National Park Experiences...Scary Moments?

[Stuart G]

,,,Too many to tell...Here is just one. My scariest moment in a National Park is not an animal, or storm or anything like that. I took a tour through a new cave near Carlsbad Cavern National Park. It wasn't the cavern itself, but another cave near the Caverns which was being toured for by the tour guide getting ready for future tours. It was like a beginning tour. (Of course the guide had been through there many times)...
...So, about 2/3 of the way down the cave, the guide turns off the lanterns that had lead us through the cave. That cave, unlike Carlsbad, had no lights, or trails. So when the lights were turned off, there was no light.
...Nothing, nada, dark, darkest, unreal, etc. You couldn't see anything in front of you..

..It lasted a minute, then he turned his lantern back on. That darkness in that cave sticks with me. And it was 40 years ago, in the summer of 1979. Keep the lights on in the cave...that is my motto..

[Siwsan]

1. We were camping at Yellowstone, and they declared a 'Grizzly Alert'

Apparently some bear had been sighted relatively close to our section of the camping area. The rangers came through and made sure everybody was doing what we had been told to do, and reminded about what we must not do. It was not a restful night.

The next morning my Dad went out for his usual sunrise stroll, and there was fresh bear scat, really close to where we had been camped.

[hvn_nbr_2]

15. At the Yellowstone campground where I was, grizzlies came through every night.

The rangers drove around the campground for a couple hours making loudspeaker announcements.

Then around 2 a.m., one came by my tent. It was literally a foot away from me with nothing between us but the canvas wall of the tent. I just kept thinking, I hope I got everything that might smell like food (toothpaste etc) out of the tent and into the bear-proof locker. And I lay very still.

This was around 1975-1976.

[Siwsan]

16. Yikes!

We were in one of those pop up campers.

As we were driving through the park, we did see a mama grizzly and 2 cubs, off in the distance. And, people were pulling over, getting out of their cars and WALKING TOWARDS THEM to get photos!

Shortly after we left, we heard that a man was killed by a buffalo, while trying to get a far too close up of a picture.

[jberryhill]

2. The St. Louis Space Needle Collapse

Last edited Sat Apr 20, 2019, 10:16 PM - Edit history (1)

I was there for that.



As the rotating restaurant at the top burrowed its way into the bank of the river, I will never forget the screams of the people trapped inside.

[Stuart G]

3. When was that?..

[alittlelark]

4. I remember a Seattle Space needle April Fools prank

back in the 90's....

[rgbecker]

9. Around the time of the Bowling Green Massacre.

[jberryhill]

13. When I was around five years old

[Boxerfan]

5. Yeah-Google seems to be unaware of any such event.

I mean great story but why?

[jberryhill]

8. It was covered up by the National Park Service

But they can’t hide the pictures:

[2naSalit]

11. I saw it from that bridge in

the background in that picture! I'll ever forget that.

[Kali]

6. !

[csziggy]

17. Really - that's almost unbelievable!

[Kali]

7. ticket for dog off leash

(actually if I recall, it was a state park) back in the 80s.

[2naSalit]

10. I have

a few since I worked in as a ranger. One time I was talking to a couple park visitors and we had been discussing a couple large ungulates we were viewing at a safe distance. Two bulls of two different species seemed to be keeping company for the afternoon when one, who was in full blaze mating stupor wandered off leaving his buddy who was lying down last I looked. As the conversation went on to an experience they had the day before I had made the mistake of turning my back to the once lying down bull about 100yrds away when I suddenly had a bad feeling. As I turned to look behind me I saw that the bull was not only up but charging right for us, full scream ahead @ about 30mph! We all had the same thought and ran for the nearest structure, the ranger station, and got in just in time. I then ran out the front door of the station and warned everyone out there to get inside as the bull, like a shark, was circling the building in that direction. He ended up taking a big, smelly dump outside the front door and went off into the trees to stand there and snort at us for about a half hour. Some species hate uniformed personnel and will charge them whether they are in a vehicle or not... they are smart animals and there's good reason for their attacks but that's a long story.

That was only one thing. It was adrenaline inducing but I wasn't actually scared, just on total alert, concerned for the civilians.

It doesn't take long to rack up all kinds of odd stories when you work in one of the big ones.

[royable]

12. Back around 1980 or 1981 I went on a tour of what was probably the same cave.

I remember we had to hike uphill a ways to get to the entrance. Not being a caver, I remember enjoying the undeveloped, but walkable, cave, and and I remember us turning off all our lights once we were well inside.

I wasn't scared at all by the blackness, rather, I was fascinated. I could wave my hand in front of my face and my brain was telling me I could see it. But when I had a friend wave their hand in front of my face, of course I couldn't see it. Same when I waved my hand in front of them.

But to share scary moments, I remember falling asleep in a tent in the group campground at Organ Pipe National Monument (OK, it's not a national park...) and being awoken when a coyote caught a rabbit near the tent and the rabbit started screaming like an extremely loud shrieking baby. I'd never heard such a thing before, and it was pretty horrifying. Especially as, over the next few minutes, the coyote carried the caught, screaming rabbit away up the drainage until the screams faded from earshot.

I also recall hiking along a lesser-traveled portion of the Tonto Trail in Grand Canyon National Park where the very narrow trail went straight across several hundred feet of a steep gravelly slope, and if you were to slip and fall on to that slope you probably would have slid down the slope a hundred feet or so and then over a 500-foot cliff. Sort of like mountaineers on steep snow fields. Needless to say, everyone in my party walked very carefully across that exposure and I was wishing I had an ice axe to stop me from sliding if I fell. (This may have been between Hermit and Boucher Creeks, I don't exactly recall.)

One other Grand Canyon tale--on a non-motorized raft trip down the Colorado River, a few miles upriver from Phantom Ranch, our party set up camp amid one thunderstorm after another coming through. In the middle of the night there was a horrific rumbling and crashing and I woke up thinking that Glen Canyon dam has burst and the wall of water rushing down the canyon was about to drown us all. But what it was was a giant rock slide right next to our camp, loosened by the downpour, with the huge slabs of rock actually sparking as they crashed and bounced down the slope. Luckily no one in our party was hurt.

I could go on, but I have better things to do than terrorize myself this evening with bad memories.

[localroger]

18. I have probably taken fifty cave tours from California to Virginia

The "moment of cave darkness" is a standard feature of the tour. Even when you know what's coming you never quite get used to it. You keep waiting for your eyes to adjust to the darkness, and it doesn't happen. But in a large enough group you do find out who has wristwatches with backlights.

[akraven]

19. We went through the same thing at Cave of the Winds in Colorado.

The "guide" is lucky I didn't have a gun. I'm night-blind and it takes a while to recoup. NOT a chance I'll ever go back.