My wife is not comfortable around firearms.So I decided to not take a firearm on this trip.
So a couple years ago, for our anniversary we decided to go backpacking to a lake that was about 5 miles outside of a small mountain town in the Cascades. We found an awesome spot at the back of the lake on the sandy inlet, completly exposed! It was november and we were the only ones there.
Well in the middle of the night we were startled awake by gunfire, really loud gunfire echoing across the lake. Then we heard yelling and someone screaming, "I'm going to Fu#^$%g kill you". This was repeated several times. As the voices moved closer to the back of the lake where we were camped I really started to worry. I exited the tent and gout a count of headlamps and their positions. I walked about 40 yards from the tent to the edge of the water, putting distance between myself and my wife who was in the tent. I decided to give away my presence by turning on my flashlight and sweeping on the ground and in the opposite direction of the badguys. My intent was to say "hey there is someone here so don't shoot this way" but not to target them with light which could escalate the situation.
I did this several times, and they went quite and seemed to setup camp and build a fire about 400 yards away.
I didnt sleep the rest of the night.
The next day I decided to make contact playing dumb. I had hiked my canoe in so I approached their camp from the water. I asked if they had heard all of the shooting. They said it was them and apologized for their drunken behaviour.
I commented that I thought maybe there was a bear or something in a camp. I told them I didnt want to get caught off guard by a bear, so I loaded my AR15 just incase.
Later that day we went for a paddle, when we returned someone had entered our tent. Nothing was missing but our space was still violated.
I have since told my wife that I will never go unarmed again. in fact i now have redundancies.
I guess the point is you just never know. Random things happen in random places at unexpected times. So be as prepared as you are comfortable with and never think "it wont happen here"!
Pics from that trip
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