night is near

… After that, we sat back down by the fire, put some herbal tea on to boil, and the guys asked me how and where I planned to spend the night. I replied that I'd sleep right here, in the shelter by the fire, since I'd come without a tent or sleeping bag — traveling light. "But you do know that bears roam freely around this camp, right?" they asked, surprised. It was already evening, and people had started hanging their food in the shelter where we were sitting, wrapping it in plastic bags so the bears wouldn't smell it. In truth, everything had been planned in advance. I knew where I was going and roughly what to expect, since I'd been in these parts before. I decided to go light for one reason — to strip myself of the chance to hide, to protect myself, to remove the temptation to fail the task. Even before the hike began, I understood that the chances of meeting a bear were higher at night, so during the nighttime I had to stay exposed and alert, and if possible, not sleep…