That One Time In Colorado

I had a crazy experience...

A very young me (I’m probably 23 years old here) heading into the Maroon Bells Wilderness to attempt (and succeed) in summiting all 3 of the peaks behind me…

I was recently asked if I have ever “experienced any weird shit” during my years of being in the outdoors and traveling all over the country on backpacking, climbing, and skiing trips. There’s been bad weather experiences, extreme cold, and times we’ve tucked our tails and retreated but none of those count as “weird shit”. But I do have a story to share of a creepy night out at the base of the Maroon Bells…

Myself and 3 of my Colorado climbing buddies were on a 10 day trip to climb North Maroon Peak, Maroon Peak, Pyramid Peak, and Capital Peak all outside of Aspen, CO. Taking on the Maroon Bells was the middle of the trip and those peaks are as beautiful in person as are the pictures of them that you see in postcards. But I had an eerie experience our second night out under the stars.

I was woken out of my sleep late at night (maybe 1 or 2 in the morning) by footsteps outside of camp. It wasn’t deer or elk for I have heard them many times and this was very different, big but quiet sounding. My first thought was a bear. There were signs at the trailhead that the local bears had been active recently with fall approaching. So I listened as they sounded far away but then proceeded to get closer and closer. They sounded close enough that I was almost afraid to look up. All of a sudden the noise stopped. After a moment I decided to look up (Now I had one of those tents with the clear window panel on the rainfly that was supposedly to let you see the stars or moon or whatever.) and part of that clear panel was fogged up and (I swear to this day) I saw a dark head move away. The footprints then started again but this time grew quieter and quieter then nothing. I shrugged it off as a bad dream and went back to sleep.

Early the next morning me and the other guys rolled out of our tents and before I could ask one of the guys says “did you guys hear something come into camp last night and promptly leave like it was checking things out?” so I chirped right in and shared my story from the late hours. We checked around camp for any kind of bear or other tracks and found nothing (the ground was hard packed dirt with rocks and pine needles everywhere). We chalked it up to a bear wandering through camp but I just can’t get that image out of my head of the clear panel on top of my tent being partially fogged up and what looked like a dark head move away, almost as if whatever it was was looking down at me fogging up that window.

The believer in me says it could’ve been the big guy but then again it could’ve just been a bear. I guess we’ll never know…