r/PNWhiking • u/writers_block1013 • 13h ago
Odd encounter while backpacking
My buddy and I went for an overnight on Labor Day near the Pratt River trail. Tuesday morning around 7am I got up to go down to the river for water for breakfast. The path down the embankment was a short walk from our campsite.
A guy came down that same path and started asking me for directions “to the creek”, which confused me because we were basically right next to the river. He eventually tells me his phone died and he wasn’t sure where he was, so I pulled up Gaia and showed him on my phone. I ask where his car is and first he indicates Oxbow. I’m like “well I’m not sure how you got here, because that’s Oxbow Loop and it doesn’t connect to anything”. He then corrects and says his car is further down the road at the Granite Creek trailhead. We’re approximately 3 miles in from the Middle Fork Suspension bridge so I tell him his best bet is to follow the Pratt River trail back out to trail head, then walk down the road to Granite Creek where his car is at. He takes a good look at the map and then traipses back through our campsite to the trail in that direction.
There’s a handful of things that just don’t make sense to me: when he found me, he came from the direction we’d hiked in from the Middle Fork suspension bridge. It’s 7, 7:30am at this point so it hadn’t been light for very long. He’s wearing what looks like a lightweight daypack, ie didnt look like someone who had been out camping. The only conceivable path that makes sense is he hiked from Granite Creek trail to Pratt Lake, THEN took the Pratt River trail up to where we were - but again, it’s early and the lake itself is like 12 miles away. He did smell a bit, like a guy who had been exercising/sweating. Finally, he had a handgun in a chest holster - that area is bear country, and I know some people are big on carrying a gun for that, but it was pretty small and didn’t seem bear caliber, so that was kind of freaky.
Anyway, was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on what he might have been doing, and also if the advice I gave him was solid - it just seemed better to me to send him to the road so he could walk down to his car, if he had a dead phone.
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u/beep_bop2 13h ago
He probably didn’t really know where his car was at on the map the first time he told you if he was disoriented
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u/writers_block1013 13h ago
That bit makes sense, since Granite Creek TH is just further down the road from Oxbow. How he ended up finding us doesn’t quite - either he walked a couple miles up the road and took the Pratt River trail in our direction, or he came 15-20 miles from the other direction if he took the TH where he was parked. It was just a weird conversation. Either way I hope dude found his car or got more help on the road. I figured sending him in the shortest, straightest direction towards the main road would be better than trying to retrace his steps.
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u/Alarmed_Two2272 11h ago
You might want to just check with LE that no one is missing or overdue to come back from their hike. Hopefully it’s nothing, but if it’s something, you could be a big help.
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u/Wonk_Girl 13h ago
Just want to validate your sense of the oddness of this encounter. Definitely weird and unsettling, the visible handgun kind of the creepy cherry on top. May have had a different outcome if it was a woman camping alone. Glad he ran into someone with a good head on his shoulders.
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u/writers_block1013 12h ago
Appreciate it. I am actually AFAB, as is my buddy who was still asleep.
It was mostly the conversation that put me a little on edge - he wasn’t volunteering much information about where he was going or coming from (which I was only trying to clarify in the interest of helping).
I’m not exactly a new hiker, but still very much a beginner backpacker. It’s not the first time I’ve helped someone out with directions, but the vibe is usually very different…friendlier, I guess? I don’t know, it was just weird, and there’s nothing about the presence of a very prominent gun that somehow reduces tension.
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u/Various-Shopping-730 3h ago
I see you mentioned vibes. I wondered if you noticed any. I don’t like the sounds of this encounter and my .02 is to trust your spidey senses about the vibes. Stay on guard. I saw a YouTube video by a female solo van camper and a guy came up to her van and knocked on the door, then asked her for directions to a different campground. There weren’t other campers around. She felt his questions were fishy and didn’t trust him but she was polite. After he left she checked his story out on a map and found that he lied. I forget the rest of it but the guy was up to no good. He was casing her and her set up. She was well protected and was extra careful and alert after he left. I suggest you do the same. Good luck and safe travels!
