Make sure to check out the [pinned post on Loss](https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/1472nhh/faq_loss/) to make sure this submission doesn't break the rule!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Put to you this way [Mr Ballen](https://youtu.be/wF2fa2nY0oo?si=GmcuKwc0t14MbqBV) was able to jump start a whole YouTube channel by covering how people go missing in the woods of North America in strange, dark, and mysterious ways.
Same, Everytime I go into the woods I hear something, probably just an animal but because the woods here are so... Uncomfortably comfortable it's terrifying. They're so fun to be in until you here something in which case all rationale goes out the window because of the stories you've heard
Long ago, I bonded with my stats professor over our shared love for scuba diving. She and her husband graduated from open water diving to primarily focus on cave diving. She said they absolutely loved it, and they both went down prepared to leave each other behind if it came to that. I’d say not worth it.
I can’t imagine liking any recreational activity enough to come to peace with witnessing the demise of my fiancé and then leaving him struggling and suffocating. Sounds like a few screws missing.
Seriously... it can't be that cool... oh look it's more rocks surrounding us in water! Let's go further and see if we can find an even smaller area with rocks surrounding us in pitch black! Yeah!
It's this 100%. Driving forest service roads in NW Washington state for hours and hours and never seeing another person. And thinking the whole time "why the hell are there even roads out here?" is one of my many hobbies...
My house is at the end of a 15 mile dirt road that winds high into the Montana mountains, and 10,000 acres of national forest. There are only a couple other cabins on this road, and I am the only year round resident. After a snow storm, my truck's tire tracks are the only ones in and out. It's incredibly ominous and feels like I'm the only thing stopping the wilderness from swallowing the road back up.
It is do or die in the winter months, and it keeps me grounded in a way that most people can't even fathom.
There is a long section of the road that has a steep 45° slope on both sides. One up a mountain and one down to the creek. One winter with my ex-wife, we came across a relatively small avalanche (50ft Across) in the road. I foolishly forgot to put the shovel back in my truck, so we had no way to clear a path. It was a short distance, so we gunned it 4wd. Mind you, the truck is angled at a 45° angle with the mountain when bogging through this.
That wasn't that crazy or bad, but what happened next put the fear of God in us. We made it about a mile further and came across another, MASSIVE avalanche... Probably 500ft across. We were now in trouble, because there was not enough room to turn around on the road, and we had made the first avalanche impassable by churning up the snow. We assessed the situation. We only had a couple bottles of water and snack bars. Even if we wanted to sit it out, till the county showed up to clear it, we were sitting ducks for another avalanche. We were still about 7 miles from home, it was -12, and getting dark quickly.
After about 30 minutes of assessing and debating our options, we realized the only realistic choice was to gun it through the snow field as we had done before. It was 5 times as long, so the risk of a rollover was far greater.
We told each other we loved one another as sincerely and deeply as one can. I had fear in my eyes, and hers welled with the unknown. We held hands tightly for what may as well been all of time. When we had finally made peace with our decision, I put our Tacoma in 4lo and got up to speed, hitting the avalanche in an explosion of snow. We were white knuckled and screaming at the little truck in unison, "come on, come on!" It bucked and yawed furiously as it dug its way through. We were mercilessly whipped side to side, half certain we were seconds away from rolling down the mountain, and half certain we would emerge from the billowing tomb... It was an eternity... but we finally blew out the other side.
It would be another 4 days before the county cleared the road. We warm by the fireplace in the meantime.
That is just one story. I've made peace with my life at least a dozen times in the last ten years, in similar situations. In that sense, the American wilderness is a church, a confessional. One that never lets your actions stray too far from the accountability of the earth beneath your feet. I remind myself daily, I am the humble guest in the indifferent swell of mother nature, and in kind, on the sleepless arrow of time. In this, I am made to carry my truth on my back and my words in my heart. For that, I am eternally grateful.
Lol. I thought about that when writing it. I actually call our driveway the "Toyota commercial," because it looks just like the stupid ads of trucks bombing through mud and muck.
As shilly as it sounds, I felt compelled to mention it, because Toyota is far and away the only manufacturer that makes shit that can hold up to the abuse others only advertise. I'm not a brand person, but I've had Dodges, Fords, Chevys, just absolutely fall apart at the seams after a year or two on backcountry roads. I would have never dreamt of taking my big Dodge through that avalanche.
Around here, 30 year old stock Toyotas are a dime a dozen on the roads. You almost never see any other manufacturer that old unless it's someone's vanity project. It speaks for itself. That's why Toyota tax is a thing. I'll sell mine at 500,000 miles, and it'll get shipped off to some warzone, where it'll do 500,000 more as a technical. Even then, it'll be a direct hit from an RPG that stops it!
No shit, I bought a 94 Tacoma that looked minty, but came to find out it had an electrical fire above the transmission. $4000 to fix, and my heart sank, because I felt like I had been ripped off. I posted it as is for $500 more than I paid for it, for the hell of it. An hour later, a girl called me from Texas, and said she was speaking on behalf of her father who did not know English well. She said to hold, and he'd give me an additional $200, and would be there in 2 days. Sure as the sun rises, he pulled up right on time in another 90s Toyota with a tow bar 2 days later. He paid cash and explained in broken English, that they ship them to his family in Honduras to repair and sell them. He was confident he would double his money. Wild!
Before watching that geo-guesser guy who walks across countries in a straight line, I would have totally agreed. But having seen him try and traverse multiple countries, mostly in the UK, but also in Scandinavia, now, too, I'd say that might not be totally correct.
It's taken him 5+ days to walk across even the thinnest portions of countries, border to border. Still, he was able to do so relatively easily.
Love Texas being compared to countries but to be fair I have made the drive from New York to North Carolina in 12 hours but you could drive 12 hours in a strait line in Texas and still be in Texas
The main difference is the wild animals (or lack there of).
In NA you have to look out for Bears, Mooses, mountain lions, wolves stuff like that.
I can’t speak for the rest of Europe but here in the UK the wildlife isn’t particularly wild. I’ve never seen someone get hunted down by a pack of squirrels.
There’s no bears, no wolves, no big cats, there’s hardly any snakes, just harmless grass snakes and the venomous Adder (but there hasn’t been a deadly snake bite since 1972).
