15+ Camping Trips That Started Peacefully, Then Went Wildly Wrong

Camping can be a ton of fun, be it as a child, or as an adult. To be lost in the wilderness is to find yourself, or so they say. But what happens when the great outdoors decides to give you a good scare?

Some of our Bright Side readers shared their scariest camping experiences, and we collected other shivery anecdotes from Reddit. So here are some terrifying adventures people had, that make for great campfire stories, if you want to scare the living daylights out of someone.

• We went camping in the forest. My wife, our three kids (7, 11, and 15), and I. In the middle of the third night, I woke up, heart racing, to an eerie, unearthly stillness. Not a sound, no light, and even the air felt like a heavy blanket.
  I lay quietly, awaiting dawn. When I stepped out, the world was white, with the heaviest mist I have ever seen. It felt strange.
  I went back into the tent, and we waited for a few hours for it to clear, before hightailing it out of there. All through the walk back, the silence remained, along with a mist that had lightened, but was enough for us to keep our flashlights on.
  My kids have declared they will never go camping again, and secretly, I am relieved. Even thinking about the incident gives me goosebumps. © Peter Wayne / Bright Side

• Camping on Lake Superior and an overnight thunderstorm rolls through. We are camped 15 feet from the cliff edge. Wake up in the morning to find that we are 3 feet from falling 100 feet into the lake. © DWM4LTR / Reddit

• Camping in the natural caves after a day’s hike while it rained cats and dogs outside. I had a choice of what cave to choose, and I chose the largest one. The heavy wind would pass through the gaps and fissures in the rocks and caused howling, whistling and shrieking sounds throughout the night.
  The wind was so angry that it would make the natural waterfalls flow up in the air and all over the place. Was given company by large mice and spiders. Could hear large crashes outside, but decided to stay put as I had already been drenched multiple times that evening.
  Next morning, found out that the entrance to the caves, next to the one I was in, had been blocked by a landslide. © druhl / Reddit

• While backpacking in the Wild Rogue Wilderness (Oregon) a few weeks ago, I woke up in the middle of the night to warm breath on my face. I ignored it at first, but after a minute or two I decided to see what it might have been. As I scanned around the area, I spotted a small black bear (maybe 150 pounds) sitting about 15 feet from me, just watching.
  After 5 minutes or so, it just wandered off. My main fear was that its mother might still be around, but she might have already left the small one on its own. © Cascadialiving / Reddit

• I went camping on top of saddle back mountain near Phoenix with a high school buddy. We talked about UFOs and alien abduction for quite a few hours, like you do when camping in the deserts of the SW. We finally got to sleep around 1:00 then about 4:00am we hear this throbbing noise from the sky.
  It was crazy loud to the point you could feel the vibrations in your chest. You can imagine how freaked out we were until a beam of light shot down upon us. We were sleeping out on a tarp with nothing but our sleeping bags, so the light was blinding.
  That’s when the adrenaline dump happened, and I was convinced we were in for a space trip. However, the light streamed off and the pulsing vibration headed off in tandem in the form of a helicopter. Apparently they were searching for a lost hiker. © bmblbe2007 / Reddit

• Camping right beside a glacier at the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. It was the summer, but the cold air coming off of the icy blue wall was amazing. We set up a stone wall to keep the cool air from hitting our tent. We sat at our camp and watched a couple of mountaineers climb up it.
  The next afternoon we went to walk up to a waterfall and when we returned our tent was demolished. A huge chunk of ice fell off and fell down the hill bringing tons of rock and debris with it and obliterated our campsite. We would have died for sure. Timing. © Unknown author / Reddit

• Mine would have to be hammock camping over the water in the Atchafalaya Basin. Put in at Butt La Rose towards the middle of the long bridge and paddled out to Henderson swamp for those familiar with the area. Blame ignorance on my part, but the foot side of my hammock was tied up to what had to be a rotting tree. In the middle of the night, I tried to roll over and heard a “snap”.
  Next thing I know is I am wet because I’m dangling in the water. Needless to say, I struggled for what felt like an hour (probably 5 minutes) to get unzipped and out of the hammock tent. Crawled up on my kayak, grabbed all my stuff and made the hour trek through the damn maze of swamps to get back to the landing where I was parked.
  Haven’t camped over water since. I learned the importance of having a sit on top kayak, as well as the importance of not becoming gator bait (to be fair, I didn’t even see an alligator, but they are everywhere out there.) © GrahamCracka86 / Reddit

