I used to do overnight camping trips with my kids when they were little. I took my daughter to
https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/east-bank-ross-lake and we set up at a camping site about five miles or so in. Everything was fine until she found the biggest fuck-off moose tracks imaginable and she became suddenly scared of sleeping in the woods. Fucking Bullwinkle eating her or some shit. At this point, she's in tears and the sun is going down soon, so I decide fuck it, time to go home because she was ruining the experience.
I broke down the camp in record time and in order to beat nightfall (because that trail would become insanely dangerous due to cliff edges and thick forest canopies overhead) we start sprinting down the trail like our asses are on fire to reach the car.
I always open carried (CPL permit) in those woods because that area has a few bears that have been known to kill people. On that run back we were maybe a half mile from the bridge by the parking area and suddenly I felt dread: it was now almost pitch black and something had my hair standing on end. I drew and kept going, and about 30 feet later there was movement in front of me on the trail. Not knowing what else to do I shook on my phone's flashlight and there was a full grown mountain lion walking down the trail right at me not 10 feet away.
I screeched like a silly bitch and yelled at my daughter to stop while raising the pistol, but it just stopped, looked at me, then ran off the side of the trail up the hillside.
Did I smell the thing? Did I catch an eye reflection and it didn't fully click? I don't know to this day, but I almost ended up literally running down a cougar on the trail. If it wanted dinner, I don't know that I could have dropped it in time before it had me.
It was a while before she was willing to try camping again, and then only in a "built up" campground surrounded by other people. Fucking cat.