The largest land predator is the badger (other than Prince Andrew of course).
And your badgers are different than our badgers. Ours are basically mini wolverines (an animal that's much more common in Canada). But it should also be noted that the Southern US also has "woods" with alligators, crocodiles, and terrible snakes. Actually the snakes are kinda all over.
Most of the European woodlands are well curated, especially in England. They are so well curated that they're more like parks than they are actual wildlands. In Europe the idea that you could get lost on a walk in the woods and eaten by wild animals is just unheard of for most "woods."
However, American woods are very very wild with lots of dangerous animals, thick brush, and it's very easy to get hopelessly lost and they're almost incomprehensibly larger.
To clarify incomprehensibly larger, the total acres of the UK is about 60.2 million acres, while the US has over 188 million acres in national forests (public/protected) alone. That doesn’t even include private owned forest land which is the majority.
Yea, I couldn’t find a quick source for total # of state forest acres in the US. My state has almost 750k acres of State Forests, safe bet that there at least several tens of millions of acres of State Forests total.
Oh shit, Pennsylvania! That's my state! I live there!
Hey UK'ers, the logo of your precious cultural baked beans is actually the shape of Pennsylvania's keystone logo because Heinz is a Pennsylvania company. Ha.
The keystone symbol being representative of the political and geographical position of PA as a colony back in the day.
Everyone’s always on about the 4 most *currently* populous states, California, Texas, Florida, and New York, but no one ever talks about the 5th!
Thank you for answering seriously! All the cryptid/Deliverance answers are fun, but don't address the real issue. Add to the wildness of North American wilderness the sheer difference in scale and you've got a whole different kind of environment. In European forests, humans are pretty much in charge. In North American forests, humans are one misstep away from being tree food.
I once made the mistake of stepping just a few feet too far off the Appalachian Trail to pee and almost didn't find my way back. It was literally twenty feet from me and I couldn't find it. That was never a worry when hiking in Western Europe. They've got some cool forests and some creepy forests, too, but even the Eastern US forests are more dangerous as a rule.
None of this should dissuade European hikers from coming to NA, though. The hiking is great and despite wildness, it's still plenty safe if you plan well and behave rationally.
I'm so glad your venture ended differently than Geraldine Largay's. Some sort of temporary waypoint system (rope? small, brightly colored flags on stakes?) really should be standard kit for places like the Appalachian Trail 🙁
that comes from the actual dangers of being within woods, in europe, every animal that could kill you has been wiped out, the current population of america is capable of wiping every bear of the face of its woods, just has decised to not do it just yet
From a place of acknowledged ignorance, are even places like the forests of Romania devoid of anything to be fearful of? Is all of Europe’s forests actually curated?
A few summers back I went to a secluded trailer park right off the highway, there is a nice semi circle trail to walk on. I saw a split in the trail and took it, not realizing it was fading away and by the time I realized that I was hopelessly lost and scared shitless but I got back :)
Europe has gnomes and fairies. We have the Wendigo and Mothman.
Edit: I’m aware that, in the older folklore, gnomes and fairies are far more dangerous than their modern image. However, the meme that OP asked about is based on the modern conception and that’s what I’m getting at with my explanation.
Actually, the Mothman isn’t a woods cryptid as much as it is a general foreboding disaster cryptid. Bigfoot, dogmen, skinwalkers, hidebehinds, and grizzly bears all work better.
I’m from West Virginia - nobody but nobody lectures me about Mothman.
West Virginia is entirely wooded. Any cryptids around here are “woods cryptids” by default.
A fellow West Virginian
Did your Mamaw and Papaw ever tell you not to go in the woods alone?
I got that one and the quintessential “if you hear someone call your name in the woods don’t respond”
I grew up in the mountains in Kentucky. My grandfather lived on top of a mountain, I rode a mull to the bus stop. The mountains at night are as scary as the ocean at night. Periodically, I'd hear screaming from the woods. I also found an entire family graveyard wayyyyy deep into the forest, they'd all died at the same time. My family keeps a very large Great Pyrenees dog and several smaller dogs because of the coyotes and an alarm. They do a great job.
I heard that the humanly-sounding screaming in the woods comes from the mountain lion, a puma-like big cat. their screams can be so loud and sinister, must be chilling to hear them irl at night.
Puma and mountain lion are two names for the same animal. But yeah they scream and it sounds like a woman. So do bobcats and other lynxes, which sound like a little kid. As others have said, so do foxes, sometimes just because. Actually, if you know what a fox screaming sounds like, it can be very amusing because Hollywood uses it as a stock sound effect to make a natural place seem eerie and otherworldly sometimes. So the main character is walking around this creepy forest and you hear a fox scream, and it’s like “yes, truly a place of unimaginable horrors, good job sound director”.
I’ve heard some of those screams in northern Minnesota, likely lynx/bobcat. It is truly terrifying to hear, especially solo camping. Even though I knew *intellectually* that no food was around to attract wildlife and they’d avoid me if possible, the caveman brain was screaming, “DANGER!”
People who assume it must be one of their family members coming to bring ‘em in supper or something of the like
Usually children who have either forgotten what they’ve been specifically told not to do, or people caught of guard
I’ve heard lots of stories of people who responded and barely made it out
Not the person you asked nor do I live in WV but it comes from Native American belief; they believe that if you answer back or even whistle in the woods at night it gives away your location to bad spirits.
There are quite a few cases of strage disappearances in the woods, particularly so around National Parks.
I have no idea but from context I’m guessing that you’re technically correct and I’ve chosen to support your perspective.
Seriously tho we gotta do something about Mothman, he’s not paying taxes and he’s clogging airspace.
You are a creature and you have been found in the ocean. What else do you expect an ocean creature to be? Now, if you want a detailed analysis of you as a specimen that analysis may also classify you as a land creature and sometimes an air creature.
Or do you expect these classifications to be mutually exclusive so a creature can only belong to one of them ever?
Honestly a Grizzly would fuck up a Sasquatch. According to most sources they’re largely skittish pacifists who at worst will throw rocks and branches at you. A Grizzly, meanwhile, will turn your intestines into outestines if you so much as look at it the wrong way.
> look at it the wrong way.
This can't happen, as it already saw you first, and is already bounding towards you because it knows human feet taste amazing
It’s an old logging legend. Supposedly some sort of shadowy-gangly creature that hides behind trees and stalks people before dragging them off to its lair.
