Day 105 (PNT 10)

Day 105 (PNT 10): 24 miles

Around 1am I woke up to something large making noise from outside my tent. From the sound of it, I’m guessing it was 10 yards away. I was still half asleep but said something just hoping it would go away. In response however, it let out a roar so deep and guttural that I will remember it until the day I die. That was the most effective alarm clock of all time. I was half asleep. Now my heart was beating 200 beats per minute.

I instantly stood up in my tent and got into as much of a fighting position as I could. I knew it was foolish. It was a grizzly bear and I’m already trapped in a net! I could hear it’s feet moving, so I thought I had no time to grab my bear spray which was just outside my tent zipper. I just stood there, one knee on the ground, one up to give me some leverage. I had my hands up and ready to try to grab onto anything and to go for the eyeballs if it ripped through my tent.

This all seemed to happen in a split second, but after the initial roar and it was approaching my tent, I screamed as loud as I could. To my dismay and horror, it let out a roar even louder and more terrifying than the first one in response. “Oh fuck. Alright this is it.” I was fully confident it would come barreling through the tent at any nanosecond. I was ready to pounce and put up my best fight.

I let out one more yell as a final battle cry. It couldn’t have been more than a couple feet away from my tent. And then I heard its footsteps running in the other direction.

I didn’t take this time to celebrate though. I took one sigh of relief as my heart was beating as fast as it could without me dying, and then put on my shoes to go outside and investigate. I then spent the next 20 minutes yelling and telling the bear to go fuck himself.

After 20 minutes, I laid back down to try to go back to sleep with my headlamp on and bear spray in hand. I knew it would be near impossible since my heart was still pounding, but I was exhausted after the difficult alternate yesterday.

15 minutes later, I heard the fucker come back. Now I was pissed off. I immediately went outside my tent with my bear spray this time but he was already running away cause I was cussing him out.

I turned my phone on full blast of Metallica and Rage against the machine and screamed along the whole time while I packed up. I started hiking before 2am after not getting to bed until like 10:30. The day was pretty miserable after that. It was a struggle of constant tripping and falling asleep all the way to Bonner’s Ferry. But in the bright side, I got into town early after starting at 2am and got a hitch from a really interesting guy.

I will admit I was not perfect in my bear prevention. I got lazy and ate peanut butter and brushed my teeth only about 50 feet from my campsite before hanging my food bag. I don’t care how tired I am. I will not be making that mistake again.

But if I’m being honest I’m not sure that’s the reason he was there. I was kinda far off trail and the fact that he came back after running away initially makes me feel like maybe it was his turf and he was defensive.

All in all, 1/10 experience-would not recommend. Definitely either the most or second most I’ve been scared in my whole life. Hearing a grizzly furiously roar that close is something I never want to experience again. I looked up sounds of them online after the fact and it doesn’t even compare. I wasn’t even thinking at the time. It was instinctually terrifying. On the bright side, I learned that my survival response is fight instead of flight. So at least I’m tough I guess

Song of the day: Dragula-Rob zombie