[HermitThrush]

This is actually sort of curious to me. Perhaps when we are out in the woods are senses are so tuned in to listening that we can perceive even the slightest deviation from the norm. I felt something like what you all are talking about while camping at Foggy Dew Campground in the Methow, but pushed through it (thank heavens I was camped next to a creek for some white noise). Had my knife nearby, though, and my bear spray. Ha! I suppose many of the things we perceive are animals (biological sense of predators?) but do you suppose our senses may be tuned in to something else in some places? I'm a committed Christian - consequently, I believe, at least to some extent, that there are levels of reality we can't see, but that sometimes we can perceive. Could that be part of it?

[fourteen410]

Well, someone did write a book about a similar experience at Ape Caves The Ape Cave Horror

[l'Emmerdeur]

I've had that feeling a few times in all my years of soloing. Nothing quite like when something stumbled into the side of my tent and landed on me in the middle of the night up on Ingalls Creek. Made getting back to sleep a bit of a challenge...

[texasbb]

Just stay out of the woods on still days/nights. Nothing stalks you on the trail or tiptoes around the tent if it's windy.

[Pyrites]

[Kim Brown]

[Schroder]

I get followed all the time

[zephyr]

[moonspots]

[Just_Some_Hiker]

I've been followed by cougars a couple times, so yeah.

[CarriesNineFires]

Cascade bears don't stalk people, nor do Cascade cougars. At least not with the intention of attacking. But that doesn't mean they're not following you. Who knows their thoughts? The cougars could be expecting that you will lead them to a deer because they've figured out the hunters, or maybe they just like to travel easy along a trail just like you do (likely). And I'm thinking that they don't mind being close to you because they know they can easily escape at any moment: cougars are masters of their environment. The bears are definitely attuned to the likelihood of a human's possession of delicious foodstuffs and that could well be the bear's motive. I've spent hundreds of nights in a tent or on the ground, and countless miles on trails and I still get that uneasy feeling from time to time. I know that, statistically, I'm far safer in the mountains than in Seattle but that weird feeling comes up and it's just a mind game. When's the last time you heard of a violent animal encounter in these parts, notwithstanding the outlier of the weird fatal mountain goat attack a few years ago? That queasy feeling of being followed should be looked at as an interesting experience rather than a threat.

[Malachai Constant]

Used to be followed by cougars a lot in the Olympics, no tracks on way up but tracks on way down. A young Grizz followed us once in the Canadian Rockies but may have just been headed in the same direction near Floe Lake. In college we used to hike op to climbs on Friday night and saw lots of eyes, spooky but not dangerous.

[SwitchbackFisher]

I think the worst is after a hunt or before when it is pitch black and I'm trying not to use light so I don't scare anything in area for morning hunts. In North Dakota I have kicked up pheasants and they make a racket... Most terrifying thing ever lol. When it's dark they don't pop up till you just about step on the either.

[moonspots]

[Schroder]