Share a Funny Camping Story

[Hammer Handle]

I took a "city boy" camping once. We all slept in the tents, he had a bed (mattress in the back of his pickup cab).

The first morning, he asked "Does anyone want any hot coffe?"

Now, this guy knew nothing about fishing, let alone starting a fire...so I was wondering how he was going to make coffee.

He walks to his truck, and in a little bit we all hear "Ding". He then walks up with a hot cup of coffee.

We couldn't believe it. He brought his microwave along from home in his truck (there was electricity by the lake). He also brought Hot Pockets....

To this day, I don't think he had a clue why we were laughing so much....

[Iambjm]

Years ago we were vacationing with some friends and had been catching quite a few fish. A friend of ours went to the fish cleaning shack to clean his catch. He was cleaning away not paying any attention to anything but his fish when he heard a noise at the door, thinking it was another fisherman he didn't turn around right away to look. Not hearing a "Hi how are you" he turned around to see a huge skunk staring him down. Out of self preservation he grabbed a garbage can lid to block any spray that was coming his way. Well he lost his grip, dropped the garbage can cover, and ducked thinking oh ****. He heard the door slam and finally turned to see that the clanging of the garbage can cover hitting the floor scared the skunk right out the door. We almost died laughing when he told us about it.

[redhooks]

Years ago we went to the BWCA up to insula lake. My dad had just returned from a camping trip in new mexico and was worried he may brought a spider or scorpion back in his gear, cuz he didn't shake his stuff out and they saw some critters. We got caught in a nasty rainstorm and in the middle of the night my dad wakes up yelling "TARANTULA!!!" we all scrambled w/ the flashlights but never saw anything. He claimed it ran across his chest while sleeping. Well it rained for days and we spent alot of time in the tent and every so often someone would feel it run across them and wake up screaming. After day 2 or 3 the sun came out and we emptied the tent out to dry everything off and here was a big ol daddy-long leg that had terrorized us for days. I still won't let him live that one down.

redhooks

[Cicada]

A few years back, we were camping in Maplewood State Park. We were kicking back around the camp fire with some adult beverages when the park ranger comes by. He asks about our food. My brother tells him he has the cooler on the seat of the picnic table by the trees. The ranger tells him to keep an eye on it because the raccoons have gotten used to people and aren't shy about helping themselves. The brother is explaining to the ranger that he latched the cooler so it should be ok. The ranger is starting to explain to him that it won't stop a raccoon when they hear some noise by the cooler. The ranger pulls out his flashlight and we see the biggest raccoon I've ever seen. One front leg is holding the cooler lid open and he's rummaging through the cooler. He stops for a second and looks at us like he was acknowledging our presence. Then continues "shopping." Grabs a couple of packages and heads off into the woods. Ticked my brother off because it turns out this raccoon knows his food. Left all the kids hot dogs and turkey wieners and took the good old fashioned wieners and sausages.

[reelemin]

way back in my younger days, went camping at Nerstrand State Park. We used a old small orange pup-tent. We went for an all day hike - got back about dusk - unzipped the tent - the entire inside of the tent was covered with HUNDREDS of daddy longleg spiders - HUNDREDS !!!!!! . we slepted in the back of the truck that night, took off in the morning, and the left the tent - still up.

[BottomPounder]

My wife and I went camping with a group of friends in Caledonia, MN. We're all sitting around the fire one night when my wife says she needs to go to the outhouse. My wife is terribly afraid of snakes and asked if I would go along since I had the headlamp. I walked her there, watched her go in and could hear as she started to go to the bathroom (she had decided to leave the door open to let in the moonlight so she could see). I stood outside and was looking up at the bright moon in the sky when I heard her screaming bloody murder from inside the outhouse. She had looked down and saw a snake crawling into the outhouse while she was tinkling. I looked inside to see my wife sitting on the seat with her feet up on the wall in front of her, pants around her ankles, screaming at me to "get it out of here!!!" I could just barely make out a snake wiggling around below her feet. I picked it up and tossed it thinking it was a garder snake. (Later found out it was a timer rattler.) Needless to say my wife now hates snakes and out-houses!

[merganser]

We were camping in one of the Anoka County Parks in a tent with an attached screen tent. My head was next to the screened part of the tent. In the middle of the night something was scratching on the outside of the tent right next to my head. I thought it was a mouse trying to climb up the side of the tent so I just flicked the side with my finger. Then the scratching became more intense so I thought it was my sister in laws little dog trying to get in. I back handed the tent trying to shew it away and it started scratching again. I grabbed my flashlight and went out into the screened in part and shined by where my head was and there was a skunk scratching at the side of the tent. My wife had left some buns in a bag right next to my head in the screen portion of the tent and that is what the skunk was trying to get at. Now I am face to face with the little varmit and wondering what to do next. My wife and two little kids are fast asleep. We had a fan going so I grabbed that and pointed it at the skunk. He then ran around to the zipper and started scratching at that. Now I was getting nervous.... if he got in, how would we get out. So with my fan in hand (like that would have helped) I went over and conked the skunk with the butt of my flashlight. He took off and never sprayed. I jumped out and threw a few rocks at him/her and it never came back to our site. I still can't believe I never got sprayed. They must be too tame up that away.

