When I was living in Charlotte, NC in a somewhat unsettled time in my life (nothing too bad, just didn't have my act together in every way, plus ca change...), I used to like to make the drive to Linville Gorge, and go up alone and camp out on The Chimneys, to clear my head. Never went into the gorge itself alone; hey, I'm not stupid!

On one of these trips, that I decided one weekend to take somewhat on the spur of the moment, I got to the trailhead when it was already starting to get dark. I knew I couldn't make it up to the top before sundown, so I made the (in retrospect) rather silly decision of going down a side trail, finding a little clearing, and camping out in the loam. I dug my fire pit carefully and lined it well, and only built a small fire, because any camper/backpacker knows fires can ignite that loam and smoulder for days...

I just needed something to cook dinner on, and some coals to sleep by and keep me warm overnight. I was really roughing it too; just had a knapsack with a few supplies, and a little blanket to sleep on. No tent, no sleeping bag. There was no chance of rain, and at the time I really liked doing it this way, getting back to nature. Loved the solitude, though I did take a friend or my brother on a couple of these excursions from time to time. So, I ate dinner, may have had a beer or bottle of wine along, but can't remember, and then, hypnotized by the embers of the fire half-covered in dirt to keep them lightly glowing all night, settled down to sleep.

I was not alone. Now, everyone knows I like rats, mice, all manner of little critters. I'm very kind hearted, and never kill even insects unless I have to (mosquitoes and flies are exempt from this consideration), preferring to release them outside. Oh yes, those awful little ants that get in your kitchen in the summer. I kill those.

Spiders, though. Not a fan. I still release the ones I get in my house, except for the two Brown Recluses my brother (thanks a bunch) brought me as a gift in his guitar amp when visiting from Arkansas once. They died...badly. Unbeknownst to me, I had made my little camp in the middle of a large colony of Carolina Wolf Spiders, the largest Wolf Spider in North America. The biggest ones will span the entire palm of your hand. Big, hairy bodies. Ugly. Scary. Also harmless, unless you really agitate one. Even if it bit you, it would be only about as painful as a bee sting, though necrosis (much milder than that brought on by a Brown Recluse bite) is a possibility, though from what I hear, unlikely.

However, there were hundreds, and as soon as it got dark, they started to be attracted to the heat of the embers in my fire pit. I felt a few, then a few more, then A LOT crawling right over me, and more scuttling past me on the way to the pit, large enough to make a noise like mice. I pretty much knew what was happening, so I threw some dead pine branches on the coals to bring up the fire and get some light, and then I saw them, terrifying in the light, marching in long lines to suicide themselves in the fire! They made a very nasty sizzling noise...

Well, you can imagine what this situation did for my state of mind, but I had forgotten my flashlight, and didn't want to bump my way out of the woods, try to find the trail in the dark, and get back to my car. I just put the fire out, huddled under my blanket as best I could (it was small and I couldn't cover up completely), and spent a sleepless night until dawn with those nasty things crawling all over me, and hiked out when the sun rose. The spiders were gone by then, but I encountered enough that night to know that the total number of specimens that I actually saw in that poorly-chosen campsite was only a small percentage of the population that was actually living there.

Still, not a single bite, and it did help to impress upon me that few spiders, even wolf spiders as big as little tarantulas, pose any danger to humans at all. After that, though, I always made sure when I went to Linville Gorge to have plenty of time to get up to The Chimneys and their proper campsites.

Granted, there are a few small rattlesnakes up on The Chimneys, but they mostly hide under the rocks, and you only hear the occasional rattle sometimes when you walk by.