Five years ago in the Wind River Range of Wyoming I had something repeatedly breaking logs approximately 100 ft from my tent. I was over ten miles from the Trailhead and my car was the only one there when I left and the only one there when I got back a week later. This is not an area that is well connected to other trails or used by thru hikers and they would have to go way out of their way to come in from other Trailheads. Not impossible, but very unlikely for other people to end up at this small lake I was at from a different starting point.
It was a perfectly calm night in mid June and I had just climbed into the tent for the night and started reading a book when I heard the first crash in the woods behind the tent. It sounded like maybe a tree falling, or if a large person stepped on a log and the entire thing broke. It happened again a minute later which to me ruled out "tree falling". Then it happened yet again. Then whatever was doing it was suddenly in my camp walking around the tent. I couldn't tell if it had two or four legs because my heart was thumping out of my chest and I was quickly planning my self defense if it tried to get in the tent. After awhile it was gone and nothing tried to get my food bag hanging outside of camp that night. I've never been more frightened while alone in the backcountry for sure. I'm almost certain it was a bear though. A buddy and I actually encountered a big black bear at that same lake a few years prior to this and that bear actually stood its ground while foraging right on the trail. We couldn't get it to amble away by yelling at it from a good distance away, he just looked at us and continued his business so we ended up hiking way around instead. I have always thought that was strange behavior for a Wilderness Bear. Also, someone had carved an inscription into a tree in the campsite I was at that said "Adventures with Yogi" so maybe that bear frequents the area and scares the crap out of people that camp there. Still seemed strange for a bear to be breaking logs in half repeatedly though. . . I'll never know what it truly was because I was too frightened to unzip the tent and shine my light around.
