Woodside, Utah

First hand account by Dennis Udink, November 19, 2006:

I think my handgun saved my life today. I'll never know for sure what would have happened if I hadn't been carrying it, but I'm certainly glad that I carry it with me everywhere I go. Bear with me folks, this is gonna be a long story.

This morning, I took Michael and Bradley out for a little hike near the base of the Book Cliffs about 3.5 miles northeast of Woodside, where I had been thinking about placing a geocache. We had driven about three miles from the highway on a rough dirt road, and parked where the road ended. We were in the middle of nowhere. From the point where the road ends, there is an old pack trail that winds back and forth to the east all the way to the top of the Book Cliffs. The trail climbs about 1,000 vertical feet in a very short horizontal distance, and we hiked about 1/4 of the way up the trail before it became too steep and rugged for the kids. A few minutes after we'd turned around and were heading back to the truck, I noticed that somebody was standing next to the truck, and we were still about 0.4 miles away. There were no other vehicles in sight, so I assumed that the guy was on foot, and I couldn't figure out what in the hell he was doing in the middle of nowhere on foot. I could barely see what he was doing, but he was snooping around the truck and he even climbed into the truck bed. I was really freaked out, and I yelled down and told him to get the hell away from my truck. I'm not sure if he could even understand me, but I'm sure that he heard me.

He ducked out of sight behind the truck for a minute--I think he was in the truck bed again--then he reappeared and was walking around the side of the truck. I yelled at him again, and he stopped to look up toward me for a few seconds, then went on looking into my truck (luckily, it was locked). At that point I knew that we were in trouble, because if some guy knows that I'm nearby and he continues messing with my truck, he's probably crazy. My voice commands to leave the truck alone went unheeded, so I pulled my handgun out of its holster, told the kids to plug their ears, and fired a round into the ground in the opposite direction from the guy at the truck. I certainly got his attention, but he still didn't leave immediately. He did stop to look up at me again, but then I saw his arm come down in a sweeping motion toward the right-rear tire, and I could hear the air suddenly escaping. He walked to the other side of the truck and slashed the left-rear tire, then he walked off heading south.