My question is a little sideways of this thread, but some people with bear knowledge are posting, it seems, and I want their opinion.
I went backpacking in the Weminuche Wilderness area in SW Colorado last August. This area is known to have some -- not many -- black bears and not likely any grizzly bears (although South San Juan Wilderness maybe 50 miles ESE of the Weminuche IS suspected to have a small population of grizzly bears). One evening at camp at about 11,000 feet, in a fairly remote and isolated area, a deer came up remarkably close to us, so close I wondered if the deer was sick. In the night, we heard noises -- loud sniffing and/or snorting noises -- near our tent and we went out and looked around with our flashlights. We saw a bunch of eyes blazing back at us, at about the height you would expect from several deer. One loud sniffing noise was right at our tent door.
The next morning when I got out I saw a substantial smear of blood -- still wet to the touch -- on the outside of the tent. The size of this smear was maybe 3" by 4". I had a bad blister on the heel of my foot. I had gotten up in the night to pee. It is possible that my heel could have been bleeding and could have rubbed against the tent wall but (1) I would be surprised that my heel was bleeding enough to make that large a patch on the tent wall, (2) I got up at 2 AM and the blood was still not dry at 7 AM (could have been some ground fog or mist at night, possibly).
What do you think? I speculate that some predator made a kill and came sniffing around our tent. Maybe a bear killed a deer and afterwards checked us out? At the same time, our packs were outside the tent with packaged food in them (including a garbage bag with an empty, opened foil pouch of smoked salmon), some rodent gnawed through my pack bag and ate a smidggin of granola. If a bear had come around, wouldn't it have ripped up the pack?
Comments? Thoughts?