This has been bothering me for a while and I would really appreciate your opinion. This is a little off subject but I can’t think of a better forum to ask the question.

About five months ago I flew from Chicago to Seattle to go on a 4 day hiking trip in the Cascade Mountains with my Sister, Father and another friend from Chicago. Of all of us I have the most back country experience. I don’t usually carry a pistol when I am hiking but it was fall and we were going into bear country.

I had borrowed a .45 from my brother-in-law to put the less experienced in the group at ease regarding “dangerous” wildlife. I didn’t think that for a moment I would ever use the pistol.

I will try and describe the situation as neutrally as possible:

We were about 9 miles into the back country. We had a beautiful view of Mt. Rainer and were starting to make camp next to a mountain lake just before dusk. After we had our tents up I broke out the water filter and took my sister to the lake to procure water for supper. It was dark enough at this point we were wearing headlamps (me: led with 3 AAA batteries if you are interested) I was doing the pumping (used a Katadyn mini. Don’t bother in the back country. It clogs frequently. I returned it and upgraded.) and my sister was holding the water bottles. The next thing I knew she dropped the bottles she was holding and took off at a dead run. She made about 40 yards in the time it took me to look up. All I could hear was the echo of her screaming “BEAR!”. Well what would you do. The pepper spray and .45 were both about 60 yards away in camp. I dropped everything and almost passed her on the way back to camp. Mind you I didn’t hear or see anything. I don’t know if it was the adrenalin or just the fact that I am very use to noises in the woods but I couldn’t make out where this “bear” was. As I am halfway back to camp my friend from Chicago and father are yelling at the top of there lungs. Apparently they heard or saw it as well. As I fell back into camp I immediately chambered a shell, pointed the .45 in the air and squeezed….well I guess more like feverishly jerked a round off into the air.

I have been shooting for many years and I can tell you when your adrenalin is that high you don’t even hear the bang. Anyway as soon as I fired we heard this EXACT phrase. “Hey quit shooting in the air” Now here is the catch. If this guy could see me well enough to know I was shooting in the air why didn’t he announce himself as to coming into camp. The sound was from this man and his buddies on horses coming through the woods. They had to have intentionally gotten off the trail before getting to our camp. When we called them in they were very cautious and informed us that they were with the forest service. They left immediately.

Now here are the questions. 1. Do you think I overreacted? 2. What would you have done? 3. With your limited knowledge, if they really were with the forest service why didn’t they announce themselves and after I fired a gun why didn’t I get a lecture?

Thanks for your opinion. Cameron