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Going through some old pictures reminded me of a time I was taking a midday snooze on a mountain side during a Colorado elk hunt. I woke up to a weird noise and here was this fox with his nose to my boots. I managed to get my camera out of my pillow (backpack) and snap a couple pictures...even with that movement he stayed within 5-10 feet for close to 15 minutes..kinda cool.
Have you any like animal experiences while on a backpack hunt?

A bear decided to paw my tent one night, even though I'd put all the food away from the tent. The next day a bear walked casually past me, perhaps 30 feet away. The day after a guy passed me, who had 5 deep scratches across his face and neck. He'd been roughed up by a bear the night before.

I call that my "bearpacking" trip.

Several years ago I was sitting on an open ridge leaning up against a tree with a game trail about 10' below me. I am sitting there glassing the ridge across the canyon and put my binos down only to see a full curl sheep standing about 20' away on the trail. He looks at me and I am looking at him and then he just walks by me like I was not even there.

I was bowhunting mulies. I was sitting on a dirt pile watching a doe and fawn below me. The fawn was bouncing all over the place and it was a kick to watch it. Then I heard a swish, swish, swish sound behind me. Huh? I couldn't see anything. I watched the deer for a couple more minutes, then swish, swish, swish. Ok, what the heck is that. I slowly turned around and started looking closer. It was a badger running through dry leaves. He'd run a bit, then stop to look. He made a semi circle around me at about 5 yds. He was apparently heading for his hole. It took me a minute to realize that my dirt pile seat WAS his hole. I moved about 5 yds away from him and he ran right up and dived in.

Nice fox pics! I saw one early last Sunday morning, I was fishing one bank of the Eagle River and he was making his rounds on the other bank. Wish I'd had a camera.

Had a few close encounters with bears. One time I was working my way up a brushy ravine, bowhunting elk. Heard something thrashing up above me, thought it must be a bull raking trees so I started cow calling. The "bull" went silent, and just about the time I gave up on calling and starting moving up towards him, here comes a cinnamon bear trotting right at me. I yelled and he pulled up short at about 30 yards, turned to the side and walked off very stiff-legged and slowly, his body language conveying the message that he was not afraid of me. Maybe he thought I got to "his" cow before he could.

Later on in that same hunt when I finally did arrow a bull, a big blackie got to him before I did in some really thick oak brush and started to chow down. Luckily for me he only had time to remove what the DOW calls "evidence of sex, naturally attached." I was a little worried about explaining that to a warden so took lots of pics but never got checked.

Another time we were packing meat out and stashed a quarter up on a big rock. When we got back to retrieve it a pine marten had laid claim to it. He was perched right on top of it baring his teeth and wouldn't budge until we pelted him with a few small rocks. Must've thought he'd hit the jackpot. Those things are tenacious, good thing they don't get very big.

The saddest encounter was one early morning on an elk hunt. I was working my way down a game trail and saw a mulie fawn laying down under a tree, right on the trail. As I got closer it didn't move so I knew something was wrong. It was dead, but not cold yet. I kept moving down the trail and was not too far past the fawn when I heard a doe bleating. She was coming down the trail from the opposite direction, calling to her fawn.

This guy was staring at me as I took an early morning piss. He seemed unimpressed.

It wasn't a backpack hunt but I'd shot a moose. On our last trip in to finish packing it, it was after dark and a pine martin had laid claim to it. He wasn't about to give in easily. It was in 10" of snow and the hide was frozen to the ground. He ran right up to us and grabbed the hide to drag away. Yeah, right. A 5lb martin dragging a 100lb frozen down hide. He tried to backpedal with it and was throwing snow with all 4 but of course he couldn't budge it. When we left, he was sitting on the rib cage shaking a fist at us and yelling "Don't come back you slugs!"
Unfortunately, since it was dark I hadn't taken my camera. I would have got some great pics of his antics.

That's what she said......

Cool picture!

I've had voles scrambling over my boots while napping. Bears walk up behind me in the dark. Various deer/elk come in close from behind before I knew they were there. Also had owls/hawks land within arm’s length while in a tree stand.

About the most troubling to me was a very bold (and large) coyote that appeared outside of camp in the pre-dawn while I was preparing to hunt. I came out of the tent and it didn’t spook. I talked to it and it trotted off then came back. Yelled at it…no response. Finally, I threw a couple rocks/sticks at it. It would trot off them come back closer with its head down in that predator pose. I was close to shooting the damn thing and ruining the morning hunt before my hunting partner’s presence scared it off. I don’t know if it was just bold from being feed by other back packers or thought I looked like an easy bite.