My friend almost got eaten by a bear. Here’s what I learned

How many times have you huddled in your sleeping bag at night worrying about every noise on the other side of the tent’s thin nylon walls? A leaf rustling in the wind sounds like a predator creeping into camp. A twig scratching on the outer fly reminds of a horror movie. And on it goes.

Tucked neatly inside your pop-up home, you know there’s very little separating you from the beasts of the night. Hopefully, though, the day’s hunt has beaten you down enough that you pass out from extreme fatigue before giving your mind a chance to wander. Exhaustion certainly put me and my two hunting partners to bed one unforgettable night during a mountain mule deer hunt in B.C. last year.

But it wasn’t enough to keep us there…