Once in a Feb and close to dark, while solo and doing my last minute preps at the trail head, (yes, breaking my rule above about doing all that before hand) I saw 2 bums I knew lived in the woods at another trail head/parking lot, about 1 mile away(I'd called the forest service on them numerous times). They were coming over to where I was parked.. So before they saw me, I got into the nearby treeline, and watched(AMT .380 close by, and as I otherwise finished up my last preps). As soon as they got to the group of vehicles, one posted up as obvious lookout. The other, then first walked over to
my Explorer, cupping his face/hands up against the glass to reduce glare and see in, and started calling out all the inventory...."blue jeans, cooler, boots, etc etc..."....all the while, the other guy is scanning the woods. They'd break in the select cars, and then of course steal..use..pawn..whatever the contents. So I then cleared my throat very loudly and obviously. They both jumped, and urgently starting looking all around for where that noise camp from. They both then instantly took off running back down the old fire service road toward their camp, a mile away. Soooo, I've not even made it into the woods
, and I got this chit going on. So I moved my truck down the road another 1/2 mile unto a small lookout where no one ever parked, (this was up high on the Blue Ridge Parkway) where those guys would never see it.
I've had 2 more somewhat serious encounters at THs, but that's for another day lol.
But again, when I was obsessed, I was going on weekend backpacking trips, 44-46 time a yrs..for yrs. Some otherwise up to 8-9 days. Seriously. That's no exaggeration either. Was only home for the holidays/birthdays(yes I was single those yrs, and had 5 weeks paid vacation I could take 1 day at a time each yr, son was grown and out of the house). So having only 3 small-ish incidents, isn't all that bad.