind picks up and so does the groaning. My friend is convinced we are surrounded by the living dead. All night i kept reasuring him "it's the Juniper trees moving in the wind" (I had been to this particular camp site before and witnessed this most disconcerting phenomenon ). In the first light of dawn he finaly sees for himself and drifts off to sleep! Knowledge truly dispels fear!!

 

[quiggers]

I remember my first few nights alone when I stated all this malarky up on the South Downs......walking through the woods in the dark.....Could get scared if I'd let myself - but you're there for the night - so you better rationalise it and calm down....then, once you do that - it becomes a very calming experience..

I find that the area around my fire and camp becomes familiar and a home - everything else beyond is darkness and much like outside your house..

Although myself and a mate did camp one night when the scouts were orienteering and thought our fire was a waypoint - not so much scary as a pain in the ar*e as they traipsed past all night...think they were envious smelling that venison stew..

 

[Emma]

Well I've been thinking about this and I've come to the conclusion that I can't remember the first time I slept out alone. In fact for quite a while I didn't think I had until I remembered that I'd spent over a week camping by myself over the summer, although admittedly that was in a camp site. Anyway, apart from that I've camped out in a tent by myself on several occasions, and once or twice in a hut (listening to a rodent eating my left-over pasta while I dropped off). I can't even remember if I've slept in the garden alone...
I have yet to hear foxes or badgers though, so I've had an easy time of it so far.
Although I have in the past been woken by my escaped pet rat nibbling my toes... but that was inside my house. I never worked out why my toes were so appetising to her.

 

[Spacemonkey]

Can't remember the first time, but don't think I have ever been scared really. A couple of stories though. recently while sleeping out in hammock and stuff, I awoke in the first light and saw a stag in the camp sniffing around my rucksack under my tarp. As my head emerged from the bag and saw the deer so bleeding close, I don't know who was more suprised!! He certainly bolted fast...!
Another time I was on Dartmoor with my wife of the time and we made a 'pretty wild mushroom' soup, if you know what I mean. I was awoken in the night by something bloody huge outside the tent. I peered out the door and saw the biggest damn cow i have ever seen! It was one of those big buggers with long hair and huge horns that looks like it should be on Tattooine. I guess under the influenc of the soup, it might have appeared bigger than it was but dwarfed out little tent. I didn't sleep to well that night, I can tell you...

 

[Eelco]

Well, my first nights outside alone where on a 4 day trip through germany in the winter in my bivvy. The first night i remember continually thinking about axe-murderers and all sorts of monsters coming my way, i've sat up straight peering into the night numurous times. But that was nothing compared to the second night. That night i slept in an old ruin (good shelter was my idea). The only problem was that there was only one exit, so i increasingly started feeling trapped. The castle was also positioned in suc a way that you can hear sounds from the entire valley beneath it. And when a group of people approached in the middle of the night i don't mind confessing i clutched my knife hard, ready for anything!

 

[Carcajou Garou]

I can't really remember my first night alone just too long ago. As children we were permitted to sleep out close to the main camps no further than 2-3 miles, so we got use to it gradually. I do remember on night as a group of 3 we had hiked to a river (for fishing) about 20-25 miles from the road and at the end of the weekend on the way back we decided to spend the last night on the trail (about 2+ hour to the road). We had just set up camp when we noticed a bear hanging around, did not think of it too much and went on with supper and such. Burnt off the evenings trash and cans and when they cooled off we packed them our refuse bag and use a bag line suspended in the trees to hang our food and waste. The bear kept comming back so we banged our pots, pans thru rocks, sticks etc.. to keep him away but he kept pestering us, associating humans with food. We tried to sleep but he (bear) would have none of it and kept pressing on-in our campsite; finaly fear struck me , shear terror coursed through my veins as I realized that my young future brother in law was with us and if any thing happened to him my future mother in law would do me in worse than any bear could ever . We packed everything up at 2 in the morning and hiked the rest of the way out with the bear following us about 10-15' behind hoping for a "treat". We got home OK, the next weekend I went back alone with my rifle to sort things out and made the worst camp with bacon, sardines and such all out in the open hoping the bear would challenge me but Muskwa is very smart, in the end I just had a dirty camp to clean up CG :yo: