- What is it about New York and hikers getting gonked on shrooms?
Hiking and camping are heaps of fun. But they are also hobbies that a naturally a bit risky.
You never know what you might encounter out there in the wilderness. Occasionally, things get just outright strange when out and about.
Here are 8 funny and odd stories from campers and hikers.
1. A Filthy Fall
One man’s quest to retrieve his lost sunglasses had a filthy end in June 2026 at a California campground. A Spanish-speaking man had answered nature’s call in a vault toilet at Camp Edison in Shaver Lake when he dropped his sunglasses into the toilet.
They must have been visible on the surface of the waste-filled chemical solution, because the man decided to reach in to grab them. Unfortunately, he slipped and fell into the toilet tank.
Help was near, however, and firefighters pulled him out after only 15 minutes. Following the incident, California officials encouraged people to treat anything lost in a campground vault toilet as a loss instead of trying to fish it out.
2. Office Trip Gone Foul
Everybody’s accidentally left something behind after a camping trip. But forgetting your coworker at the campsite?
A group of 15 coworkers went on a hiking retreat to Mount Shavano in Colorado. However, one of them got disoriented and ventured off the marked path. By the time he reached the mountain summit, his coworkers had removed all the trail markers behind them, thinking the whole group was together.
The man tried contacting his coworkers, but a sudden storm cut off his cell service and left him stranded overnight on the mountain. He was rescued only the next morning, after having a severe fall overnight that rendered him unable to walk. Fortunately, he survived, but the mood in the office must have been awkward when he returned to work.
3. Hikers on Shrooms
In May 2025, the forest rangers of Adirondack Park in northeastern New York received a distressing emergency call. Two hikers reported that they were lost and the third member of their original party was dead.
Help rushed to the reported site, but fortunately, the situation wasn’t as dire as it had sounded. The duo who called the rangers weren’t as much lost as they were so high on psychedelic mushrooms that they had no idea where they were.
And the dead third hiker? He wasn’t injured or even on shrooms. His tripping friends had just convinced themselves that he had died.
4. Lucky Girl and Unlucky Raccoon
You know that common cartoon gag where someone falls from a great height but survives because they fell into a hay bale? One Cornell University student had a similar experience in 1990, although a hay cart did not cushion her fall.
Instead, it was an unfortunate raccoon.
Lisa Nelson slipped and fell into a 75-foot-deep ravine while hiking at Cascadilla Gorge in New York. She may have hurt herself seriously, but luckily (for her) she fell right on top of a particularly fat raccoon.
Miraculously, both the woman and the raccoon survived the incident. Nelson walked away with only a broken wrist, while the raccoon later recovered at a local animal shelter.
5. Rule-breaking Bear
If there’s a lot of bear activity at a campground, it’s not unusual for it to close down for a while. Usually, though, you need more than one bear to force that kind of decision.
In June 2026, however, the White River National Forest in Colorado closed the popular Gore Creek Campground. It was all because of a single misbehaving bruin.
The bear had become so bold that it had started tearing through (luckily unoccupied) tents. As a proactive safety measure, the park rangers prohibited all tents from the campground. Hard-sided camper vans and RVs are still allowed, at least until the bear learns how to open their doors.
6. New York and Mushrooms
If there’s one thing that makes hiking and camping in New York more fun, it’s magic mushrooms. It has to be, because there is more than one story about hikers running into trouble on shrooms.
Four high-kers got completely lost in New York’s Catskills after they lost their sense of direction after consuming psychedelic shrooms. Fortunately, one of them was sober enough to realize they were screwed. He called for help, and the quartet was led out of the treacherous terrain.
While they were being taken back to their lodgings, though, one of them realized he’d dropped the keys. So, the park rangers had to go back to fetch them.
There are too many twists to this story to do it justice here. Go read our article on the shroomy hikers.
7. Sentimental Thieves
It’s not that unusual for robbers to target RVs sitting at campgrounds. After all, they’re often not that sturdy, so it’s easy to force doors and windows open. In June 2025, however, a thief stole something strange from a camping family.
It wasn’t the expensive scooters, coolers, or other valuable equipment sitting outside their RV. No, it was the hand-painted wooden sign reading, “Home is where you park it,” alongside the family’s name.
Who would anyone steal such a personal thing instead of the stuff that’s actually worth money? Who knows.
8. Utah Goat Man
In 2012, hikers in Utah spotted a weird creature prowling the slopes of Ben Lomond Peak. From a distance, the being resembled a goat, but a closer look revealed that it was moving unnaturally and didn’t look right at all.
Was it a strange cryptid? Some kind of Utah Goat Man? The discovery of the creature stirred some local hubbub at the time.
In the end, though, it wasn’t some otherworldly ungulate. The “creature” turned out to be a hunter wearing a homemade goat suit to help him get closer to his prey.