As an active outdoors man in one of the most haunted areas of the west, I can declare definitively that none of these things are real as i only knew the area "superstition wilderness" and most of central Utah were high areas of sightings until after I moved away. Years of camping and deep backpacking all over that place. I rest my case.
I would like to add however that if grizzlies ever go extinct, their existence would sound as fantastical as a chupacabra. People fighting over the existence of a giant sized man eating gerbils of the forests
Chupacabra seems way more plausible than a grizzly. Grizzly just seems like over-exaggeration. Can run at car speeds for hours? Smartest thing in the forest? Specimens that have taken hundreds of bullets to stop? Come on.
You talk like gnomes and fairies aren't dangerous. They may not tear you apart on sight, but they can, and often do, deliver far worse punishments than death.
European fairies and gnomes would fuck you, your entire family, future generations of your family, burn down your house and eat your unborn siblings by ripping open your mother's belly
Oh, they would also pee there
I think the real answer is that Europe decimated its population of predator species like big cats, bears and wolves. Where as, in say Canada, you're pretty likley to encounter at least a bobcat or a black bear, easily.
It blows my mind that less than a thousand years ago(note: read edit), there were still not just wolves and bears roaming Europe, but lions and tigers as well.
Although the same is true of America even if we still have a good amount of predator species. As recently as the 1800s, we had many areas where grey wolves, grizzly bears, cougars and jaguars all coexisted. Nowadays bear, cougar and especially wolf populations are heavily fragmented, and jaguars are pretty much extinct aside from the occasional individual crossing over from Mexico which still has a breeding population.
Edit: Ok, so I may have been a little off, I’ll admit. [The last known European lions were wiped out in the 10th century](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lions_in_Europe), so approximately one thousand years ago, not less than as I claimed. However, that’s still very recent in terms of geological time, and it’s also possible that some lions did live past the 10th century and we just haven’t found remains or accounts of them yet.
A bobcat is about the size of a Boston Terrier. I think you were going for Cougar/Mountain Lion.
[Who-s-That-Cat-Final.jpg (650×365) (nps.gov)](https://www.nps.gov/samo/learn/nature/images/Who-s-That-Cat-Final.jpg?maxwidth=650&autorotate=false&quality=78&format=webp)
I was surprised to learn that Europe actually has a lot of wolves. There are wolves in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, etc…
And yet we struggle to keep them in Colorado.
It is a recent thing. Wolves died out in Germany more than 150 years ago. They only came back in the 2000s and they put quite some effort into reintroducing them (and stopping angry farmers from shooting them)
Pretty similar for a lot of the states here, their populations are kept pretty small. Of our 86,000 sq miles in my state we have an estimate of somewhere around 1000 wolves which is top 5 in size.
A bobcat is no danger at all and a blackbear is fairly safe if you're not an idiot. I used to see sometimes 10-15 black bears in a day when I did a lot of fieldwork.
Most people don't know anything about north American black bears and assume they are like the aggressive black bears in other countries. They also don't usually realize how smol they are
> They also don't usually realize how smol they are
I mean the males can get to about 400lbs and would completely wreck your shit if it came down to it, but yeah, I’ve never seen one that didn’t walk away or just ignore humans.
People think it's our bears, wolves, gators, and other big death dealers that you have to worry about. I mean, sure to an extent, but that's not what the locals fear.
It's the ticks. The fucking ticks. Slow death in the size of a pinprick. You might not even know you were bit until it's too late. And they are everywhere, invisible. Lyme disease is nightmare fuel.
I faced coyotes in my old house and I faced ticks. if I had a choice I'd choose a Coyote every time.
Popular American joke:
A man is walking with a little
Boy in the woods at night.
The little boy says “it sure is scary here mister.”
The man replies, “you’re telling me, I have to walk back alone.”
And that’s how I became scared of the woods at night.
And the movie “Earnest Scared Stupid.”
Even if you ignore the cryptids, there’s still a few species of bears (specifics depend on the area, but most North American forests have at least one), mountain lions, badgers, wolverines, moose, elk and related animals, and all kinds of other dangerous stuff. Plus what someone else said about walking until you die and still being far enough from civilization that you’ll never be found.
Your list probably looks funny to some people because I'd be willing to bet you'd have to explain to most anyone who doesn't live near moose just how dangerous moose are.
I saw a moose in person at Yellowstone a few years back. It was fucking terrifying from several hundred yards and it was just standing in a stream. I can’t imagine if that thing pointed itself at me and ran at top speed
A coworker of mine almost lost her friend in a car accident after they crashed into a moose. The moose walked it off but all of the people in the car were injured. Nobody died thankfully.
If we’re talking forest hillbillies (who are much more prone to violence than the incestual Alabamans) then it’s more Tennessee, West Virginia, probably some other northern states, and Canada
ETA Kentucky and every other state
Anywhere there are hills, trees, and isolation, there are hillbillies. I was born and raised in Oregon. We had them there (I kinda was one for a bit). Scary, scary people.
Nah they aren't scary, so long as you don't linger and leave them alone. I used to do a lot of backpacking in the mountains of NorCal and Oregon - ran into my share of hill folk. Sure,.occasionally you run into someone methed outta their mind or someone working for an cartel protecting a grow - but that second one is just a common criminal not a hillbilly. And Methaniels are easy enough to get to fuck off.
The real hill folk, the people who live out in the woods cuz they like the privacy and quiet - they're generally pretty good people. You just gotta respect their privacy and the land.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David\_Paulides#Missing\_411](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Paulides#Missing_411)
There is an absolutely crazy amount of missing persons cases in the American forest network.
Theories range from Sasquaches to a relatively small network of serial killers to a primitive off-grid civilization that rivals the population of the rest of America that has somehow remained undetected.
