Welcome to the great outdoors! The noises are great, I always try to identify what made the sounds (being a Wildlife Biology major helps a lot)

Probably the craziest thing that ever happened to me was not on a backpacking trip, it was walking to my friends house with his dog. We live in the middle of no where Maine, and my buddy Alan lives on a homestead 3 miles down a logging road.

I was walking his dog at night, stopped to take a leak, all of a sudden a huge moose came out (rut season as well). I thought I was gonna get charged, it was so close. I quickly zipped up and hid behind a tree opposite of him. He did nothing, just stood there in his massiveness, then turned around and left. But geez, what a fright! Moose can really do some damage. The dog went buckwild but luckily its a small dog so I grabbed him and took him behind the tree with me.

Another startling moment was hearing a pack of coyotes about 20 yards away. I could hear them rustling around through the shrubs. Then 2 minutes went by and I heard them all howling so loud - they must have found a kill. It was amazing. Needless to say I pulled my knife within reaching distance lol, and was glad the kill wasn't me. I have a feeling that the knife wouldn't do much to a coyote, more over a pack of coyotes

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"To me, hammocking is relaxing, laying, swaying. A steady slow morphine drip without the risk of renal failure." - Dale Gribbel