I went camping out at Trinity Lakes this October in Idaho. My brother and his moms family told me how great it was out there. I figured if we did it on a weekday that late into this year, we could be alone. Truly be out on a nature experience after doing nothing but stay in the city for the past few years.
What I was not told was that the road out there was a 2 hour crawl through dirt roads. The final 10 miles of which are practically animals trails on the edge of mountains. It is a very rough trip in a big ass F250. Red flag number one in hindsight. But by the time the roads got that bad, we were so far in I was committed. We would do this, and it would be a unique experience for both of us. God, I eat those words.
When we finally made it to the first camp ground area on the smallest lake. We just wanted to get out of the truck and couldn’t take much more bone shaking rock crawling. So we did that, meaning we were in a different spot than where him and that side of the family had camped farther up at the big lake. Everything with the setup was standard, and we had gotten what we wanted. We were completely alone, only the firewatch tower 2 miles back and over a mountain if anything went wrong.
This should have been red flag number 2, but we figured we had enough gear and knowledge if a bear or cougar came along. Another important thing was the rules of that area saying no guns. So we didn’t bring one, not even as a last resort kind of tool, red flag number 3.
Not one hour after setting up camp all the way, I hear a snap off on the other side of the empty campground while me and him are talking. He doesn’t notice, but I look back and see two giant antlers. I knew what it was immediately, I rushed him quietly into the truck, and a big bull moose sprints into view behind the truck. We did not fucking know there were moose out there and they had not seen any when camped at the main lake grounds earlier in the year.
We were not that scared because he ran off immediately after we got some good footage of him by the lake. We just thought it was a rare chance encounter and were kind of in awe at the experience. I knew how crazy dangerous moose are but never bothered researching the details on their behavior or anything like that. Big mistake not immediately packing everything and getting out while we would still have enough daylight to.
We hop out of the truck, make sure he’s long gone, and continue our now much cooler nature trip relaxing and taking photos. Almost 3 hours later, I hear that same kind of cracking but a lot more of it and it’s approaching our camp site quickly. We are not close enough to the truck with how fast it’s coming, so I pull my brother into the tent and just stay perfectly still. I didn’t even want to breathe as 5 or more moose, with two Bulls that seemed to be chasing each other around sprinted past our camp site on both sides.
We could only see out the front flap of the tent and determine whereabouts outside of that from the footsteps and what I assume we’re mating calls. This time, we were not so excited about it. Nearly shitting bricks and just praying when we got out of the tent, that there wouldn’t be a lurking Moose that hadn’t gone with the rest of them.
There wasn’t, but now there was not enough light left to pack everything and get out safely. We no longer felt safe and were constantly on edge knowing at any moment. We may need to get to the truck and have to be aware.
The plan was now to pack up as soon as morning broke, and we just had to make it till then. When night came, we actually relaxed again. Thinking that with a fire up and it being night, surely we were done with any possible moose in the area. We just wanted to eat and smoke our cigars around the campfire.
We had our fire going strong, ate our food, and had our cigars ready. However, we needed a bit more firewood to last for our smoke before bed. So we made a small trip, it was pitch black in that forest even with our eyes adjusted. The second we got away from camp to the area we had been gathering from, me and him were both on edge again. We just got that feeling like something was watching us, just on the edge of the light from my phone.
So we hurried up, scurried back to the camp site like you just turned off the stairs light, and breathed a sigh of relief. The fire was safe, nothing was out there, everything… was fine.
Then, the bone-chilling crunch of one of the thick branches we had dropped in our hurry. Just on the edge of the firelight, directly behind us. Every single instinct and reactionary fiber in my being activated right then. The only word I plainly and coarsely told my brother was, “Car.” I had already made two strides to the truck, my brother told me after the fact. “The way that word left your mouth took me out of freeze mode. It was the most direct, fear induced command I’ve ever received.”
To both our horror, the truck had auto locked, the 1 or 2 seconds it took for me to fumble the keys out of my tight wrangler pockets, and hit that button felt like hell. We jumped into the truck, and I scrambled over him as he slammed the door to fling the headlights on. Right there, right in front of the fire we had just been standing at, a bull. Staring the truck down, but the part that makes this all so much more fucked up. He didn’t look like a normal moose. The fur was all patchy, and it looked discolored. Like he was rotting on the outside, but still easily taller than the lifted truck.
I watched him slowly walk out of the headlights back into the darkness while staring at us. I turned off the lights immediately so our eyes could adjust, and we could see around the truck at least. We were freaking out and filled with adrenaline still but doing so quietly. Neither him nor I can agree on if these next occurances were just a shared paranoia or not. For nearly AN HOUR at 10pm in the night, we heard heavy footsteps just slowly moving big circles around the truck. Eventually, we stopped hearing anything at all, and the forest was completely silent.
We cracked the windows to make sure, deafening silence. No bugs, no frogs, no owls, nothing. We sat there an additional 30 minutes listening for anything at all but still silence. Neither of us wanted to do it, but all our warm gear was in the tent, and it was dropping to 28 that night. We would not fair well in just our normal clothes. So slowly we opened the doors, and started to sneak to the tent. The moment we did, footsteps on my side of the forest coming towards us. Both of us fly back in the truck, clicking the lock button like maniacs. I couldn’t take it anymore, I nearly lost my cool but knew I had to keep it for my brother’s sake, too.
It was stalking us, is it even a fucking moose, moose don’t do this. It’s almost midnight what the fuck is happening. We kept throwing these statements around to each other. Trying to rationalize what we were experiencing and how our nice escape from the city had turned into a horror movie. With the unnatural look of the moose that we thought had been keeping us trapped in the truck for an hour and a half. We started talking about it being a skin walker even. Some might think this would freak us out more, but starting to make things a supernatural event and joking in our dark sense of humor is what helped us calm down.
We were still shaken to our core though, and the fear was stronger than the bite of the cold that was setting in. No way in hell were we leaving that truck again until it was morning, and we could see. He managed to fall asleep at around 12:30, but the forest was still dead silent, and it put dread in me.
It wasn’t until nearly 2 that all of a sudden, crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl. The normal forest sounds came back, and I had stayed up until the temperature reached its bottom for the night. I turned the heater on full blast for a few minutes to stop the unbearable chill so I could sleep. Waking up and repeating that every 45 minutes to keep us warm until morning.
Then I opened my eyes to light and shook him awake, we packed in 15 minutes and left. I’m not a story writer, so I’m sorry if this is a sloppy read, if anyone reads this long ass post at all. But nothing has striked such a primal fear in me ever, I’ve had guns pointed at me, other dangerous encounters with animals. None of those compared to the terror this incident caused. I fear going into the woods at all or going camping again.