• I was about 10, and in the Boy Scouts. After a long day, everyone was sleeping in the tents. Late at night, we heard a really loud growling noise. It sounded very close, and we assumed it was a bear. It kept going for about an hour.
  We were terrified, but finally decided to take a peek. To our shock, it was coming from our camp leader’s tent. Yup, it was the sound of him snoring! Everyone had a good laugh about it, but honestly, at the time, we were all terrified that we’d soon be bear grub. © Roman Diaz / Bright Side

• When I was a kid, we used to go on camping trips in the summer with my parents’ caravan. One year, my sister and I decided that we wanted to sleep in a small tent instead, which was set up directly in front of the caravan.
  We didn’t even make it one night. Now and then, the both of us clearly heard the sound of something rubbing against the tent. We were scared, because we thought someone was walking around our tent.
  I don’t remember how we got out of the tent, I guess we started screaming for our parents at one point or something. My father took a look around, and we tried again, but after a while, heard the same sounds again. We ended up sleeping in the caravan anyway. A few days later, we still didn’t want to sleep in the tent, so my father started to disassemble it.
  Turns out, some animals built tunnels directly under the tent and in doing so, rubbed against the bottom wall. We didn’t notice anything, because we were lying on inflatable mattresses, we only heard the sound of them, rubbing against the wall. It’s pretty funny now, but we were creeped out at the time. © lote4 / Reddit

• This happened on a trip a few years ago one night mid-week, when the park is usually quieter. I woke up having to use the bathroom around 2 am, so I left the trailer to go to the comfort stations. As I’m passing the middle of the trail, I hear a light noise that sounds like it’s right beside my ear. It sounded like giggling?
  So I picked up the pace a little bit and started looking for a raccoon or porcupine or something (they make weird noises) but I couldn’t see anything or hear any twigs cracking which I thought was weird. No sign of a person out there either.
  As soon as the last thought crossed my mind, I swear to this day that I heard something deeper in the woods in a female voice say “Hello?”. To say I jumped was an understatement. I sprinted full throttle to the lights, tripped on a log and ripped my pant leg and shin. I made it to the bathrooms, feeling painful and kind of stupid.
  Once I was at the comfort station I did my business, and talked myself out of it being anything unnatural like the good biologist that I am. As I passed by the entrance way for the woods (giving it a WIDE berth if we’re being honest), again, I can only tell you what I heard, but I swear as clear as day I heard a whisper that said “Come back.” I think that’s the fastest I’ve ever run in my life. © ComfortableAd3519 / Reddit

• Coyotes sound like crying babies. A sheet of thin plastic between you and them, brushing visibly against it, and crying from hunger. Like a baby. © BunnieBonnie / Reddit

• Before I got married/had kids, I used to do a lot of solo backpacking/fly-fishing trips. One summer I hiked way back into the trinity alps in N. California. The third night, I set up my tent and caught a few trout for dinner. I was at least 15–20 miles from any road that I knew of.
  In the middle of the night, I woke up to something lightly hitting the side of my tent. I waited, and it would continue in two to five minute intervals. I heard or smelled nothing else. This went on for about an hour.
  Finally, it was either pee in my tent or get up and go outside. As I was leaving my tent, I just said in a loud voice that I would leave first thing in the morning. No idea what it was, but the things stopped hitting the tent.
  In the morning at first light I got up and packed. There were thirty or forty small stones and pine cones next to my tent. I was camping in a small meadow with no trees above my tent.
  I just packed up and left. No idea what it could have been, but it was definitely throwing the debris at me? © yulsugonna**** / Reddit