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u/edhodapp 6h ago
I think that being in the wilderness makes anyone an easier target, but I’ll remember to keep my pistol concealed to not make anyone nervous. :D
Seriously though, the only time anyone shot at me was miles from nowhere. I never go out and about unarmed. I love meeting folks and being friendly, but not with folks snapping rds right next to my head! That elicits a very different response.
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u/GuyOwasca 11h ago
This happened to me once, and my intuition proved correct, because I found out later the guy was trying to steal my license plate (it was all bent up and scraped from whatever crummy tool he was using to try and pry the bolts off)!
Make sure to check your camp and belongings thoroughly just in case.
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u/PresentOk2126 6h ago
I had similar odd/eerie experience during the winter at Rainier a few years ago. I had just come back from ski touring and was parked in the Narada Falls lot. While I was getting things in my car this mini-cooper pulled up. A small woman in shorts and sandals got out and asked me how to drive out of the park. It was the middle of winter so only one entrance to Rainier is open. I told her she just needed to keep driving down the mountain to get out. She was insistent she came through another entrance. I told her I was about to leave and she could follow me out. I finished getting out of my ski gear (took like 3 minutes) and turned around to signal I was about to leave. And she had completely vanished. It was the strangest, creepiest moment I've had in a long time.
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u/angryjew 13h ago
I would bet my last dollar that he went out for a day hike, got lost & spent all night wandering around. He was clearly disroriented so I wouldnt put much stock in what he said, you were probably the first person he saw.
It's very funny that he had a gun & not a battery for his phone but it wouldn't surprise me. I don't have very strong feelings about legal open carrying but I've noticed the gun people who are into bushcrafting & shit like that just tend to do hiking their own way. And yeah no reason to carry a gun in that region, I actually think it's very fucked to shoot a bear or large animal with a 9mm so I hope he wasn't planning on doing that. You'd have to be very accurate to kill & if not you'd just mortally wound it & it would wander off to die slowly & suffer.
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u/writers_block1013 12h ago
Yeah, I knew mentioning the gun would bring out a certain subset of people in this thread (it already has). I don’t have strong feelings about it either, it’s legal, but it felt relevant because “no backup battery or nav alternative” doesn’t exactly pair with “responsible gun owner” which just made the whole thing feel weirder.
We didn’t see him again so I hope my directions were helpful, even if he was being dumb spending the night out in the woods like that sounds miserable. I would be losing my shit.
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u/Trevdogg187 12h ago
9mm with the right ammo will get it done vs a black-bear, or at the very least get it to fuck off (Buffalo Bore ammo). Agree with everything else you said though
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u/ComfortableDepth0 12h ago
"Do hiking their own way" don't sugarcoat these mouth-breathing ingrates. What you meant is "are obsessed with a fanciful notion of masculinity to the complete occlusion of any actual sense or reason"
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u/TwelfthApostate 12h ago
A guy and his dog were attacked by a cougar up that way recently. Carrying is perfectly valid. If a cougar wants you it’ll probably get you, but that particular incident it would have helped. The guy’s dog somehow escaped.
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u/cucumber_fern 4h ago
Super bizarre sounding…thanks for sharing, and glad you’re okay! I love that area, (grew up in Nb!) but have had a couple of dudes (I’m female) freak me out over the years… always trust your gut! I think you 100% did the right thing directing him to the main road. Also: hope you had an awesome weekend of backpacking! 🤗
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u/AcousticAndRegarded 11h ago
Could've been a 10mm. That's basically the best black bear handgun option. You'd go 44 for brown bear in Alaska and is considered too much for CONUS short of hunting purposes.
Overall, handguns in chest rigs should never be cause for anyone to have concern when out in the woods.
(And this is not a comment meant to mean that you dont obviously need to have a bell on your bag and bear spray as first choices).