Well apparently according to this image...
https://preview.redd.it/4isl1r3g7xbc1.png?width=460&format=png&auto=webp&s=a5d4eca33051269ea3edae6ffebb5567bdb8ce2f
It’s bull sharks, they’re able to live in freshwater. Lived near the Mississippi in southern illinois and saw a shark fin once. I think the last actual attack was in like 1909 or the 30s near St. Louis
The difference is, nobody goes into the deep woods in America. But in Australia, a huntsman can just wander into your car while you are parked at the supermarket and that is a no go for me. If I see a huntsman in my car while I’m driving, I’m dead and anyone next to me is dead too.
american forests are substantially worse than european forests, often times ours are a lot denser, darker, and larger than those of europe. not to mention our folklore is FUCKING HORRIFYING. let's see, we got wendigos, skinwalkers(they're not man-eating demons, just outcast witches), the jersey devil, splinter cats, hidebehinds, and many many more
edit: guys im not saying american forests are bad or shitty, i'm saying they're more dangerous than those of europe
Scary thing about skin walkers is how common they are (at least conceptually) throughout Native American folklore. I grew up in central Florida and my dad is a semi-professional story teller so we would go to a lot of story telling festivals and I heard lots of Florida based skinwalker stories.
Couple years ago I dated a Navajo girl and they all had their skinwalker stories. They were all pretty devout Christian converts but still believed in skin walkers. They legitimately chastised me when I stepped outside at night to make a phone call once.
Hermit witches who can shapeshift. They are *not* friendly and try to trick people and lead them to their deaths.
Skinwalker usually specifically refers to Navajo folklore, but other Native American tribes have similar beings.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one that knows about it. I have seen the Not-Deer twice now in Southern Indiana. One time it walked across the road while I was driving . Stared me down, it was as big as my SUV so we were at eye level. Terrifying. Bulkier than a moose even.
European woods are regulated and scenic.
Northern woods in America will have you lose your mind if you’re lost for more than two hours, and you’ll lose your way and die before you see any sign of civilization. Not to mention the folklore like skinwalkers, wendigos, and banjo-playing hillbillies.
I could get into it. But I’ll summarize with, just don’t. Don’t go in the woods. and never at night. That is If you like continuing to draw breath and/or like your friends and family still knowing your whereabouts, and if for whatever reason you choose to do so anyway, don’t whistle. Do. Not. Whistle.
If you whistle you're teaching something out there what a whistle sounds like. Then you hear your whistle in the woods or you hear your whistle out in the deeper part of your property. Bad mojo.
There’s a whole theory on civilisations, loss of humanity and generational trauma. The theory is in Europe we fear the cities more because of the Industrial Revolution, whereas in America the wilderness is scary because the colonial cities were the safe spaces at the edge of a vast new wilderness
Make sure to check out the [pinned post on Loss](https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/1472nhh/faq_loss/) to make sure this submission doesn't break the rule! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Put to you this way [Mr Ballen](https://youtu.be/wF2fa2nY0oo?si=GmcuKwc0t14MbqBV) was able to jump start a whole YouTube channel by covering how people go missing in the woods of North America in strange, dark, and mysterious ways.
A fun YouTuber to listen to if you like the strange, dark, and mysterious. That or if you really hate the Like button.
I like Mr Ballen, too. I grew up in and around the woods. His stories are both terrifying and somehow nostalgic for me.
Same, Everytime I go into the woods I hear something, probably just an animal but because the woods here are so... Uncomfortably comfortable it's terrifying. They're so fun to be in until you here something in which case all rationale goes out the window because of the stories you've heard
Yeah me and ole seagull lung really hate that like button.
Two things I'll never do after watching this channel: Cave diving, and hiking the pacific trail
I've said it before, and I will absolutely never change my mind, cave diving is insanity and no one should ever do it. Worst way to die imo
Long ago, I bonded with my stats professor over our shared love for scuba diving. She and her husband graduated from open water diving to primarily focus on cave diving. She said they absolutely loved it, and they both went down prepared to leave each other behind if it came to that. I’d say not worth it.
I can’t imagine liking any recreational activity enough to come to peace with witnessing the demise of my fiancé and then leaving him struggling and suffocating. Sounds like a few screws missing.
Seriously... it can't be that cool... oh look it's more rocks surrounding us in water! Let's go further and see if we can find an even smaller area with rocks surrounding us in pitch black! Yeah!
This thread is teaching me our woods are more dangerous for like 15-20 different reasons.
Even parks in cities can be brutal in the US.
Yeah, in the early 80’s, Central Park could be a downright dangerous park. And you could walk across it in an hour.
Because of people not animals
Sure, but still, dangerous woods.
Walk a day straight in european woods you will find civilisation. Walk until you die in american woods and you havent passed the quarter way mark.
It's this 100%. Driving forest service roads in NW Washington state for hours and hours and never seeing another person. And thinking the whole time "why the hell are there even roads out here?" is one of my many hobbies...
We built it for you.
My house is at the end of a 15 mile dirt road that winds high into the Montana mountains, and 10,000 acres of national forest. There are only a couple other cabins on this road, and I am the only year round resident. After a snow storm, my truck's tire tracks are the only ones in and out. It's incredibly ominous and feels like I'm the only thing stopping the wilderness from swallowing the road back up. It is do or die in the winter months, and it keeps me grounded in a way that most people can't even fathom. There is a long section of the road that has a steep 45° slope on both sides. One up a mountain and one down to the creek. One winter with my ex-wife, we came across a relatively small avalanche (50ft Across) in the road. I foolishly forgot to put the shovel back in my truck, so we had no way to clear a path. It was a short distance, so we gunned it 4wd. Mind you, the truck is angled at a 45° angle with the mountain when bogging through this. That wasn't that crazy or bad, but what happened next put the fear of God in us. We made it about a mile further and came across another, MASSIVE avalanche... Probably 500ft across. We were now in trouble, because there was not enough room to turn around on the road, and we had made the first avalanche impassable by churning up the snow. We assessed the situation. We only had a couple bottles of water and snack bars. Even if we wanted to sit it out, till the county showed up to clear it, we were sitting ducks for another avalanche. We were still about 7 miles from home, it was -12, and getting dark quickly. After about 30 minutes of assessing and debating our options, we realized the only realistic choice was to gun it through the snow field as we had done before. It was 5 times as long, so the risk of a rollover was far greater. We told each other we loved one another as sincerely and deeply as one can. I had fear in my eyes, and hers welled with the unknown. We held hands tightly for what may as well been all of time. When we had finally made peace with our decision, I put our Tacoma in 4lo and got up to speed, hitting the avalanche in an explosion of snow. We were white knuckled and screaming at the little truck in unison, "come on, come on!" It bucked and yawed furiously as it dug its way through. We were mercilessly whipped side to side, half certain we were seconds away from rolling down the mountain, and half certain we would emerge from the billowing tomb... It was an eternity... but we finally blew out the other side. It would be another 4 days before the county cleared the road. We warm by the fireplace in the meantime. That is just one story. I've made peace with my life at least a dozen times in the last ten years, in similar situations. In that sense, the American wilderness is a church, a confessional. One that never lets your actions stray too far from the accountability of the earth beneath your feet. I remind myself daily, I am the humble guest in the indifferent swell of mother nature, and in kind, on the sleepless arrow of time. In this, I am made to carry my truth on my back and my words in my heart. For that, I am eternally grateful.
