Bumps in the night

What are some unpleasant ways you’ve been jolted awake at night?

This last weekend I was asleep in my hammock. Calm, quiet night when I was jolted awake by the sound of my tarp violently shaking. As I lay there trying to determine if that really happened or if I dreamt it I hear “Pfffff”… then another “Pffff”.

Next morning I realized I set up on a deer trail. A deer must have tripped on a guyline for my tarp. They were then expressing their dissatisfaction with my presence by huffing at me.

Guess I should say too this can be real or imagined.

Remember my first solo night camping I was a bit on edge. Managed to fall asleep but was jolted awake by the sound of growling outside my tent. I just laid perfectly still, eyes wide, intently listening for any other sound to confirm I had a hostile visitor. That confirming sound never came and I concluded it was just in my mind. I was camping on a small island. Would a wolf really swim over just to growl at me?

I only remember being jolted awake by dreams where I was urinating. And it was always a relief to find out I really wasn't.

Alan

The following is from my Trip Report on our Anderson River trip in 1999.

Loud splashing in the river startled us awake at 1:00 a.m. Kathleen and I instantly thought the same thing—must be a bear. I grabbed for my rifle, and Kathleen reached for the pepper spray. We peered out cautiously to see a moose, knee deep in the river, wading along the opposite shore. Sensing our presence, he turned abruptly up the bank and disappeared into the willow and spruce. Glad it wasn’t a bear—it would have been hard to sleep afterwards. Even so, just the thought of a bear perhaps passing by while we slept made us uneasy as we lay in our sleeping bags—eyes closed but ears wide open.

I was staying the night alone in a rotting trappers cabin on Lanezi Lake (Bowron Lakes Chain, BC). I thought... "This will be great! I won't have to worry about bears eating me. While examining the graffiti on the log interior, I noted someone had written a warning about "the mouse". Sure enough, while I was writing in my journal, it appeared, exhibiting absolutely no fear of me, and attempted to run up my leg. I finally scooted it away with great physical swings and sweeps, only to have it (and possibly its friends) return after bedtime, waking me up by running across my lips and joining me in my sleeping bag. After a sleepless 6 +/- hours, I got up, packed, and pushed off by 4 a.m., conquered by a little rodent.

The sound of a nearby tree or large branches falling. Yeah, we try to avoid campsites with sketchy looking trees but sometimes even healthy trees come down. And hearing one falling, while in the tent in the middle of the night is definitely a pucker factor.
Also spent a night backpacking on Mt Hood OR (Cooper Spur). The tent sites were tiny...just a small spot in rocks leveled out, otherwise there were zero places to pitch. Since the site was so small, I didn't get the tent properly guyed-out.
It didn't seem to matter, it was a calm, beautiful evening. Plus I had a touch of altitude sickness (never had it before or since).
Well, sometime shortly after dark, we were all snug in comfy slumbering in total silence, when out of nowhere a substantial wind storm slammed us. I thought the tent was going to be flattened! It shook violently for hours. I guess I coulda shoulda got up and tried to run some extra guy lines but hindsight.....
I think that was the longest night I ever spent in a tent.

The falling tree reminds me of another story.

Was camping with a buddy, sharing a tent. Horrible storm with unbelievably strong winds.

I didn't sleep. All I did was lay there getting sandblasted by tiny grains of sand blowing under the rain fly and through the screen mesh. Prayed the tent holds together while I listened to the tarp I had set up over the cooking area get shredded.

At one point I hear a loud “POP….CRACK” as a tree started to crash down danger close. I hear it loudly but no idea if it’s gonna come down on the tent. Total ‘Jesus, take the wheel’ moment as theres nothing you can do but await your fate.

My buddy was sleeping soundly through this storm until this moment. He jolted awake screaming, “Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!”. Tree crashing noises cease and his scream tapers off. The tree missed the tent.

I break the following silence with “Are you OK?”. He was a little embarrassed at his reaction but hey, he thought we were literally gonna die at that moment. We laughed about this the rest of the trip.