• When I was in Boy Scouts (Pennsylvania, Troop 303), we made a trip to West Point. Our troop was to spend the night in these really run down old triangular bunk houses at an old campground about an hour or so away from the school.
  Our scout masters were really awful, never really bothering to check the condition of the place beforehand, so we were all surprised by the terrible, musty and wood-rotten interiors. The bunks were rusty and there were dead bugs everywhere. A lot of us wanted to sleep in the cars instead, but the scoutmaster, a particularly nasty guy, called us scaredy-cats and told us to man up.
  So we grabbed our sleeping bags and did as we were told. Then, some time in the middle of the night, we started hearing a weird chittering. One of us turned on our flashlights and pointed it up at the vaulted ceiling. Bats. Lots of them.
  Not surprisingly, someone screamed, and the whole nest started wigging out. Everyone started panicking and running around, which only made the bats wig out even more. The parents came running from the other bunkhouse when they heard the screams and got a face full of bats when they opened the door. My dad took me out of that troop not too long after that. © RorschachtheMighty / Reddit

• Sleeping on a tarp when suddenly strange noises come from the left. I jump up to look for something and see bushes being moved and rustling, start to freak out a bit and decide that I should definitely not investigate, and I should just stay hidden inside my sleeping bag.
  Then my bag that I was using for a pillow starts to move away slowly, then it’s gone altogether and there’s the same noise, start thinking that I’m going to be attacked. So I decide that I can freak out my attacker by barking like a dog, so I start barking and stand up, only to see...
  A wombat with my bag. Guess it’s not all that creepy, but it was for 13-year-old me. © generalgreavis / Reddit

• The entire camping group was in the big “party” tent, cracking jokes, talking, laughing, being typical noisy teenagers. There’s been quite some time since there was a lull in conversation, but the next time it happened, it was just quiet enough for one person to hear a barely-audible chanting. “Everybody shut up right now!”
  One of us cracks the entrance zipper open a tad and looks out to behold something none of us could really comprehend or process for a few minutes. A family was rocking back and forth near the fire pit, muttering incantations. They gradually got louder and the rocking more violent. We piped down and stayed in the tent, and eventually they left. © Unknown author / Reddit

• Comanche wilderness CO, did some night hiking and didn’t make it to where I wanted to pitch camp, so I set up near the trail behind a large boulder, cowboy style. I had a dream that my cat was scratching at me all night. Woke up to mountain lion tracks all over the place and my ground sheet ripped up at one end. No idea how my air mattress wasn’t popped.
  The next morning, I continued on and couldn’t get rid of the feeling I was being stalked. At lunch, I noticed the mountain lion on top of the bluff watching me. Cut that trip short and bought a lotto ticket. I didn’t win the lottery, but still, I consider myself lucky. © ChronicLs / Reddit

• My brother and I often go camping. We’ve been doing it for years now, and we’re both in our forties now. On one such trip, around midnight, I heard the tent zipper sliding down, slow and steady. I figured it was him going out to pee.
  “You good?” I whispered. No answer. I turned to check, and he was fast asleep, right beside me. I checked the zip, but saw it was closed. So I turned back and went to sleep.
  In the morning, when I woke up, the zip was still shut, but the side of the tent near my head was torn, with four claw marks clearly visible. I haven’t seen anything like it, and the cloth was ripped roughly, so this wasn’t done by a knife.
  Some animal had ripped the tent wall, but not done us any harm. We didn’t spot any tracks outside, either. It was definitely the most eerie camping trip we have ever done, and it took us a while to get back to our trips. © Michael Jacobson / Bright Side

• My wife and I had a camping honeymoon. After 3 wonderful days, we woke to an eerie, rasping sound, like claws raking down the side of our tent. We stayed awake, hugging each other
  in terror.
  Finally, as dawn broke, a few hours later, I peeked out and froze when I saw a bunch of wild horses outside. They were simply stunning, and there were some tiny foals there too.
  The rasping sound we heard, was them licking the dew off the sides of the tent. Since they were all standing rather quietly, we didn’t hear them whinny or neigh, so could figure out it was horses. We watched them for what seemed like hours, and yes, before you ask, wild horses couldn’t drag us away! © Alan Sinclair / Bright Side

Clearly, camping is one big adventure, with plenty of thrilling moments. If you like terrifying stories, here are some true tales that sound like fiction but are all too real.