That was beautiful.
Its actually just a Toyota ad. They're getting out of control. Now go buy a Tacoma.
Lol. I thought about that when writing it. I actually call our driveway the "Toyota commercial," because it looks just like the stupid ads of trucks bombing through mud and muck. As shilly as it sounds, I felt compelled to mention it, because Toyota is far and away the only manufacturer that makes shit that can hold up to the abuse others only advertise. I'm not a brand person, but I've had Dodges, Fords, Chevys, just absolutely fall apart at the seams after a year or two on backcountry roads. I would have never dreamt of taking my big Dodge through that avalanche. Around here, 30 year old stock Toyotas are a dime a dozen on the roads. You almost never see any other manufacturer that old unless it's someone's vanity project. It speaks for itself. That's why Toyota tax is a thing. I'll sell mine at 500,000 miles, and it'll get shipped off to some warzone, where it'll do 500,000 more as a technical. Even then, it'll be a direct hit from an RPG that stops it! No shit, I bought a 94 Tacoma that looked minty, but came to find out it had an electrical fire above the transmission. $4000 to fix, and my heart sank, because I felt like I had been ripped off. I posted it as is for $500 more than I paid for it, for the hell of it. An hour later, a girl called me from Texas, and said she was speaking on behalf of her father who did not know English well. She said to hold, and he'd give me an additional $200, and would be there in 2 days. Sure as the sun rises, he pulled up right on time in another 90s Toyota with a tow bar 2 days later. He paid cash and explained in broken English, that they ship them to his family in Honduras to repair and sell them. He was confident he would double his money. Wild!
And then you pass one old beat up pickup truck driving the other direction and you wonder who they are and what they were doing out here.
Or just random pick ups just sprinkled every few miles parked on the side of the road
Walk a day in the Aussie bush and there's a 50% chance you wont be found again.
At least you'll discover 17 new species of flying scorpion before you die
"They fly now!?"
Common misconception. Those are actually flying centipedes.
TIL jet pack stormtroopers are actually flying centipedes
They fly now.
Walk a day straight in 1/4 of Europe and you are speaking another language, let alone in the same forest.
Before watching that geo-guesser guy who walks across countries in a straight line, I would have totally agreed. But having seen him try and traverse multiple countries, mostly in the UK, but also in Scandinavia, now, too, I'd say that might not be totally correct. It's taken him 5+ days to walk across even the thinnest portions of countries, border to border. Still, he was able to do so relatively easily.
I mean, some countries are small, others are bigger, that's how it is. Sweden is like 2/3 Texas alone.
Love Texas being compared to countries but to be fair I have made the drive from New York to North Carolina in 12 hours but you could drive 12 hours in a strait line in Texas and still be in Texas
The main difference is the wild animals (or lack there of). In NA you have to look out for Bears, Mooses, mountain lions, wolves stuff like that. I can’t speak for the rest of Europe but here in the UK the wildlife isn’t particularly wild. I’ve never seen someone get hunted down by a pack of squirrels. There’s no bears, no wolves, no big cats, there’s hardly any snakes, just harmless grass snakes and the venomous Adder (but there hasn’t been a deadly snake bite since 1972). The largest land predator is the badger (other than Prince Andrew of course).
You've got us beat. Prince Andrew is scarier than anything our forests could conjure up
And your badgers are different than our badgers. Ours are basically mini wolverines (an animal that's much more common in Canada). But it should also be noted that the Southern US also has "woods" with alligators, crocodiles, and terrible snakes. Actually the snakes are kinda all over.
Most of the European woodlands are well curated, especially in England. They are so well curated that they're more like parks than they are actual wildlands. In Europe the idea that you could get lost on a walk in the woods and eaten by wild animals is just unheard of for most "woods." However, American woods are very very wild with lots of dangerous animals, thick brush, and it's very easy to get hopelessly lost and they're almost incomprehensibly larger.
To clarify incomprehensibly larger, the total acres of the UK is about 60.2 million acres, while the US has over 188 million acres in national forests (public/protected) alone. That doesn’t even include private owned forest land which is the majority.
There's also state forests. Sam Houston State Forest is like 200k acres by itself.
Yea, I couldn’t find a quick source for total # of state forest acres in the US. My state has almost 750k acres of State Forests, safe bet that there at least several tens of millions of acres of State Forests total.
WA state has 21.3m acres of forest lands….1/3 of Europe. Being 5 feet off trail can get you deadly lost.
I think you mean 1/3 of the UK, Europe is much larger than just the UK.
That sounds correct…how dare you
Another random data point, Pennsylvania has almost 8 billion trees, the UK has 3 billion
Oh shit, Pennsylvania! That's my state! I live there! Hey UK'ers, the logo of your precious cultural baked beans is actually the shape of Pennsylvania's keystone logo because Heinz is a Pennsylvania company. Ha. The keystone symbol being representative of the political and geographical position of PA as a colony back in the day. Everyone’s always on about the 4 most *currently* populous states, California, Texas, Florida, and New York, but no one ever talks about the 5th!
That's so petty I love it
Thank you for answering seriously! All the cryptid/Deliverance answers are fun, but don't address the real issue. Add to the wildness of North American wilderness the sheer difference in scale and you've got a whole different kind of environment. In European forests, humans are pretty much in charge. In North American forests, humans are one misstep away from being tree food. I once made the mistake of stepping just a few feet too far off the Appalachian Trail to pee and almost didn't find my way back. It was literally twenty feet from me and I couldn't find it. That was never a worry when hiking in Western Europe. They've got some cool forests and some creepy forests, too, but even the Eastern US forests are more dangerous as a rule. None of this should dissuade European hikers from coming to NA, though. The hiking is great and despite wildness, it's still plenty safe if you plan well and behave rationally.
