A friend and I were once hiking a creek in the backwoods of Oregon when we came upon a huge watermelon sitting on a rock. We looked around and called out to see if anyone was around, but got nothing. Evidently this satisfied my buddy enough to think that the watermelon now belonged to him, and before I knew it he had picked it up and dashed it against a rock...I would have much rather eaten it. But then, sure enough, came a voice from a high bank saying, "Hey, that was my watermelon!" The dude was awful strong looking and bigger than the both of us. The next few anxious moments went by while my friend appologized and paid for the melon.

As for myself my stupidest moment was probably in the Sierras where a friend and I decided to go off trail to take in a view. We didn't count on the heavily bushed terrain slowing us down like it did, and even more we didn't expect a thick dense fog to roll in and cover everything five feet away. Having not taken a bearing from the trail we had no idea which way to go. And even worse, we had dropped our packs in one of those "we'll remember" sort of spots. We ended up somehwere we didn't recognize about 20-30 feet from a not so happy slightly surprised bear that wanted nothing but for us to leave. And leave we did. Nothing really motivates you to try and find your way when you know you just put your back to an angry bear in dense fog.

Everything turned out fine, and we are all the wiser now.