Bumps in the night

A couple weeks after moving to Alaska I was camped at Paxon Lake in the Alaska Range and got woken up by the sound of something urinating on my tent. After determining that the source wasn't coming from any of the inhabitants of the tent I unzipped the door in time to see a wolf walking away from the site.

The tent had previously been set up in my yard in a rural forested area for a few weeks and I assumed that some other critter, maybe even a dog, had peed on it. This may have caused the wolf to leave his scent marking his territory.

Two F-18s breaking the sound barrier right above my tent at Queen's Gate next to the Nellis Test Site in Nevada.
A black bear sow grunting 18 inches from my face on the other side of the mosquito netting in Alberta.
A giant old Shasta red fir crashing to the ground near Carson Pass, CA.
?Twenty coyotes barking, howling and shrieking all over the place.
A mountain lion scream on the Sacramento River, CA.
Large king salmon leaping into the air to knock of the sea lice, Sacramento River, CA and the Umpqua River, OR.

I was awakened by blood curdling screams coming from my companion’s tent in the middle of the night. “Are you okay? Do you need help?” I shouted into the darkness. “Yes…Heelllpp, aiiiyeeeeee,…” and so on. She later told me she didn’t know she was capable of screaming like that.

She was out of the tent by the time I got over there, standing there shaking and whimpering because there was a mouse in her tent. So I empty out her tent, corner the mouse and was about to crush it, and I hear her behind me, “no, don’t hurt it, it’s cute.” The loudest screaming I ever heard, and it’s cute? Her screams gave me such a shot of adrenaline I couldn’t get back to sleep for an hour or more. Cute?

It was a nine-day trip on the upper Missouri, she was otherwise a solid paddling companion and we became good friends. We often laugh at the cute mouse story. But that was my most scarey bump in the night. Second place was at a car campground when two raccoons nabbed some food from a neighbors site and were up in a tree fighting over it and making hideous screaming noises at each other. I was unaware of their vocal ability.

A weird one was at 9-mile on the Saint John ( Maine). There was a cable system there for crossing the river in a small bucket-gondola, and I’d pitched my tent not far from the steel tower from which the cable was suspended. Wicked bad weather that night—snow and howling wind, and in the middle of the tumult I hear the sound of the cable operating, complete with a click, like the bucket is docking. I stuck my head out the tent and shined a light, but all I could see were blackness and wind-driven snowflakes. I heard the noise repeatedly, but in the morning, no tracks in the snow or any other sign the cable had been operating. I’ll never know what I was hearing, and I think my imagination just turned those noises into something that wasn’t happening. It’s weird what your brain will cook up when it can’t explain what the senses deliver to it.

Then theres the phenomenon of Exploding Head Syndrome.

It’s similar to the myoclonic jerk. I’ve experienced this a few times and it taught me to never full trust my brain. If can trick you.

It’s essential an imagined noise, like a loud bang, that jolts you awake.

Camping with a buddy you can always get a second opinion with the cliche, middle of the night camping question, “Did you hear that?”

Few times at home I awoken to the sound of something falling over and crashing to the floor. Then I see the dog still quietly sleeping and I know a physical sweep of the house is not necessary.

I’m 99% sure the time I woke to growling outside my tent the sound was all in my head.

Blukanu said:

I’m 99% sure the time I woke to growling outside my tent the sound was all in my head.

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Are you sure it wasn't in your stomach? I was alarmed by the sound of my stomach growling one time, until I figured it out.

I had forgotten about the time I was group camping on a river in CO near another group. Some idiot from the other group decided to go drunk 4-wheeling in the middle of the night, and nearly ran us down in our tents. Not good to wake up to a revving engine with headlights fast approaching.

Ever hear a deer snort and stomp their hoof at perceived danger? Well, a moose with a calf in the boreal … at night … right outside your tent is MUCH louder … waking up to that is not for the feint of heart. Glenn Lake camp in WCPP had me pretty nervous listening to the alarmed Moose.

Spring moose … scare the crap out of me