There's a thing in Boy Scouts called "Snipe Hunting." Snipes are little birds that don't actually exist that are a cross between a chicken and a turkey, if I remember correctly. The whole point of snipe hunting is basically to get the little scouts excited about being a scout. You take them out snipe hunting, make it all some big ordeal so they go out and have a really good time. Obviously, as you get older, you figure out snipes don't exist, and then you have the task of passing the legend down to the next generation of scouts. I don't actually know if this is a scout-wide thing, but we at least did in our troop. And it should be done with everyone.
So back in 05, right before I got the job at Boy Scout Camp (It's called Camp Chawanakee, by the way.) we took the scouts out snipe hunting. Chawanakee is a really intensely large camp in the middle of Shaver Lake. It's obviously in the dead center of a forest, which is where it seems I've spent most of my life.
So, for the first time (at least for me), we went snipe hunting at night. It was not long after the full moon, so it was really dark because we were getting a new moon, or however that cycle works. We took the little kids out into a really rocky area used for astronomy sessions at the top of the camp. It's really nice, but really dangerous. I still don't know exactly what we were thinking.
When we got to the most extreme point of the middle of nowhere, we started "setting up" for the hunt. Basically, it's like setting a rat trap for the snipes. Sometimes you knock it over and tell the scouts we must've just missed it and it must've been sneaky and just barely escaped. The more I think about it, the more cruel it is to lead these kids on into thinking they're actually hunting something. But it's still fun.
Then something happened I don't think any of the older scouts expected. In a little, extra-dark patch of forest right next to us, a twig snapped. We got all quiet and kind of looked on, not really thinking much of it. However, it wasn't just one. A bunch of twigs snapped and a bunch of things started rustling. And there were footsteps. Big. Footsteps. It might have been a bear, it might have been a mountain lion, I honestly don't know. All I know is we shone the flashlight toward the noise and we saw something. And I don't think it was necessarily natural, but I don't remember. I'm just hoping it was a bear.
Needless to say, we high tailed it out of there. This is where I think this whole thing was a bad idea. Because we turned off the flashlights so whatever it was in the forest didn't follow us, and we're running through the middle of the forest over all these sharp rocks and rough terrain. Not only could someone have broken a bone, but there were some cliffs next to us and someone could have slipped and rolled off of it and died.
Somehow, by the grace of God, we made it back to our campsite safely. Out of breath and kind of scared, but we made it. There aren't supposed to be bears up there apparently, and when we told the staff members about it the next day they told us there were absolutely no bears in the area. I don't know how they explain that creature then, but I'm just going to rest easier thinking it was a bear and they were wrong.