On a foolish and most treacherous migration through the dark woods of Yosemite National Park, one must take what seems as excessive precautions against the great forest beasts, most notably the black bear that has become greatly familiar with the smells and tastes of processed human food and, possessing a great olfactory sense, will come near to one's camp and steal it out of one's tent or knapsack, or rummage through one's site looking for a morsel if recent cooking has taken place and the odors are still wafting through the air.
It is for this reason that over the course of our detestable trip, we were not able to merely consume our food and place the spare dishes back on our persons, but had to wash them by hand, using only bottled water and biodegradable soap, at a distance of at least one hundred feet from our campsite, and store all of our scented items, including bug repellent, chapstick, moist towelettes, and our used food wrappers in the heavy, round, thick plastic bear canisters that we carried with us in our packs and placed several feet from our sleeping compartment late at night as to not tempt the fates at a great beast slashing through the walls to gain access to it. This did add a great amount of effort to our days and nights, and occupied a great deal of our time.
That first evening, we found ourselves most cold and alone in the rough wilderness. We were soon relieved to learn, through our own sense of smell that pales in comparison to that of the monsters surely surrounding the encampment, of a fire. We followed the scent and the smoke to a ring that had been made in the dirt, with rocks to hold in the fire and with timber on which to sit and rest ourselves in the company of other friendly and lonesome travelers. In this circle sat a great deal of stereotypical forest wanderers the 50 year-old hippie burnout who couldn't stop talking about his former drug problems before he found Jesus, the father and daughter couple sharing a bonding weekend, the stupid tourist who brought paper plates and burned them on the fire, which is strictly against the park rules, the adventure couple, who had seemingly been on every continent for some trip, and the lone ranger, a guy at the beginning of a three week trek over the entirety of the John Muir Trail.
But as we enjoyed this interaction with a representative grouping of civilized society, we were tired from our journey and in desperate need of slumber.
At our camp, we found our belongings undisturbed by bears in our absence, but the cold and dark of night daunted us still. We climbed into our chamber and attempted to let sleep drift over us. Oh, but were the walls 30 feet thick and made of concrete, and heaped atop with razor wire, and surrounded by a silent alarm that would alert the marines in case of intrusion, I would have slept no better that night, for fear of bears, and wolves, and other great creatures of the night. As it were, the millimeter-thick piece of nylon tenting left me with too thin a barrier between me and the forces of evil that waited for my casual slumber to attack, and I could not rest but a minute for most of the night.
In the time that I did find myself dozing, I awoke to the sound of heavy breathing just outside the tent. My heart rate rose and I suppressed a scream as I heard the great and horrible thing inches to my face, no doubt sensing that I had forgotten not to use vanilla scented shampoo that morning! Eventually though, the noise grew steady and I realized that this was not a great beast at all but Erin snoring next to me, and that I had turned myself around so that it was her to my front and not an angry bear outside the tent. I felt a great relief as well as an amount of embarrassment wash over me, but still, I would not sleep at all for the rest of the night for fear that the next time the threat would be real.