The Sleepless Night in Grizzly Country

Brett and I decided we wanted to go on one last backpack prior to the baby's arrival, so last weekend we headed to the Wind Rivers in Wyoming. We arrived at the empty trailhead and being 33 weeks pregnant I hoisted on the pack. We hiked in a little over an hour and found an awesome camp spot right near the lake (Half Moon Lake). After setting up camp, we explored and Brett and Max started fishing - I have still yet to see a fish caught from any of the lakes in the Wind Rivers!! Anyway, around 8:30 at night there were some fishermen (four of them) fishing near our camp; I heard one yell to the others "We're leaving, we heard a bear." Ha ha, very funny joke, I thought to myself. Well, about 1/2 hr later the fishermen were walking by our camp and said,

FISHERMAN: "hey, did you guys hear the bear??"

US: "no, you heard a bear?"

FISHERMAN: "Ya, come over here by the river, you can hear it grunting."

We procede to follow them over near a small river that is by our camp spot; after standing there only a couple minutes we heard it across the river, I have no clue what a grunting bear sounds like but I couldn't think of any other animal that would make the same noise.

FISHERMAN: "That's why we are leaving, we didn't bring our bear spray or gun with us. Do you have any bear spray or a gun??"

US: "Nope."

FISHERMAN (laughing a bit): "That sucks."

Then the fishermen leave us, blowing a whistle every couple minutes to scare off the bears.

By this time it is after 9pm and getting pretty dark, there is no way that we could hike out - we sat by the fire and contemplated what to do. The trail going to our camp spot was grown over on spots so it would be very difficult in the dark to hike out safely so we decided to stay the night. I was petrified because I heard the noise a couple more times as we sat by the fire! Brett hung our food in a tree away from our camp, hoping this would keep the bear away.

Brett found a large stick to lay next to the tent as our only defense against the bear (he even tested the stick against a tree - it was strong!).

We crawl into our tent around 11:30pm with our trusty dog Max to protect us.

11:35 - Brett is already sleeping as I lay awake waiting to be mauled.

1:15 - I am still awake listening to every little noise - Brett awakens and stays awake with me - I think I fell asleep for about 30 minutes.

2:00- Wide awake, thinking about a book my dad has called "Man vs. Bear" - I start freaking myself out more.

3:00 - Our flashlight that I have kept on the entire night burns out - I wake up Brett; I make him more scared.

4:15 - I am stressed because I am not sleeping; sleeping is very difficult. Pregnant, sleeping in a mummy bag ,in a 2 man tent, with a dog, waiting for a bear to attack - not a good combination; I am on the verge of tears. I can't wait until it starts getting light.

5:00 - It is getting a little lighter - I finally am able to fall asleep until 7am.

We were so grateful to be alive in the morning!! Thankfully, the next night we spent in a cabin on the lake. We took a little road trip to see the beautiful Wind River mountain range.

Overall, we had a very fun trip, minus the sleepless night, but I will never forget it!!! I think we will be a bit more prepared with real weapons for the next backpack!

This is us in the tent before bed - don't we look scared??

Fremont Mountain