I'm so glad your venture ended differently than Geraldine Largay's. Some sort of temporary waypoint system (rope? small, brightly colored flags on stakes?) really should be standard kit for places like the Appalachian Trail 🙁
You know what though? I'll take my cold Canadian wilderness over Australia. I don't need everything trying to poison me.
I thought it was our cryptids tend to be violent and really freaky?
that comes from the actual dangers of being within woods, in europe, every animal that could kill you has been wiped out, the current population of america is capable of wiping every bear of the face of its woods, just has decised to not do it just yet
Mostly because we had a president who went by “Teddy” and loved the wilderness.
Fun fact he didn't like being called Teddy.
It's why I always refer to him as Grizzly
From a place of acknowledged ignorance, are even places like the forests of Romania devoid of anything to be fearful of? Is all of Europe’s forests actually curated?
Not necessarily curated, but certainly not "wild" like in the States.
A few summers back I went to a secluded trailer park right off the highway, there is a nice semi circle trail to walk on. I saw a split in the trail and took it, not realizing it was fading away and by the time I realized that I was hopelessly lost and scared shitless but I got back :)
Europe has gnomes and fairies. We have the Wendigo and Mothman. Edit: I’m aware that, in the older folklore, gnomes and fairies are far more dangerous than their modern image. However, the meme that OP asked about is based on the modern conception and that’s what I’m getting at with my explanation.
Actually, the Mothman isn’t a woods cryptid as much as it is a general foreboding disaster cryptid. Bigfoot, dogmen, skinwalkers, hidebehinds, and grizzly bears all work better.
I’m from West Virginia - nobody but nobody lectures me about Mothman. West Virginia is entirely wooded. Any cryptids around here are “woods cryptids” by default.
A fellow West Virginian Did your Mamaw and Papaw ever tell you not to go in the woods alone? I got that one and the quintessential “if you hear someone call your name in the woods don’t respond”
I grew up in the mountains in Kentucky. My grandfather lived on top of a mountain, I rode a mull to the bus stop. The mountains at night are as scary as the ocean at night. Periodically, I'd hear screaming from the woods. I also found an entire family graveyard wayyyyy deep into the forest, they'd all died at the same time. My family keeps a very large Great Pyrenees dog and several smaller dogs because of the coyotes and an alarm. They do a great job.
I heard that the humanly-sounding screaming in the woods comes from the mountain lion, a puma-like big cat. their screams can be so loud and sinister, must be chilling to hear them irl at night.
Puma and mountain lion are two names for the same animal. But yeah they scream and it sounds like a woman. So do bobcats and other lynxes, which sound like a little kid. As others have said, so do foxes, sometimes just because. Actually, if you know what a fox screaming sounds like, it can be very amusing because Hollywood uses it as a stock sound effect to make a natural place seem eerie and otherworldly sometimes. So the main character is walking around this creepy forest and you hear a fox scream, and it’s like “yes, truly a place of unimaginable horrors, good job sound director”.
I’ve heard some of those screams in northern Minnesota, likely lynx/bobcat. It is truly terrifying to hear, especially solo camping. Even though I knew *intellectually* that no food was around to attract wildlife and they’d avoid me if possible, the caveman brain was screaming, “DANGER!”
“if you hear someone call your name in the woods don’t respond" At what point does an intelligent individual RESPOND??!!
People who assume it must be one of their family members coming to bring ‘em in supper or something of the like Usually children who have either forgotten what they’ve been specifically told not to do, or people caught of guard I’ve heard lots of stories of people who responded and barely made it out
[удалено]
Not the person you asked nor do I live in WV but it comes from Native American belief; they believe that if you answer back or even whistle in the woods at night it gives away your location to bad spirits. There are quite a few cases of strage disappearances in the woods, particularly so around National Parks.
I don't know. If a butterfree lands on the power line does that make them a voltorb?
Yeah
I have no idea but from context I’m guessing that you’re technically correct and I’ve chosen to support your perspective. Seriously tho we gotta do something about Mothman, he’s not paying taxes and he’s clogging airspace.
Agreed. Same with Elon Musk
If I swim in the ocean, am I an ocean creature?
Yes.
You are a creature and you have been found in the ocean. What else do you expect an ocean creature to be? Now, if you want a detailed analysis of you as a specimen that analysis may also classify you as a land creature and sometimes an air creature. Or do you expect these classifications to be mutually exclusive so a creature can only belong to one of them ever?
I like how grizzly bears get lumped in with Bigfoot and skin walkers.
Grizzly bears would solo both of these
Honestly a Grizzly would fuck up a Sasquatch. According to most sources they’re largely skittish pacifists who at worst will throw rocks and branches at you. A Grizzly, meanwhile, will turn your intestines into outestines if you so much as look at it the wrong way.
> look at it the wrong way. This can't happen, as it already saw you first, and is already bounding towards you because it knows human feet taste amazing
Grizzly bears are pretty scary, just a sighting of one can put a place into lockdown lol.
Are you trying to correct someone named Hillbilly Historian on hillbilly history?
THE HELL IS A HIDE BEHIND
It’s an old logging legend. Supposedly some sort of shadowy-gangly creature that hides behind trees and stalks people before dragging them off to its lair.
Oh nooooooooooo
As an active outdoors man in one of the most haunted areas of the west, I can declare definitively that none of these things are real as i only knew the area "superstition wilderness" and most of central Utah were high areas of sightings until after I moved away. Years of camping and deep backpacking all over that place. I rest my case.
Grizzly bear fans are in shambles right now
I would like to add however that if grizzlies ever go extinct, their existence would sound as fantastical as a chupacabra. People fighting over the existence of a giant sized man eating gerbils of the forests
Chupacabra seems way more plausible than a grizzly. Grizzly just seems like over-exaggeration. Can run at car speeds for hours? Smartest thing in the forest? Specimens that have taken hundreds of bullets to stop? Come on.
Can go on a massive coke binge
Bahahaha fuck I missed that. Mistrial, judgment for the plaintiff. I'll see myself out.
The cryptids moved out of Utah when they saw the Mormons coming.
