[pct-l] Was UL Tents, now Cowboy Camping

[Paul Robison]

being from british columbia, we don't have snakes... but what we do have are 
bears; and lots of them.

my wife and i were cowboy camping on night (with our doberman) and a bear was 
sniffing my foot when i woke up...  i stirred my wife who looked over ... it was 
hovering over us,  nose to my knee by now...  a male blackbear, not too big... 
but it was still scary ...  i know it's not a grizzly, but it got my heart 
going...

... the dog slept right through it,  tucked between my wife and i, blissfully 
snoring inside our sleeping bag... till my wife did the classic  "no bear!" then 
the dog woke up in a fury and chased it off, end of story.

i wouldn't want to HAVE to cowboy camp,  when i do it, maybe it saves some time 
and has appeal;  but the appeal of cowboy camping wore off quickly for me,  i 
like retreating to my tent.
~Paul




________________________________
From: AsABat <asabat at 4jeffrey.net>
To: Palomino <palomino.pct at gmail.com>; PCT-L <pct-l at backcountry.net>
Sent: Tue, January 4, 2011 12:11:44 PM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Was UL Tents, now Cowboy Camping

Wow. Cowboy camping, I had a friend wake up in the middle of the night to a fox 
starting at him nose to nose. I once woke in the morning to find mountain lion 
tracks all around my sleeping bag, I guess he was too interested in the horses 
nearby to eat me. But a rattlesnake at my head would really freak me out.


AsABat
PCT Water Reports SoCal http://pct.4jeffrey.net
Send water updates to water at 4jeffrey.net
-- 
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

"Palomino" <palomino.pct at gmail.com> wrote:

>I'll share a cowboy camping story...not from the PCT, but from the So
>Cal
>desert...
>
>Twenty-some years ago, I accompanied the geology crew from Santa
>Barbara
>City College on one of their notoriously fun summertime field  trips to
>the
>Four Corners region of the desert southwest. There were about 25 of us,
>riding in vans. No one brought tents...cowboy camping was the norm,
>sort of
>a geologists' rite of passage.
>
>As I remember it, our first camp was on some BLM land near Mitchell
>Caverns
>in the high desert of southeastern California. After dinner and a
>review of
>the day, we spread out and settled in for the night. One of the
>students, a
>bright 19-year old named Gordon, had a pretty interesting experience. A
>mouse visited his camp a few times before midnight, running across his
>sleeping bag just enough to wake Gordon up. Finally, when the commotion
>happened behind him, right above his head, Gordon had enough. He
>reached
>outside his bag, grabbed his trusty rock pick, and in one motion,
>turned to
>swing the business end of the pick at the mouse.
>
>What he saw when he was about to swing was a big fat rattlesnake with a
>tiny, frightened mouse in his mouth. From his prone position, Gordon
>swung
>hard and drove the pick through the snake's head and pinned him to the
>ground, where he died a quick, but squirmy death. Then Gordon went back
>to
>sleep!
>
>I don't know what happened to the mouse.
>
>Gordon told everybody the story the next morning and showed us the
>evidence.
>Of course, he was henceforth known as "Gordon the Impaler."
>
>Good luck with that whole tent research thing!
>
>Jim Ostdick
>Palomino
>San Juan Bautista, CA
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