Our families are life long shooting, hunting, camping and wilderness enthusiests. I as well as my wife are proficient with all of our personal weapons. That said, although I've never encountered any individuals over the past 40 plus years in the wilderness that gave me much in the way of 'pause'. Last May 2016 my wife and I were traveling through northern Utah heading toward Nevada, we had on a whim chosen to take the road less traveled. We found a spec of a town on the map and chose to head in that direction. It was a nice little place, that sort of 'out west small town' kind of vibe. People were friendly, we ate a little cafe. Just before we decided to leave, we stopped at the ONLY gas station in town. Two rugged looking guys in an old white pickup pulled up on the other side of the pump, their truck bed was filled with 'hunting/camping' gear, a couple of cross-bows were visible. A rifle hanging in the back window. One of the 'gentlemen' took a very long look at our expidition trailer, made a comment to his buddy about how handy that would be in the woods. The other 'gentleman' made a rather obnoxious comment about my wife. About that time, our tank full we decided to leave without returning comment. On our way out of town, they began to follow us, so we turned 6 or 7 times in an attempt to 'lose' them. When we thought they were off our 6, we headed toward Nevada, honestly a little above the speed limit. About 15 miles out of town, we see them agian on our 6, coming hard. This was a two way, zero turn road. We were driving a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, lifted for extreme off road, pulling an expidition trailer...we weren't going to out run anyone. There was no cell service, despite that we attempted to make a 911 call. We were almost 18 miles out when we decided to stop and face whatever these 'gentlemen' had in mind. We pulled fully off the road, turned slightly toward the oncoming vehicle, both of us were carrying, although until that point the pistols had been in lock boxes under the seats. As they approached they rapidly reduced their speed pulled off the road behind us, got out of their truck, save now there were 4 of them. We made it a point to make sure we weren't interested in conversation, that we weren't suffering from a broken down vehicle, that the best course of action for them would be to leave us alone. They chose the latter, amidst a hail of foul language and finger gestures. In the end, we had no real idea what they wanted, but there was a feeling, its one everyone is familiar with when a fight is brewing, we did everything in our power to avoid it and fortunately we did. That said, we always carry and I was extremely thankful for two things that afternoon in May, 1. we were carrying and ready and most importantly 2. we weren't forced to do anything.
Go outside, visit nature, enjoy the amazing grandure...be safe, be prepared have fun.
IZSM