Blukanu said:

The falling tree reminds me of another story.

Was camping with a buddy, sharing a tent. Horrible storm with unbelievably strong winds.

I didn't sleep. All I did was lay there getting sandblasted by tiny grains of sand blowing under the rain fly and through the screen mesh. Prayed the tent holds together while I listened to the tarp I had set up over the cooking area get shredded.

At one point I hear a loud “POP….CRACK” as a tree started to crash down danger close. I hear it loudly but no idea if it’s gonna come down on the tent. Total ‘Jesus, take the wheel’ moment as theres nothing you can do but await your fate.

My buddy was sleeping soundly through this storm until this moment. He jolted awake screaming, “Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!”. Tree crashing noises cease and his scream tapers off. The tree missed the tent.

I break the following silence with “Are you OK?”. He was a little embarrassed at his reaction but hey, he thought we were literally gonna die at that moment. We laughed about this the rest of the trip.

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Yikes!
We were on the Delaware River a few years ago and another small group of paddlers had trouble finding a site so they asked us if they could set up 30 yards or so from us. We said "sure".
Around dinner time, we were all outside our tents chatting back and forth and out of nowhere a huge branch broke off and fell 30-40 feet and narrowly missed falling on our "neighbors". It missed them by a matter of a couple yards. it most likely would have been fatal.
I've had hickory nuts fall ~100' and hit me on the head. It knocked me to my knee. I can't imagine what a 50-100pound branch would feel like.

Falling trees are more fearsome than black bears, but their danger had never been in my mind until a handful of incidents with a short time period: Adirondack guide Lynn Malerba was killed by a tree falling on her tent, a large tree fell on a calm day missing one of my brothers by mere feet as he walked along a trail, and a month later that same brother and I were driving down NY-421 to the Bog River Lower Dam launch on a clear, calm day when a large living tree fell across the road. I had to drive off the road to avoid it landing atop our car. Between Lynn Malerba's death and these two incidents, an acquaintance had a falling tree crush his car, missing him by a foot or less. Oh, and a former student of my aforementioned brother was on a summer camp trip in the BWCA when a fellow camper was killed in his tent by a falling tree. I no longer enjoy camping on windy nights as much as I used to.

Don't know about bumps, but I overnighted on the Connecticut River Sunday, only to have a rock concert break out about a mile away, followed by fireworks. Definitely stayed awake a little longer than planned.

Regarding trees, my son and I were camped on the Palmetto Traiil several years back. I'd noted a widowmaker limb when we set up, pointed it out, and made sure it wouldn't land on us. Sure enough, about an hour later the wind picked up, some creaking started, and within 10 minutes the limb came crashing down. Good lesson for my son.

The sound of mice chewing is probably the worst... you come awake, knowing that the little buggers have damaged something somewhere, but you don't know what, and probably can't kill them.... kinda like when you can hear your wife's cat getting sick somewhere nearby the bedroom at home.

I've been awakened (and subsequently spent the rest of the night awake to keep him out of camp) by a bear on Lake Lila (see avatar), but never since.

I've been awakened by coyotes howling, deer blowing/wheezing, raccoons/skunks/possums/armadillos making a racket walking around, and a fox (probably, from the footfall/sound of it) once bumped me in the back as I slept in a hammock, though I heard him coming.

Screech owls make an awful racket, especially when one goes off like a smoke alarm overhead without warning at 2am.

Pigs/boars, in LA, used to be a fear, but once aware of your presence, they seemed to stay away and I never had trouble with them, despite expectations and advice to the contrary.

So back to the mice... I've been awakened by sound of chewing, but having one land on your face while conducting their evening aerobics is also highly disconcerting. I carry a couple mousetraps with me now, to certain favored lean-to's. A piece of the ubiquitous resident cookware propped in the corner creates an intriguing hiding place to set a mousetrap. Just setting it on the lean-to's back corner shelf will also work, as will a figure-4 trap loaded with a piece of split log firewood for the deadfall, if placed appropriately.

