Outdoorsy Shite: My most perilous outdoorsy moment

[GrimmaTheNome]

This thread is inspired by randomly starting to read Bill Bryson's 'A Walk in the Woods' which has been sitting on my shelf for well over a decade. I've only read the first couple of chapters - the first includes many horrible and scary things that can happen to walkers on the Appalachian trail, the second focuses in particular on bear attacks. Quite why he didn't say 'sod this, I'll go back to the UK and do the Coast to Coast' eludes me.

I think by the end of the book I shall have an increased gratitude for living and walking mainly in the United Kingdom where the worst that can happen is... what? Here's all I can think of. I expect someone will top mine but please do enter yours even if it really was exceptionally tame.

Adder encounter - DH pee'd on one behind a tree. It slithered off. Not very perilous at all. Well, the adder might beg to differ.

Lone bullock - chased DH and I through some woods where it shouldn't have been. We think it was lost and discombobulated. Quite perilous, it was big and faster than us, fortunately it didn't follow us up a steep slope.

Anyway, back to wholesome peril now.

Was dh very firmly brought up?

(through the nose)

Goodness. Maybe we need a whole other thread for peril on the seas(reservoirs/lakes/broads).

I can't think of a perilous waterborne moment because I sail like a wimp with more reefs than the kids but DH had a nice one last year when he neglected to check the bung. None of the Neilson staff had ever seen a Pico pitchpole before (luckily he realised what was about to happen and jumped clear).

NORTHEY! That's the best thing I've ever heard!

Hmmmmm

Dholes (wild hunting dogs) escaped from one of the local zoom a few years ago but I didn't see any

2 margays and a desert cat have escaped from the other nearer one but I haven't seen them

I have had a very very odd animal on my roof but I don't know what it was. Was NOT indigenous to the UK as I read a book cover to cover to try to spot it, was kind of like a giant squirrel but with a big head

Adders in my garden eeeeek

My DH and I actually did go and attempt the AT a la Bill Bryson in our younger days! It felt pretty perilous the whole time, mainly from freezing to death at night in the Smoky Mountains we had to sleep in a shelter in which we had to cage ourselves in the inside to stop the bears, kind of the opposite to a zoo with us as the display!

We ended up coming home as DH slipped on some ice and broke his leg. We were driven out of the wilderness by a park ranger. Our scariest night was in a tent hearing noises outside. We were convinced there was a bear. Finally got the courage to have a look outside to find a very small mouse in our saucepans
Can't wait to go back once the kids are grown!

I would also feel quite alarmed by the local people in the Appalachians, if I'm honest. People a bit like <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=redneck&start=114&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&biw=1267&bih=634&tbm=isch&tbnid=itg_9P6FnFDW-M:&imgrefurl=deadliestwarriorshowdown.blogspot.com/2011/04/southern-redneck-vs-gangsta-thug-part-1.html&docid=SLwAeD8PfLkKcM&imgurl=3.bp.blogspot.com/-SDiOoHd4ZqY/TakYFXlWWTI/AAAAAAAAAEc/QQfnvYt1sTE/s1600/vg34569_REDNECK2.jpg&w=400&h=300&ei=r-BsT6yRIoqp0QWv6qXABg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=512&sig=112195760823401370021&page=6&tbnh=133&tbnw=144&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:12,s:114&tx=107&ty=70" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this.

Met a few of those. We had to hole up for a couple of weeks in a motel in the middle of Hicksville. We were a mile from the nearest supermarket so I would walk over to get the food. I don't think they had ever seen anyone walking before so men people were always stopping to offer me a lift. Being English and uptight I was too afraid to accept!

I've always had a hankering after long trails, but thus far have singularly failed to bag any.

Who's ticked off the Highland Way? I had too many small children around to contemplate it when we lived in glasgae, but I blardy well am going to go back and do it at some point.

I've walked part of the Highland Way. Amazing. 4 seasons in one day.

The west highland way is great. Skip th bit from milngavie to loch lomond though...

Talked into a waterfall trek in Morocco with dh and the dc and blithely assumed that it would be safe because lots of other people were doing it and the guide was very confident.

Halfway up it was very slithery with no safety rails or anything at all to stop us tumbling down the ravine - my 7 year ds had to be carried by the guide and dh was unbalanced by carrying dd in a sling.

