Years ago, I was into Geocaching. For the uninitiated, users hide small caches around the world, and the cache usually includes at least a log where people who find the cache can mark their visit. The coordinates of the cache are marked on the Geocaching website and people use GPS to locate it.

I thought it was finally time I’d put one of my own caches out for people to find, so I went to scout out possible locations for it. It was late autumn and was still light out. I knew that I wanted to put it on a nature trail I liked to walk so I went there.

One thing to know about late autumn up here in the Nordics is that it gets really dark really fast, meaning I was enveloped by a dark forest pretty quickly after making it to the trail. No matter, I thought, I had my phone and it had a flashlight, so I kept going, despite it having low battery (which, in hindsight, was a mistake).

I found a spot for the cache at about the halfway point of the trail and made a mental note of it, planning to come put it there during the limited daylight hours.

And soon after… Lights out. Phone was dead and I was in total darkness. Ambient light was close to non-existent due to how cloudy it was. I felt a bit panicked about the situation but kept going, feeling around with my feet to make sure I wouldn’t walk off the trail.

Lucky for me, I was quite familiar with the trail and eventually managed to come out the other end on a gravel road that was also unlit but at least easier to traverse and eventually got back home.

Not the scariest possible experience, but you can imagine how it feels to walk through a silent, damp forest in pitch black darkness while trying to feel your way out. Not sure I would have fared this well if the trail was unfamiliar.

I did get the Geocache out there the next day, and it remained there until I moved out of the area.

I saw a hornet. Killed him and a few more came. Then i swiftly moved away and they left me alone.

My life is pretty tame.

Three come to mind, not sure which is scarier:

1. Road tripping as a youth during summer, saving money by sleeping outside as often as possible. Staying in a beach town, sleeping near the beach in a grassy kinda public area. In the middle of the night I wake up to some voices of aggressive sounding men talking about “fucking these kids up etc”. They start hitting my friend or something else physical (it was only two of us), and in the moment, as I’m still literally waking up having not even opened my eyes, I realise this shit is real. My reflex was to get up to my knees and yell at the men “Fuck off Motherfucker”. On my knees, feet still in the sleeping bag, being the skinny kid I was/am, I realise that some chunky looking bikie is in front of me and pretty keen to get violent and that I’m in pretty bad trouble. I was genuinely scared for my life then.
   • The ending to that one is that there were two bikies, and the second was actually behind me somehow. He kicked me in the head, I fell to the floor unconscious for half a minute and they apparently just walked away having got their fill of violence and luckily not too keen on anything extreme.
2. This one kinda doesn’t count, but it felt scary at the time, also Content warning tragic loss of life involved … driving late at night in the suburbs, waiting at the lights to turn into a major street, I hear loud and strange sounds I’d never heard before. My brain’s best guess is that they’re gun shots (which I’ve never heard in real life before). Lights go green and I turn into the street looking around for the source of the sound. Ahead I see a car turned on its side, stuff all over the road, and some people lying on the road and scrambling on the side of the street. I’m thinking that this is a shootout or something and have no idea what to do.
   • Turns out it was actually worse, but not for me. It was a car accident which had resulted in the car spinning, which, if you don’t know, is awful and bad things happened. What’s worse is that it was a drunken joy ride by a bunch of teenagers packed into the car.
3. Young and enthusiastic motorcyclist on a ride with my motorcycle friends. We’ve picked a road that’s the most challenging we’ve ever done. Up in the hills, nice and windy with cliffs on the sides. I occasionally get dizziness (it’s a thing) and got it in the middle of this ride, but was determined to power through. It’s getting harder to keep up with the road though, and I’m making mistakes and relying on my breaks in the middle of turns. very very dumb stuff for any new motocyclists … I should have just pulled over and reassessed the ride. Before I know it, in the middle of a turn, my bike wobbles, slips out from underneath me and I’m sliding along the road. Luckily I’ve got all the right gear on. But you don’t know what it’s like to slide helplessly along the road at >60km/hr speed, especially in relatively wild mountainous terrain. I still have the image burnt into my brain of seeing the road flying by the front of my helmet at that speed, relying entirely on my leather jacket, boots, and of course helmet to protect me until I stop and hopefully don’t go flying off the cliff.
   • Luckily I stopped just off of the road and was fine apart from a sprained finger. The motorbike was mostly fine too! My friend riding behind me, however, probably got more scared than I, turning around the corner to see my bike on the road and me lying still and facedown on the side.
   • Lesson: apart from taking of yourself and not pushing yourself … always wear the gear … all of the gear!

Woke up one morning at summer camp with a rattlesnake curled up on my sleeping bag. I did not move until late afternoon.

Turned around on a hiking trail to see a large tusked boar a few feet away staring me down and huffing at me. All the trees around me too small or too big to climb. I backed away reeeeeeally slow and it went the other way.

Got ejected from and then trapped underneath a 12-person whitewater raft that was also stuck on rocks in a shallow section between rapids. I don’t know how I ended up back in the raft, I just remember silently saying goodbye to the world and blacking out. Then went down the same river again the next day, cause apparently I killed some brain cells the first time.

(etc)