I've had large trees come down near me, but never close enough to scare me that badly.

I did have a maintenance worker let himself into my hotel room at 0530 one morning once... THAT startled me quite a bit... he was very apologetic, and claimed no one was listed as being in that room (believable, given another experience I had with the desk staff earlier in the day)... I have religiously used the deadbolt ever since.

On cold, sleet filled October night in the BWCA there were 4 of us in the tent and quite a racket was going on just outside the door. In the damp dark we convinced ourselfs that we had a bear in camp so I slowly stuck my head out the door and my flashlight fell upon a pair of skunks who had found a piece of tin foil to rattle around with and they had decided to get out of the elements by huddling under our rainfly. Needless to say I retreated quickly and just let them be and by morning they were gone.

Several years ago, I was sleeping in my hammock far up the river in the Sawtooth Wilderness when I was startled awake by what sounded like a boulder splashing into the water. My first thought was that someone was pranking me, but then I remembered that having poled upstream, I was not near enough to any trail to be noticed.

I heard no other sound so I went back to sleep, thinking it was a random thing. Pretty soon, I was awakened by the same noise. Now I was really puzzled, but I fell back asleep. This happened a half dozen times or more, and I finally decided that maybe it was a beaver - I had never heard a beaver tail slap before but it seemed to fit.

Sure enough, in the morning when I looked around and found tracks I discovered that I had set up camp close to a beaver den. I figured out that my snoring was probably causing the tail slap.

The following year I was camp near that same spot but away from the den. I woke up to wolves singing all around me. Not real close, but in every direction. After the initial startle, I was actually getting a thrill out of it. But they partied almost all night and I didn't get much sleep then either.

Someone told me afterwards that wolves really like beaver meat and the beavers know that. Makes sense to me.

Last summer, I was camped at a high lake, again in the Sawtooths - this time on foot. Middle of the night, I hear what sounds like a nearby rifle shot. But a second later, I hear the sound of a small rockslide. The high peak above the other side of the lake had let loose a large rock, which apparently had first ricochetted off a lower ledge and then landed on the scree below.

On this summer's backpacking trip, I woke up to the sound of something large wading across the little cove next to my camp. I was already aware of the presence of moose in the area, so I attributed it to that and went back to sleep. Tracks confirmed it in the morning.

The winnowing sound of snipes flying at night is very, very eerie and otherworldly. I have been wakened by it twice while camping on the Allagash. The first time I had no idea what was making the sound. Later a guide told me what it was. I thought they were joking. But the sound is made by air rushing over the tail feathers not by call.

And I was awakened by a bear huffing and stomping its feet outside my campsite on Little Tupper once. That was no fun.

Bump-bump, rustle-rustle-rustle. BUMP, bump-ba-bump, rustle-rustle-rustle. "Did you hear that?" "Yeah." "Well what was it?" "No idea." My wife deemed my response unsatisfactory. Sigh. Glasses, headlamp, shoes and off I go. I'm scanning - slightly concerned that the creature is doing likewise. Then, off in the distance, I hear it again. I think it saw me, spooked, and ran off. Marvellous - back to bed. We made it through the night, but the next morning while making coffee - same noise. Much like a large animal taking off through the understory - heavy steps, then leaves/branches being pushed out of the way.

And then it hit me. Literally. Red pine cone.

alsg said:

And I was awakened by a bear huffing and stomping its feet outside my campsite on Little Tupper once. That was no fun.

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Thats got to be about a Pucker factor of about 12. At that moment I suppose one is thinking of a way to make a tactical exit from one’s tent/hammock to contront a threat that already had the drop on you.

what I want to know is how do mice gain 400lbs immediately after dark???
I was camped solo in Algonquin one night and woke to the loud thwack of something hitting my tent HARD, a few seconds later it happened again- this continued for several minutes until I finally got the courage to investigate- I was astounded to catch this little thing jumping off a tree branch, hurling itself at my tent, and bouncing off the fly like it was a trampoline. On closer investigation (ok, I watched it run back to the tree...) it turned out to be a psychotic kangaroo mouse that was determined to vanquish it's 200lb foe at any cost
For some reason it never occured to me that mice could even climb trees, When I moved on in the morning I discovered I'd accidentally set my house right on top of it's burrow- that would pi** me off too....

