High Sierra Topix

"Saint" Diane and I were camped at sphinx and a marmot bit holes in my air mattress and I had to sleep soley on an isolite pad.

Getting the crap scared out of me is a big annoyance. I've had rattlesnakes frighten me several times.

That is a beautiful photo. Snake art!

Mike

Floating the Deschutes River in central Oregon in 2004, we pulled over to check out an established campsite along the river. We were warned by other rafters to steer clear because of an infestation of rattlesnakes near the BLM toilet. Sure enough, there were at least a handful of rattlers nesting around and under the latrine. We decided to find a more welcoming place to camp further down the river.

Mike

That is a fantastic photo, Dave!

No one has mentioned deer yet. I've heard stories about deer licking the salt off of peoples clothes at night but I've never had that happen to me. Instead on two different trips we spent the last 2 days at Vernon Lake and had a doe wander into our camp, eat grass and refuse to leave. The doe would slowly walk away if approached and if you kept at it in order to chase her out of camp she would just walk back in a few minutes later. The first time it happened the doe stuck around all night and into the following day. At night she was so noisy that she kept us up most of the night wondering if the noise was from the doe or from a bear. The next day I had enough of the doe being in our camp, so I took the rubber bands that I had to keep my tent poles/stakes together and shot the doe in her hindquarters a few times with them. That was enough to safely shock the doe into leaving and not coming back.

Another time I was woken in the middle of the night by what sounded like a large animal with claws climbing a tree followed by a loud thud of something big landing in the dirt. The sounds were coming from the direction where we had hung our food. I immediately remembered stories my step dad told me of bears that had seen climb up trees and do swan dives in order to try to get the food he had hung in a tree. I tried, unsuccessfully, to wake my friend up who was in the tent with me but he is a very deep sleeper. So I called out to my step dad who was in another tent and asked him if he had heard the sound. He replied "yeah, you heard it first so you go check on it". So grumbling I grabbed my flashlight, unzipped the tent real fast, stood in the doorway and shone my flashlight in the direction where our food was hung. I couldn't see anything at first because there were too many trees in the way but then something rose up in front of me, blocking my view. First I saw what I thought were 2 branches but they were quickly followed by the head of deer that rose up to look me straight in the eye. I quickly realized that I was standing 3 feet away from the biggest buck I had ever seen.

I thought the deer would be wild enough that it would run away but instead it started a staring match with me. I told my step dad what it was and he told me to just scare it off. So I yelled "Git" but it continued to stare at me. I yelled "Hah" and made a shooing motion with my arms but it continued to stare at me. It was already to close to me for comfort and I didn't want to get any closer or hit it because it would probably spear me with its antlers so I was temporarily stumped as to how to get it to leave. So I took a moment and tried to think of everything I knew about deer. The first thing that popped into my mind was "deer in a headlight". I looked down at my flashlight which was on and shining into the buck's face and thought "oh maybe its my flashlight that's making it stare at me", so I twisted the bottom of my flashlight and it turned off.

The buck immediately leapt forward and was running at full speed within a second. I had to duck to the side to avoid getting hit by his antlers. As the buck ran past the side of the tent it was so close that its side dragged along the fabric of the tent making a loud swishing sound. One of it's legs got tangled in the rear tent pole and dragged the corner of the tent a good foot before it stumbled and got lose. That was enough to finally wake up my friend who exclaimed "what the hell is going on?". Meanwhile the buck was headed towards the granite slope that was in the back of our camp. The first section of granite was around 12 feet high and had around a 70 degree slope. I would have bet money that nothing would be able to run up it but the buck went straight up like it was running on flat ground. For the next half hour we could hear it continue to run up the rest of the mountain side. Its hooves slamming on the granite, sometimes knocking rocks down or spraying gravel across the granite.

In the morning we checked the spot where the deer had been standing to find a 2 foot hole dug into the dirt at the base of a tree. At the bottom of the hole was an old Folgers coffee can. We figured the reason why the buck had dug it up was that it wanted us to pack it out so we did.

In the morning we checked the spot where the deer had been standing to find a 2 foot hole dug into the dirt at the base of a tree. At the bottom of the hole was an old Folgers coffee can. We figured the reason why the buck had dug it up was that it wanted us to pack it out so we did.

A good wilderness steward!

In the morning we checked the spot where the deer had been standing to find a 2 foot hole dug into the dirt at the base of a tree.

I wonder if one of you guys had pissed right where the deer were digging? We've had deer hanging out for our urine, and really competing hard for it! *Only the finest urine in our family.

And BTW, regarding the above-mentioned "quokkas":

Quokkas are simply over-friendly little marsupials that look like giant, fat brown rats. On an island off the west coast of Australia, ....

I remembered the name of the island off the west coast of Oz, with the rat-like "quokkas" - its called "Rottnest Island," which I think is Dutch for "rat-nest."

lvray wrote:And to answer the question - humans by a long shot.

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