Once well backpacking in Colorado's Lost Creek Wilderness. I spotted cat tracks near a creek crossing. Later that night, well sleeping on a scrub pine dotted ledge near timberline. I awoke in the wee hours to answer the call. The zipper seized in my bag so badly that it remains that way today, some 20 years later. My flash light was foolishly buried in the unknown recesses of my pack. I managed egress, business, and re-entry in the pitch black darkness of an overcast sky. After which, a nearby animal proceeded to growl at me from close but unseen proximity. Without light all I could do is keep a revolver at the ready until sunrise. Later on, a small distance from that camp, I found the remains of a marmont carcass. Likely a lynx or bobcat was my midnight caller as the tracks were too small for a lion.
Sometimes I carry a small backup gun in any one of various ways well burdened by a big pack. But my primary gun is almost always a revolver in a Hunter 1100 holster. That holster can be unsnapped from the pack belt and re-snapped to my pants belt well the gun remains snapped/secured in the holster.
