This summer me, my father and little brother, 8 years of age, had decided to finally go camping in the mountains, to pick a mountain lake and conquer it so to speak. We chose one that wouldn’t be too gnarly of a hike but still remote enough, and upon arriving after a drive and a half hour hike into the mountains, we ended up having the lake to ourself. This small picturesque lake is fed like many others by the snow-melt of the high rugged mountains, and the mountain range shelves itself and rises many thousands of feet back and away from the lake, long channels of thick forest-growth run down the canyons allowing wildlife routes into and out of the mountains, and to and from mountain lakes like these.

The area we chose to set up camp in was directly near the entrance path with plenty of wide open grass, easy access to the lake, and near a trail that circles the lake. We begin setting up and took a swim, had something to eat and as the afternoon gave way to evening began gathering fire wood. I went further back up the trail we had come from and started gathering caches and tossing them alongside the trail to pick up later, as well as the trail that went around the lake. While going around the lake trail by myself, my dad and brother stayed behind at the campsite making the fire. I will not embellish anything by noting how quiet things were towards the back of the lake, the premonitions I had to turn around. There is no such thing as a bear free area in these mountains, so I gathered only what I needed and returned while the sun began to set. I felt unnerved having been back there alone without a weapon, it felt very domesticated the entire way but there was something too quiet about it – again I won’t embellish.

The sun was finally setting and evening sky, dim, replaced the bright blue and orange sunsets we enjoy here. The mountains were no longer painted orange but were becoming their cold deep, steel blue. I noted upon returning that my dad and little brother were less playful, more serious, maybe my little brother was having less fun now that it was getting dark and a night of sitting near the campfire and being surrounded by darkness was beginning to loom over him. That’s what it seemed. Although I would later be told by my dad that he was disturbed by something else. Apparently while I was gathering wood my little brother had told my dad that while starting the fire he was hearing “a car or something”, an engine noise of sorts in the mountains or near our camp, he couldn’t place his finger on it. This wasn’t possible of course as no car or ATV could have driven up the trail that leads to this lake, although he could have been hearing something else. My dad didn’t hear anything though, which is why he took note, besides seeing that my little brother was bothered.

We all sat by the fire and my dad took out one of the guns we had brought, a pistol, and as we were completely alone in the mountains at that point with the lake to ourselves he fired it into the forest. He did this in a seemingly playful manner but it wasn’t like my dad to play, and I remember being suspicious immediately that he had done that for some other reason. He admitted later that he had. After firing the gun for the purpose of spooking away all wild animals we heard a loud popping sound, a branch breaking up on the mountainside.

From this point on all the fun of the evening became exponentially removed and replaced by dread. The branch popping far up on the mountains was followed by another closer down, and closer still, every 20 seconds or so a branch would snap and foliage would rustle, sounding a lot like a person coming down the mountainside. By this point, me and my dad had stood up and grabbed weapons, in particular I remember standing with a wide stance and holding the rifle clearly so an animal could make sense of the fact that we were armed, hoping it would cause a grizzly to think twice before charging. It was now at the base of our campsite, just beyond sight, in the trees surrounding us. By now my little brother was terrified and standing behind us making whimpering sounds of a sort. Our impression was that it was a grizzly bear or some aggressive animal coming down the mountains to take us out, that the gunshot was a threatening sound that caused a bear to charge, but why did it stop in the treeline? Was it trying to scare us away without showing itself to us? What kind of bear does that? Why no jaw popping sounds or grunts? Why wasn’t it clawing the earth or making anymore sounds?

Whatever this was had snuck up on us, breaking large branches every so often on it’s descent down the hillside behind us and was now in the treeline watching us. Was this an animal? It no longer felt like it. We didn’t say “HELLO?” or anything stupid like that though. We only whispered quietly to one another and discussed what to do. My little brother wanted to leave and I remember feeling terrible about everything at that moment. This was supposed to be our special night together and it really had been perfect and fun, this area was beautiful and all ours – and now we were in the middle of a nightmare of sorts. I reluctantly agreed and we all began packing our things as quickly as possible, every so often hearing another branch break in the same location, never setting our guns down too far from where we were. My little brother was in a panic and I basically packed everything for him while he stood by shaking and saying ‘There is a monster over there… ‘

I remember having nothing but a stoic attitude the entire time, I was afraid sure, but I couldn’t get myself to show any of it, half out of instinct that fear is the emotion of prey and half out of knowing that any fear besides my little brothers would only make the situation worse. I told him over and over “It’s not a monster little bro, we don’t even know what it is – it could be a deer or something. But we’re going to leave anyway so just calm down…” etc. etc. It felt like lying. It sure seemed like a monster at this point.  It seemed to take forever to pack everything up, I had finally taken down the tent and my dad had gathered everything from the picnic area, he later told me he was hearing “it” the entire time over there too.

The air was surreal. Everything felt wrong. The vibes were so dark and tense, it’s hard to describe. I feel that in my bones I have an innate reaction to the presence of bears, my ancestry is comprised of a long line of people who were eaten by bears while settling the northwest, I have the ability to calmly turn around and walk away from them when coming upon them as has happened a handful of times in my life, and just hopping that they don’t chase. I can do this while at the same time suppressing the emotion some might know as “terror”, and it felt very much like I was suppressing that emotion during this experience : but the thought that an ANIMAL would be capable of harassing us like this, coming down upon a family after hearing a gunshot to spookily hang out beyond their sight and snap the occasional thick branch until they leave? What kind of animal harasses and surveys humans like this instead of presenting itself or just outright attacking? And what kind of animal approaches a gunshot to begin with?

Nothing about this event made sense, all of it felt wrong, and I specifically said I would not embellish things but if I had to say definitively what bothered me the most it was that it felt like there was a conscious presence harassing us, and I couldn’t deny what that presence could most likely be.

The instant we had packed everything and started walking on our way out, in the dark mind you (which was a terribly bitter and sad kind of experience, to set up camp and have to abandon it at night) – everything felt better. There was no more fear. Not even the inclination to look behind us and make sure we weren’t being followed. I would say at that point none of us subconsciously felt it was a bear anymore. Something else was up and there was no saying it loud, although me and my dad talked about it the remainder of the night and agreed on what it most likely had been, while my little brother started coming up with exponentially fantastic explanations which me and my dad could laugh at and ‘agree’ with. He was at least no longer terrified.

We walked the entire way back to the car in the dark, not fearing bears once, in fact almost knowing they weren’t present. It felt instead like the forest had been vacated. Whatever spooked us spooked everything else too. Suddenly, us leaving felt “right”. Completely right. Even though it was bitter to lose this experience we had set out to have. There’s no telling what we would have experienced if we had stayed.

Not more than a month later, a group of people were run out of the same area by something throwing large rocks and boulders into the lake near their campsite.