Today, I had a, no joke, near-death experience with moose.

I took the day off to do a 14-mile hike through the snow with my friend.

The hike is through Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park. Right now the lake is snowed over and looks like this:

Because the snow is so deep we had to bring snowshoes, which help you stay above the snow but also make you walk really slow.

When we got to the lake we started to walk around the perimeter to get to our destination of the hike.

While we were walking we noticed huge moose tracks in the snow. I didn't think much of this, since I've seen many moose in my life and it's never been an issue. I thought "Oh cool, my friend will get to see a moose".

As we walked along the moose tracks we also noticed smaller moose tracks. I assumed that was from a baby or child moose.

Keep in mind we are in the middle of nowhere and there is nobody else around for miles.

We kept walking further and further.

About 6 miles into the hike I look up and a GIANT moose comes quickly prancing around the corner. The moose is only about 200 feet away.

At first I thought it was awesome that we were finally seeing the moose, but then it stared us down. I've never seen a moose stare me down before - usually they barely notice humans or don't seem to care.

I told my friend to just stand still.

The moose started charging at us.

Then it stopped.

Then we quickly turned around and started hoofing it the other way.

We looked back and the moose was charging us again.

Then it stopped.

Then it charged us again.

By this time it was like 100 feet away.

I'd never seen a moose agitated like this.

Since we were in the wide-open lake, and had no choice of outrunning a moose, we decided to climb into the trees on the edge of the lake to get some elevation.

The moose created a perimeter around us and started "prancing" like a horse. I've never, ever, seen a moose do this or move as fast as this one was.

It was at this point we got this one photo:

^^ The way the moose is facing up there, that was the way back! The moose had crossed over to the other side and was preventing us from going back where we came.

Then, all of a sudden the moose was gone.

We kept going into the trees and thought we could go around it. Then, we look up and the moose was in the trees! Just staring us down! Just 60 feet away.

It was like a stare down / face off. We had nowhere to go.

We felt stuck, powerless, it was so fucking frightening.

I called my dad and the national park helpline in that moment because I had no idea what the protocol was for something like this. They told me to just chill and stand still, don't move.

We stayed for about 20 minutes.

Then, in a bold move, we decided to trek back onto the lakeside and just made a run for it (with snowshoes on).

We ran at least two miles in snowshoes as fast as we could, looking back every 5 seconds to see if it was behind us.

Eventually, we got out.

One of the scariest things of my life.

Apparently, more people are attacked by moose than any other form of wildlife, and moose attacks are increasing.