Blukanu said:

Thats got to be about a Pucker factor of about 12. At that moment I suppose one is thinking of a way to make a tactical exit from one’s tent/hammock to contront a threat that already had the drop on you.

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It was with my dog, Berkeley, but he was not interested in finding out what the noise was. Or maybe he knew and decided he'd stay in the tent and let me handle the situation. It resolved itself without any major injuries. I wrote a trip report explaining what happened, but here's the relevant part:

alsg said:

About 1 AM, however, Berk and I were woken up by a sound I had never heard before. Like a loud huff. Then several very loud steps, snapping twigs and more huffs. This animal was not shy about announcing its presence. Berkeley was sitting bolt upright, staring into the woods without moving a muscle or making a sound. I have an acre and a half of woods behind my house in Maryland and deer are frequent visitors. When Berk sees or smells deer, he goes from Berkeley to "Berserkly". He barks, whines and scratches to get outside and then chases them off. Whatever this was, Berk didn't smell or see deer and he had no interest in getting out of the tent to investigate it.

After a few more huffs, I decided I had better to get out of the tent. Before leaving for the trip I had made a last minute decision to buy bear spray and now I was glad I did. I climbed out of the tent with my flashlight and bear spray. Berk just sat in the tent, staring, which was fine with me since I didn't want him to become a bear's hors d'oeuvre. Searching the woods with the flashlight, I found two eyes reflecting back at me from about 30 yards in the woods. And these eyes were facing front in a binocular orientation (unlike the many reflected deer eyes I have seen). At this point I was convinced that I had a bear outside my camp.

I heard it walking from my right to left. More huffing and foot stamping. At this point I took the safety off the bear spray. While I practiced this maneuver once before, I must have been nervous/jittery this time and slightly depressed the trigger lever, and a tiny amount of spray was discharged onto the front of my flashlight. D’oh! This stuff smells acrid as heck!

I decided to start a campfire and also talked to the bear (I read somewhere that you should do that) so I gave it a calm “go away, bear” or two.

I got the fire started but it was pretty pitiful. I hadn't gathered firewood, so this was just a twig fire -- amounting to just a little mood lighting for the bear to dine al fresco by. (But hopefully not “Al” fresco dining.). I also grabbed my new small forest axe. The bear spray seemed like the better choice to deter an attack but I thought if the bear was intent on an attack (which I kind of doubted given that it hadn’t come into camp yet), the axe might give me a fighting chance if I got lucky.

The huffing continued on and off for another hour or so. But eventually, thankfully, I heard the bear moving off.

When I was confident the bear had left the area and wasn’t coming back, I climbed back into the tent with axe and bear spray. It was then that I realized that my nose and upper lip were getting warm. I must have used the hand that had been holding the flashlight (that I had accidentally bear-sprayed) to absentmindedly wipe my face at some point, and like a careless cook cutting jalapeños, I had transferred some of the capsaicin residue to my face. Luckily it was pretty minor. Glad I didn’t get a full blast of it! About 10 minutes after that, however, just before I nodded off back to sleep, I realized another part of my body was getting warm. Oh, crap, I also used that same hand when I took that piss just before climbing into the tent....Fortunately it only got mildly warm.

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Blukanu said:

What are some unpleasant ways you’ve been jolted awake at night?

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1. Number 1 (BPH)
2. Number 2 (Montezuma's revenge)
3. 3 drunks loudly talking, laughing, cursing and singing at midnight (never again with that group)
4. ~4° F (unexpected freezing cold plunge in mountain night temperature decades before internet, smart phones, a warm sleeping bag, and BPH)