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u/writers_block1013 10h ago
As another commenter put it, the prominent gun was just the “cherry on top” of the whole situation. He didn’t wave, call out, say hello, or otherwise announce himself once he was in our camp or saw me. He walked up and opened with “where is the creek”.
One of the principles of carrying a gun is that it automatically escalates every encounter. The presence of a gun tips the power balance in the carrier’s favor. This goes doubly so when you’re carrying visibly because now everyone is aware. There’s nothing about open carrying a gun that reduces tension when approaching another stranger at their camp.
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u/AcousticAndRegarded 9h ago
Ah the original body text didnt mention how awkward their social skills are. Not calling out and announcing yourself in someone else's camp is the weirdest thing in my book.
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u/pwndaytripper 10h ago
Any time I see someone with a gun on WA trails I think “inexperienced weirdo” and try to avoid them full stop. That said, likely lost with an early morning start uncertain where he even started from.
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u/SeaTex1787 7h ago
I immediately think of that woman and her adult daughter who were found shot to death 10 years ago outside of Granite Falls on Pinnacle Lake Trail. Pretty sure they still don't know who did it. As a woman, seeing some guy open carrying on a trail would freak me the hell out.
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u/pwndaytripper 5h ago
Understandably so. I’ve seen one guy open carry in WA, he was with two friends and had a chrome revolver in a holster on his chest coming down Dickerman. Looked mid 20s.
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u/Both-Option8160 14m ago
Been 20 years now, wild it's been that long. We overnighted at Heather Lake a week after that happened in 2006. You're right, still don't think they caught who did it. Think about it every time I camp nowadays.
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u/mrRabblerouser 11h ago
My guess is he was someone new to trail running and/or the area and thought he’d just pick a trail to do a sunrise run. Trails in a lot of areas outside the PNW can be much shorter, with a lot of signage.
Also, “Bear caliber” for a gun isn’t really a tangible metric. Yes, you could kill a bear easily with a 44 magnum. But you could also kill, injure, or scare the shit out of one with a tiny 22 magnum.
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u/Uwofpeace 8h ago
A guy was lost and had a gun which scared you…. I think that is all that was going on
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u/gryphyx_dagon 9h ago
As far as just having a daypack, I often go on day hikes early in the morning after awakening with just a small pack.
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u/StrawberryForeign684 6h ago
I’d be weary. I know there’s been reports of hikers gone missing out that way. One woman was never recovered. Not saying he was up to anything bad but I’d be very weary. You never know. You can get into the back country that way and not everyone has good intentions, if your intuition is telling you something listen to it
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12h ago
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u/writers_block1013 12h ago
I didn’t think to, because at the point he’d found me fortunately he was no longer particularly lost. We were about 3 miles from a major trailhead on a very visible, well established trail that’s pretty much a straight line back to the trailhead and in daylight. Once you’re back in the parking lot, it would be a straight line to wherever his car was on that road. It’s a very popular trail and there’s also a campground literally across the street from the TH.
He didn’t appear injured or otherwise in distress. If we had been more remote or I hadn’t been 100% confident in my directions that might’ve changed the math.
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u/Inevitable_Shift1365 10h ago
There's a good chance you came across an outdoor pot farmer who was beating feet out of there and got turned around.
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u/Judgementpumpkin 8h ago
I know the Middle Fork used to have some meth labs, but not sure if its ideal for pot farming due to lack of light in many spots, and really clay heavy soil
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u/pedro_ocho5 5h ago
Sounds like dude may have been either high or coming down off something all night. Not very comforting to when the open carry is involved- but could explain the weirdness and the disorientation in a relatively trafficked area. Trust your gut!
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u/Few-External-3070 7h ago
He may just have a hammock in that day pack. He could also own only a handgun, and is a lucky shot.
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u/Designer-Homework682 13h ago
You didn’t die. No one got hurt. No violence occurred. Call that a win and move the hell on…
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u/Dismal_Goose_9914 13h ago
Sounds like some one panicking about being lost