Ask Lemmy

I ended up in a similar situation, except I was hiking the Appalachian trail alone. I decided to stop at a creek and get some crawfish for my dinner and to boil water. While I was turning over rocks I heard some distant rustling and got this feeling I was being watched. I unclipped the button on my knife holster because that made me a little more comfortable. I heard from another hiker that this area wasn't safe and that I should pass through and go past the shelter a few miles. He looked very tired and sounded nervous under his breath and didn't take time to explain and he speed walked on.

Back to me catching crawfish, I ended up eating like 5 or 6 of them and ate the rest of the wild berries and mushrooms I collected from the morning. I heard the rustling but it sounded much closer. Close enough that I could tell it was something that weighed a good bit. I took that as my warning and got out of there.

I was a good two or three miles from the creek when I remembered what the guy said and how nervous he was. That feeling I was being watched never went away. I decided to dart into the woods and form a fishhook maneuver to see if I was being followed. It was something my friends native American grandfather said to do when hunting in a area with lots of bears or mountain lions to avoid leading them back to your camp. And sure enough it worked because their wasn't an animal following me but a person was following me.

I slowly moved back to the trail and walked about 100 ft on the hard packed soil to not leave a footprint trail then I darted in the woods and ran for a good 20 or 30 minutes before hitting a road. At this point I decided to hike 5 miles to a motel and just sleep. No way I was sleeping in the woods with a maniac on the loose.

This is a rough photo of where this happened, and what the fishhook maneuver looked like.