I have never been so grateful to get to the bottom to safety and vowed never again to entrust my families safety to someone else - if it looks dangerous and doesnt feel right then ffs we're not doing it no matter how many other people are.

I had a face off with an adder once

It was the first warm sunny day of the year in Northumberland, I was 13ish. We had gone to Kielder Forest and were investigating a derelict cottage. I ran round the side of the house and leapt over a step, looking down as I did so and there was an adder sunning itself. I landed and spun round and stopped dead still. I didn't dare move or make a sound and it lifted half of it's slithery body up and did that wavy neck snake thing at me, hissing. Gulp. Eventually it decided I wasn't worth killing (just as well as we were at least 30 miles from the nearest hospital) and ambled off into a nearby dry stone wall and which point I raced back to my parents. My dad then thought it would be a good idea to get a pokey stick and harass the poor snake in its nest.

We discovered later on that adders often hibernate in groups, there could have been loads of snakes in that wall

smoulder, that happened to me in thailand. the guide was encouraging everyone to leap off the cliffs into a pool at the bottom of a waterfall, where the current was akin to that experienced where you normally fly red flags in the uk. i'm a fairly confident swimmer, and the guide was encouraging everyone to take twenty minutes for a dip - i was absolutely convinced i wasn't leaving the river conscious and would be found at the bottom of the mountain washed up on a bend. the friend i was travelling with sensibly declined the swim. i thought 'what the heck', which subsequently changed to 'what the fuck'. not so blase, these days.

who has taken littlies out on big adventures then? we were really looking forward to it, but dd2 suffered a birth injury and has cp - it kind of limited our plans for a few years. she's 8 now and doing brilliantly, so i think we can start dreaming again... (is there a big adventures for little people thread? maybe i should start one?)

My most scary - geocaching with small children - they were 4 and 5. We followed one which said "steep climb at the end". They were not kidding. It was up a cliff, with a sheer drop on one side. We got up, but I was too scared to go down again, so we sat on the steep hill and I bribed the boys to sit still by feeding them emergency sweets, while sent husband off to work out a safe way down. I was convinced we'd have to call out mountain rescue.

I have also trodden on an adder and been chased by cows (not at the same time). And on one occasion, a sheep. Yes, a sheep. It had rage in its eyes, and came at me fearlessly, the only weapon I had was a flowmeter (on A level coursework) - so I had to run for it. Nobody believed me. But I never trust sheep now, especially Welsh ones.

I have some peril on / in the seas stories too - grew up on the IOW. Can't sail though, not posh enough.

DH took DS on a wild camping hike on Dartmoor - DS was just 5. in the middle of the night a fox stole their stove AND DHs breakfast. DS slept through this. LUCKILY DS's breakfast was inside the inner tent so only DH had to walk off the moor hungry ( carrying large backpack) , in the drizzle and mist of the morning.

Pre-kids, DH and I were on a deserted hillside path in the Peaks one fine spring day and decided to get a bit, um, intimate. This was fine until the point when all of a sudden a shadow passed over us and we looked up to find about half a dozen hang-gliders silently passing about twelve feet over our heads having just taken off from the top of the hill. No injuries were obtained in the ensuing scramble to get decent (or at least under cover) but it could have caused a nasty hang-gliding crash

I've had loads, I do seem quite accident prone.

Went paddling down a grade 2 river in the lakes with friends at uni. Had been told it was a 3 hour paddle. We set off early afternoon in November. By the time it got to 5pm and we were nowhere near the end point, was pitch black and snowing we realised we were in trouble. No mobile phones back then, we had no idea where we were. No roads or houses in site. We sat tight on the bank until the mountain rescue found us some hours later and were all taken to hospital by ambulance with hypothermia.

I broke my back rock climbing.

I got knocked out by an avalanche while stood at a bus stop in courcheval.

I dislocated my knee while soloing an ice climb in the lakes and had to make it four miles back to the car with my knee cap round the side of my leg.

I've had quite a few friends die in climbing accidents.

Sight not site. I really do come across as illiterate at times thanks to the bloody iPad.

Oh god, I shouldn't laugh, but the bus stop did it for me....

I broke my elbow rock climbing, back is far more impressive.

iPads are the work of the very devil. I watch the damn thing change stuff before my very eyes. I'm sure there's a way to turn the damn autocorrect off, but I'm not terribly techy...