[The Hammer]

too funny

[Hammer Handle]

Usually, a skunk won't spray unless they feel really threatened. It is usually their "last resort".

One time camping, a friend brought his small dog. The dog was running in the tall grass, chasing something. Then, I noticed what it was, a little gosling. I told my buddy he better get his dog.

Right before he got to the dog, two large Canada Geese flew in and attacked the dog, honking violently. Then were beating the dog with their wings and they looked like they were going to kill it. My buddy just stood there, so I ran and dove in and grabbed the dog...and the geese started beating on me with their wings (num-chucks). I ran away with the dog and my buddy was laughing at me...when three more geese came flying low across the field. They must have came to help the others, as all 5 started beating on my buddy!

To make a long story short, no one (or animal) was seriously hurt...but my buddy got the worst of it. He had LOTS of bruises. The best part was watching him standing in the field...laughing at me...and then the look on his face with 3 came over the hill at him...and then two more!

[merganser]

That is one time you should have had a video camera. That would have made a good master card commercial, especially if your buddy hunts geese. Browning shot gun $1000, Black lab hunting dog $300, field decoys $600, Canada geese attacking house dog and unsuspecting hunter in the off season.....priceless!

[goblueM]

I was up in Canada on a two week long paddle in Manitoba. My cousin and I were in a tent, uncle in his own pup tent. He mentioned several times it looked like rain, but we decided not to put the fly on, as it was very hot that night. Of course, it starts to rain and we didn't feel like getting up in the mosquito-infested, rainy night to put the fly on. Fell back asleep and woke in the morning to about half an inch of rain in our tent. Needless to say we learned our lesson about putting the fly on...

[charliepete2]

One time my younger cousin and I were up in the BWCA. I had to make quick pit stop so we pulled over to a small island in the middle of a large lake and I jumped out to take a whiz. My cousin decided he needed to go as well, so he got up out of the canoe, but he didn't pull it all the way on shore. As I'm relieving myself I looked over and see the canoe about 40 yards away and picking up steam with the wind pushing it. It was still pretty cold and I had a lot of clothes on so I started stripping down to swim after it. My cousin, who was about 14 at the time, started getting hysterical because he was worried I'd drown as the boat was several hundred yards off by the time I was ready to swim. Luckily for the first time in a few days we saw some other campers and they came by and retrieved our canoe for us.

[Duffman]

One of my favorite stories and or prank;

About 15 years ago, we needed to camp our last night out on Basswood. My canoe partner and I had been devising a prank all week and decided if we were going to pull it off, this would be the night. There were six of us on this trip, Larry and G-Man in one vessel, Billy and Kunz in another, and lastly Bush and I in the third canoe. We had to make camp cause G-Man had a bad case of Black Water Fever and was pretty much useless for anything.

As we started to set up camp, I started to plant some seeds like "Wow, if this doesn't look like a bear camp, I don't know what does." and "Dang, I really wish there was some better trees to hang the food pack." Although, we previously had never hung our food pack the whole trip. Later on, Bush came back from collecting wood and said he had found some recently deposited bear scat. Good enough, the seeds of fear and the scary unknown had started to sprout in our unsuspecting campmates.

G-Man pretty much slept from 2:00 pm till we left the next morning. I let his tent mate Larry know about our plan since it would have been a little to cruel to play this prank on G-Man who felt like he was probably on his deathbed. As it was nearing bedtime, I was able to secretly tie a bunch of fishing line to various trees and bushes around Billy and Kunzs tent, the six or so lines led to our tent. We piled the pots and pans on top of the food pack as we always did, but this time I had tied some mono to the bottom pan for the grand finale.

About ten minutes after we turned in, Bush and I started yanking on a couple lines. Billy and Kunz had been talking loudly but suddenly went into whisper mode. "Hey guys what are doing out there, Bush? Duff? Quit eff'n with us" When we both responded from within our tent "What are ya talking about, is there something out there?" Larry responded from his tent back in the woods that it wasn't them. All of a sudden you could hear a pine needle drop, and I'm pretty sure I could hear their hearts thumping from twenty feet away. It was time to go into full line yanking mode. "DUDES!!!! WE GOT SOMETHING BIG AROUND OUR TENT!!!! WHAT SHOULD WE DO???" I yelled out "I don't know about you guys but I ain't gonna end up as a nylon burrito, I think we should head for the water and the canoes!!"

As soon as we heard their tent zipper unzip, we yanked the pot and pan line. I was yelling "RUN! RUN!, sh#! I can't get our zipper open!!!" Watching two pairs of tighty whities sprint past our tent still ranks up there as one of the funniest things I have ever seen. The prank had worked to perfection, we couldn't have pulled it off any better, except maybe wear some gloves, I had some nasty line cuts in my hands, but it sure was worth it.

[MJCatfish]

Two of my buddies were hiking on a trail with some of our kids. Scott said, "Shh...quiet now...they should be turning on the waterfall any minute now." Tom, the other adult, replied, "Really?" taking it hook line and sinker. The kids all glared at him like, "DUH"

Scott said, "Tom, that was more for the kids."

mj