Noises at Night

“When in bear country, I barely sleep at all. I am constantly checking my watch to see when the sun will come up so I can wake up Max. I slept for about 30 minutes the night we had a bear come into camp. I asked Max to stay awake for 30 minutes so I could comfortably asleep, with the hopes that once I was asleep, I could sleep for a couple hours. Well, he agreed and set his watch for 30 minutes. Yup, you guessed it, his watch alarm start beeping and woke me up. The rest of the night I just layed there listening...

I'm such a light sleeper. Whenever I hear noises at night, I picture a bear checking out our camp, our tent, me, etc.

Anyone know any good tricks to make that paranoia go away?”

“I got a buddy the takes something to help him sleep. Of course the b@stard won't wake up in the morning though. I usually throw things at his tent. pebbles, sticks, dirt, ect.”

“I ain`t afraid of snakes, or bugs, or toads, or worms, or mice
and things that girls are afraid of, I think are awful nice
I`m pretty brave I guess you`d say, but yet I hate to go to bed
cause when I`m tucked up snug and warm and when my prayers are said

Just a few lines from a poem called (Seeing Things)

Each of us has to learn to deal with fear in our own way. For the most part the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. For the better part things in the wild don`t bother me and I don`t much bother them. Once I had fears too, but I overcame them. Once I learned about the wild things and their sounds they became a part of me and I no longer feared them.

It`s like that little kid`s song, what will be, will be. I`m at peace with myself, I no-longer lay in the dark and worry about what might happen to me. If you got `em smoke `em. If you got fears, just choke `em!”

“I don't know I think when backpacking I sleep better then I do when I am at home.I don't hear anything when I sleep.”

“In the Adirondacks there are flying squirrels that climb down the bear bag rope after dark to get at the food inside. You hear them scratching on the bags. If you shine a flashlight up at 'em, then thwack the rope to shake the bag, you're entertained by their immediate jump-and-fly into the woods at about a 45 degree angle. Cool.”

“The first night's camp on the trail at Philmont, the backcountry ranger who accompanied us on that first leg told us a bunch of bear stories around the campfire. He then waited until most of our group was bedded down, then told one of us still up to get a tent pole from our pup tent (this was '67 -- aluminum poles were as high tech as it got). Quietly, he showed us how to growl and huff down the hollow pole, then told us to go put a pole end under the corner of one our pals' tents. Per instructions, a scout did some bear talking through the pole and like a couple of human cannonballs, the scouts inside the tent came flying out and leaped over the campfire and disappeared into the bushes ... at least until they heard the laughter.”

“Pekka u bad!!!

The other good one I've read about; When someone's just sleeping in their sleeping bag with no sleeping pad, put a long thick rope under their bag and slowly pull the rope out from under him/her. They'll jump out from their bag screaming, "Snake..Big snake". heh heh heh”

“This weekend was cool Sat night got a real treat there were about 5 owls in our or near our camp and they were just talking away.To me that is GREAT I love it when I hear them.”

“Backpacked with pctpacker, 10 Bears and his friend Marco. Marco set his tent up over a gopher hole, and in the middle of the night the gopher decided to come out. Since the tent was over the hole, the gopher was moving around 'under' the tent. Poor Marco ran out of his tent yelling "THERE'S SOMETHING IN THERE!!!".”

“LOLOLOL... !”

“A tent possessed. Too funny.”

“Now thats a good one...:)”

“Take one "Tylenol PM" and sleep comfortably all night. Stuff could haul you off and chew on your limbs and you wouldn't wake up.”

“I don't need anything to fall alseep when I hit the wiggle sack I go right to sleep.”