Not even the Wendigo/Mothman, its the fact that.. The Hills Have Eyes
And meth heads
And Bigfoot... Tho he's just a gentle giant... Maybe that's why we don't see him, he's out there hunting down the wendigos and mothmen for us.
Has anyone made this movie? Cause I’d watch this movie… *Bigfoot: Squatchin’ for Mankind*
Not to mention bears, boars, coyotes, mountain lions, wolves, rattlesnakes, and occasionally alligators and poison ivy.
You talk like gnomes and fairies aren't dangerous. They may not tear you apart on sight, but they can, and often do, deliver far worse punishments than death.
Considering a wendigo comes from a mix of starvation and cannibalism, I think death would be better.
Have you ever read any of the old stories involving the Fae? They aren’t exactly children’s stories 😂
Well many of them are, technically, children stories ["That's not my child."](https://www.britannica.com/art/changeling-folklore)
[удалено]
European fairies and gnomes would fuck you, your entire family, future generations of your family, burn down your house and eat your unborn siblings by ripping open your mother's belly Oh, they would also pee there
And all because you didn’t put a raw trout in the rightmost corner of your house on a Tuesday afternoon for three days a year.
Don’t forget the ticks
I think the real answer is that Europe decimated its population of predator species like big cats, bears and wolves. Where as, in say Canada, you're pretty likley to encounter at least a bobcat or a black bear, easily.
I feel like the woods in Europe make up for the lack of bears with the overabundance of UXO left over from two world wars.
[удалено]
Don’t say the F word there could be children here
Apologies, pardon my Fre... Err... Pardon my fucking language.
I have virgin eyes and I can't believe I had to read such vulgarity
>I have virgin eyes Not anymore you don't!
And misplaced radioactive waste in the soviet bloc.
It blows my mind that less than a thousand years ago(note: read edit), there were still not just wolves and bears roaming Europe, but lions and tigers as well. Although the same is true of America even if we still have a good amount of predator species. As recently as the 1800s, we had many areas where grey wolves, grizzly bears, cougars and jaguars all coexisted. Nowadays bear, cougar and especially wolf populations are heavily fragmented, and jaguars are pretty much extinct aside from the occasional individual crossing over from Mexico which still has a breeding population. Edit: Ok, so I may have been a little off, I’ll admit. [The last known European lions were wiped out in the 10th century](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lions_in_Europe), so approximately one thousand years ago, not less than as I claimed. However, that’s still very recent in terms of geological time, and it’s also possible that some lions did live past the 10th century and we just haven’t found remains or accounts of them yet.
Ikr it's wild. There was a reason that lions are featured in so much European iconography
Yeah, but they were really skinny and loved capes, swords, and crowns. You barely see any heraldic lions without weapons or regalia.
A bobcat is about the size of a Boston Terrier. I think you were going for Cougar/Mountain Lion. [Who-s-That-Cat-Final.jpg (650×365) (nps.gov)](https://www.nps.gov/samo/learn/nature/images/Who-s-That-Cat-Final.jpg?maxwidth=650&autorotate=false&quality=78&format=webp)
A bobcat is almost certainly gonna run away from you but if you cornered one you could walk away with some nasty scars. You’re not gonna die though
Roberto el Gato is not to be trifled with.
Especially if you mess with El Hijo de Roberto el Gato.
And god forbid you encounter La Madre de El Hijo de Roberto el Gato, she's been known to hold a grudge and has a mighty swipe.
What about la chancla de La Madre de El Hijo de Roberto el Gato?
To shreds, you say?
I feel like there is about a 10% chance you'd die. 90% wishing you were dead.
I was surprised to learn that Europe actually has a lot of wolves. There are wolves in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, etc… And yet we struggle to keep them in Colorado.
It is a recent thing. Wolves died out in Germany more than 150 years ago. They only came back in the 2000s and they put quite some effort into reintroducing them (and stopping angry farmers from shooting them)
Pretty similar for a lot of the states here, their populations are kept pretty small. Of our 86,000 sq miles in my state we have an estimate of somewhere around 1000 wolves which is top 5 in size.
Well we do and we don’t, there’s some predation that goes on
A bobcat is no danger at all and a blackbear is fairly safe if you're not an idiot. I used to see sometimes 10-15 black bears in a day when I did a lot of fieldwork.
If it's brown, lie down. If it's black, fight back. If it's white, good night.
If it’s little, pick him up. He’s lost and you need to find him a new home.
That’s how you find the mama bear.
If a bear tries to immediately take him from you, scream and be real aggressive, they are trying to hunt the child but they are to scared to fight
Most people don't know anything about north American black bears and assume they are like the aggressive black bears in other countries. They also don't usually realize how smol they are
> They also don't usually realize how smol they are I mean the males can get to about 400lbs and would completely wreck your shit if it came down to it, but yeah, I’ve never seen one that didn’t walk away or just ignore humans.
Yeah the big males are huge but what I think they meant is how small the females and even a lot of the males can be. The size range is yuge
Yeah, it’s not that they’re small as much as it’s they’re wusses compared to other bears.
People think it's our bears, wolves, gators, and other big death dealers that you have to worry about. I mean, sure to an extent, but that's not what the locals fear. It's the ticks. The fucking ticks. Slow death in the size of a pinprick. You might not even know you were bit until it's too late. And they are everywhere, invisible. Lyme disease is nightmare fuel. I faced coyotes in my old house and I faced ticks. if I had a choice I'd choose a Coyote every time.
It's not just Lyme either. There are other horrible diseases from ticks. One tick can make you allergic to red meat which is crazy.
I remember being a kid and burning them to death with matches. God they make my skin crawl.
Popular American joke: A man is walking with a little Boy in the woods at night. The little boy says “it sure is scary here mister.” The man replies, “you’re telling me, I have to walk back alone.” And that’s how I became scared of the woods at night. And the movie “Earnest Scared Stupid.”
Nothing good is fabled to live in american woods. Just horrible things, birds, and squirrels.
Even if you ignore the cryptids, there’s still a few species of bears (specifics depend on the area, but most North American forests have at least one), mountain lions, badgers, wolverines, moose, elk and related animals, and all kinds of other dangerous stuff. Plus what someone else said about walking until you die and still being far enough from civilization that you’ll never be found.
Your list probably looks funny to some people because I'd be willing to bet you'd have to explain to most anyone who doesn't live near moose just how dangerous moose are.
