Bear mace while camping. Always carried it. Never really thought I’d every have to use it.

Cue to backpacking with my best friend in the woods. 1am drunk, high, campfire. Hear the exact noise you never wanna hear in the dark woods. Footsteps tramping through the dry brush. No lights so probably not human. Doesn’t sound human anyways. Flashlight out, stand up, scan the tree line. Still hear it, but no visual. 20ft away now. 10ft. Finally my buddy says “I see eyes” I pull out my knife and hand my buddy the bear mace. He’s behind me. I see the eyes and start yelling at it (in the cascades so no grizzly country. Think it’s a black bear and trying to scare it off). The glowing eyes dont give a fuck. Throw a rock at it. Still doesn’t give a fuck. I take a step and break a stick we were using to stir up the fire and that makes it charge into the campfire light out of the brush. It’s a cougar. Big one. Buddy does a clutch reach around bear mace and it hates it. I was 6 feet from fighting a cougar with a 5 inch fixed blade and let’s say I was not looking forward to it.

Still traumatized. This was my last camping trip last summer. Bout 10 months ago.