High Sierra Topix

c0ryn writes:

I screamed like a 2-year-old and started rolling away in my sleeping bag. It was as scary as waking up in the middle of the night with my kids standing at the side of my bed and staring at me. The snake just slowly unwound and slithered off while I watched from afar. I had a really tough time falling asleep the following night.

Now we know what you do when a Rattlesnake shows up in your bed, but what is it that your kids did to scare you so? I don't know the feeling of waking up to the kids staring at me because they were right in the bed with us. I do recall the agony of being heel-kicked in the nards by small children

Harlen wrote: ↑Tue Apr 09, 2024 4:33 pm c0ryn writes:

I screamed like a 2-year-old and started rolling away in my sleeping bag. It was as scary as waking up in the middle of the night with my kids standing at the side of my bed and staring at me. The snake just slowly unwound and slithered off while I watched from afar. I had a really tough time falling asleep the following night.

Now we know what you do when a Rattlesnake shows up in your bed, but what is it that your kids did to scare you so? I don't know the feeling of waking up to the kids staring at me because they were right in the bed with us. I do recall the agony of being heel-kicked in the nards by small children

I'd be sleeping in the middle of the night and open my eyes (due to a noise or intuition) to see a dark figure 2' away and staring me dead in the eyes. It makes you jump.

cor0ryn wrote:

I'd be sleeping in the middle of the night and open my eyes (due to a noise or intuition) to see a dark figure 2' away and staring me dead in the eyes. It makes you jump.

So, do they look scarier than this? Nathan looks less scary in the daytime: I hope your kids have grown out of scaring you, or at least changed their methods.

When backpacking in the Sierra Nevada I usually set up my tent without the fly for hanging laundry to dry and for warmth/wind/rain/mosquito protection as needed (adding the fly only if necessary). Then I usually sleep with the head end open so I can have a near 180 degree view of the stars. I mostly sleep at elevations where snakes are not a concern. On occasion a deer mouse, vole, or other rodent will come in a check it out. Probably happens around once every couple of weeks to the level it wakes me. Only had a critter enter my sleeping bag once.

c0ryh wrote: ↑Tue Apr 09, 2024 9:12 am I screamed like a 2-year-old and started rolling away in my sleeping bag. It was as scary as waking up in the middle of the night with my kids standing at the side of my bed and staring at me. The snake just slowly unwound and slithered off while I watched from afar. I had a really tough time falling asleep the following night.

This reminds me of the time I passed a rattlesnake that was sleeping in a bush on the west side of Tahoe. I scared it so much it fell out of the bush. It scared me too, because...well, hello snakes flying out of bushes at you are scary!

Sleeping in the backcountry without a tent can be quite an adventure! It's great for stargazing and feeling more connected to nature, but I share your concern about unexpected visitors in the night. I’ve done it a few times in the Rockies and had some close encounters with critters like raccoons and deer. Your rattlesnake story is intense—I can't imagine a more startling wake-up call! When sleeping without a tent, I usually take precautions like setting up away from dense brush, keeping food secure, and using insect repellent to minimize risks. I'd love to hear more about others' experiences too!

As a young man, I naively slept out on just a groundsheet when the weather was mild and never even thought about possible problems. Then in August of 1973 I took my younger brothers and sisters (2 of each) on a one night backpack trip to Rocky Mountain National Park on a beautiful warm sunny weekend with no clouds even (my family was living near the park then). We hiked down a broad meadowy valley and setup camp on the edge of a meadow. We had no tents but three ground sheets among us. My youngest brother (14) shared one with me, the middle brother (18) had his own, and my two sisters (16 and 19) shared a groundsheet. They setup about 100 feet away from me. It was dusk and I was just settling down to go to sleep when I heard a scream from one of my sisters. I ran over to find the younger sister all upset. She was lying in her sleeping bag, heard a noise, and opened her eyes to see an elk standing next to her with his head down to look at her (or as she described it, "this big animal was standing right over me!"). Her scream scared off the elk. My sisters grabbed all their stuff and moved over right next to me. Not that I would have been any less scared in the same situation.

In the 50 years since, I have always used a tent - not because of megafauna worries, but to keep out the wind, rain and mosquitoes.

-Phil

My very first night spent (8 years old) on a backpacking trip was a clear crisp night under the stars in fall of 1967 at Pear Lake. I was cozy in a giant bag with -20F rating or something and, in the morning, my bag (and everyone else's in the group) was covered with frost. Over the years I would sleep without a tent, mainly in fall when mosquitoes weren't an issue and the weather was good. I remember one summer trip in Ram Lakes Basin when Judy and I slept out under the stars but were awakened by snow falling on our face at 5 am in the morning. We had to quickly pack up and escape over the pass to Convict Canyon. Because I get tormented by bugs so readily I don't commonly sleep out in the open and I have some pretty bad experiences over the decades, some of which are painfully comical. The most painful was a night in the late 70s in the Klamath Mtns doing geologic fieldwork. A bunch of big nasty ants had found their way into my bag as I slept. They kept crawling down the bag until they reached the warmest, moistest place. At some point I rolled in my sleep and was awakened by an electric jolt of pain as a mess of ants bit my privates. Another time in the early 80s I was sleeping at Smith Lake in the Russian Wilderness using my boots as a pillow shim. I apparently slept so soundly I didn't realize some animal nearly destroyed my boots by chewing on them. It was more than just the scree collar that got chewed off. The boots were so badly damaged I could barely wear them. I've had some good nights and bad ones out under the stars, but at my age now I prefer the coziness of my tent.

I had a nifty mosquito net that covered from my shoulders to the top of my head and never slept in a tent. HOWEVER, we always had one for sudden bad weather surprises. Now that I have at least one dog with me, like Harlen, I use a tent to keep them in

I may just be more anxious than most backpackers, but I wonder how much safety a tent really offers.

No matter how clean you try keep the tent animals can smell that a human is inside. I have had a deer step a foot into the open door, a bear's nose so close to the door I could see its snot (I swear he wanted me to come out and play), a moose gazing in from about 5 feet away. A bear licked my face when sleeping in a bivy. Most cases it seemed the animals were just curious and most of those encounters are with young animals. Also had a small vole hidden inside my sleeping bag- I think it just wanted to stay warm. Have yet to have a snake cuddle up to me.

As for weather, I never sleep well inside a tent during big storms. I few times I have packed up my sleeping bag, put on all clothing and sat perched on my sleeping pad as a storm raged, my goal to keep my bag dry and be up off the floor if it flooded. I have spent hours holding up tent poles in severe wind. I certainly am glad I am in a tent during a storm, but never feel 100% safe. My husband, on the other hand, just zonks out regardless of what is happening.