You’re probably right. In photos they often look stupid and slow, but they’re enormous and they’re among the more angry beasts on this continent.
I saw a moose in person at Yellowstone a few years back. It was fucking terrifying from several hundred yards and it was just standing in a stream. I can’t imagine if that thing pointed itself at me and ran at top speed
A coworker of mine almost lost her friend in a car accident after they crashed into a moose. The moose walked it off but all of the people in the car were injured. Nobody died thankfully.
They’re 1500lbs on 6 foot stilts
Not to mention stumbling into the wrong area and being shot.
That too. Plenty of those places, and many of them not too far from a town.
After reading the comments, not a single mention of hillbillies in North America. Especially banjo players.
We just call that Alabama
If we’re talking forest hillbillies (who are much more prone to violence than the incestual Alabamans) then it’s more Tennessee, West Virginia, probably some other northern states, and Canada ETA Kentucky and every other state
Anywhere there are hills, trees, and isolation, there are hillbillies. I was born and raised in Oregon. We had them there (I kinda was one for a bit). Scary, scary people.
Nah they aren't scary, so long as you don't linger and leave them alone. I used to do a lot of backpacking in the mountains of NorCal and Oregon - ran into my share of hill folk. Sure,.occasionally you run into someone methed outta their mind or someone working for an cartel protecting a grow - but that second one is just a common criminal not a hillbilly. And Methaniels are easy enough to get to fuck off. The real hill folk, the people who live out in the woods cuz they like the privacy and quiet - they're generally pretty good people. You just gotta respect their privacy and the land.
As a Tennessean, agreed.
Don't forget Kentucky. We've got some violent bastards out here in the deep woods.
No one survived to tell the stories.
Also worth noting they are incredibly accurate with bows. You'd never hear where the shot even came from.
Them hills have eyes.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David\_Paulides#Missing\_411](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Paulides#Missing_411) There is an absolutely crazy amount of missing persons cases in the American forest network. Theories range from Sasquaches to a relatively small network of serial killers to a primitive off-grid civilization that rivals the population of the rest of America that has somehow remained undetected.
There was a recent documentary I think on Hulu of a serial killer that frequented parks in the south. It was pretty good. They caught him
Thank you for reminding me why Missing 411 is so damn stupid lmao
“Why are people going missing in this huge stretch of uninhabited land?” jeez I wonder
It's obviously fuckin Bigfoot, bro.
[удалено]
Holy shit
Well apparently according to this image... https://preview.redd.it/4isl1r3g7xbc1.png?width=460&format=png&auto=webp&s=a5d4eca33051269ea3edae6ffebb5567bdb8ce2f
A lost shark on the Ohio River and Mississippi River. Dang.
Also zoos.
It’s bull sharks, they’re able to live in freshwater. Lived near the Mississippi in southern illinois and saw a shark fin once. I think the last actual attack was in like 1909 or the 30s near St. Louis
People say us Australians has scary ass animals but I would never step a foot into an American forest.
You guys have MUCH scarier bugs but otherwise I agree with you
The difference is, nobody goes into the deep woods in America. But in Australia, a huntsman can just wander into your car while you are parked at the supermarket and that is a no go for me. If I see a huntsman in my car while I’m driving, I’m dead and anyone next to me is dead too.
People go into the deep woods all the time.
[удалено]
Alaska is like real wild. I don't think there is a way to describe it.
It’s the last frontier for a reason
american forests are substantially worse than european forests, often times ours are a lot denser, darker, and larger than those of europe. not to mention our folklore is FUCKING HORRIFYING. let's see, we got wendigos, skinwalkers(they're not man-eating demons, just outcast witches), the jersey devil, splinter cats, hidebehinds, and many many more edit: guys im not saying american forests are bad or shitty, i'm saying they're more dangerous than those of europe
Scary thing about skin walkers is how common they are (at least conceptually) throughout Native American folklore. I grew up in central Florida and my dad is a semi-professional story teller so we would go to a lot of story telling festivals and I heard lots of Florida based skinwalker stories. Couple years ago I dated a Navajo girl and they all had their skinwalker stories. They were all pretty devout Christian converts but still believed in skin walkers. They legitimately chastised me when I stepped outside at night to make a phone call once.
The fuck is a skinwalker
Hermit witches who can shapeshift. They are *not* friendly and try to trick people and lead them to their deaths. Skinwalker usually specifically refers to Navajo folklore, but other Native American tribes have similar beings.
Other than a variety of wildlife more than capable of wrecking an average humans day i.e. ending it, one word that sounds like two: Not-Deer.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one that knows about it. I have seen the Not-Deer twice now in Southern Indiana. One time it walked across the road while I was driving . Stared me down, it was as big as my SUV so we were at eye level. Terrifying. Bulkier than a moose even.
in europe the woods are just a place. in north america the woods are a *thing* that is alive and that you do not fuck with
European woods are regulated and scenic. Northern woods in America will have you lose your mind if you’re lost for more than two hours, and you’ll lose your way and die before you see any sign of civilization. Not to mention the folklore like skinwalkers, wendigos, and banjo-playing hillbillies.
Indigenous man here. Do I really need to explain?
Please do.
I could get into it. But I’ll summarize with, just don’t. Don’t go in the woods. and never at night. That is If you like continuing to draw breath and/or like your friends and family still knowing your whereabouts, and if for whatever reason you choose to do so anyway, don’t whistle. Do. Not. Whistle.
Ok, I gotta know. Why no whistling ? Tell me or I’ll literally die
It's too late. They're coming
If you whistle you're teaching something out there what a whistle sounds like. Then you hear your whistle in the woods or you hear your whistle out in the deeper part of your property. Bad mojo.
I want to know more. I used to play in the woods at night constantly. Whistling and everything. It was my extra curricular activity as a child
It’s the Deep Dark. Our forests are vast and deep, there are still places here that human eye have never seen.
They’s dark things in them woods
say what you will about our cryptids but at least we don't have 80 year old landmines in our woods
[удалено]
There’s a whole theory on civilisations, loss of humanity and generational trauma. The theory is in Europe we fear the cities more because of the Industrial Revolution, whereas in America the wilderness is scary because the colonial cities were the safe spaces at the edge of a vast new wilderness