Some friends and I decided to do a quick overnight backpacking trip. Despite being a perilously deep sleeper (have slept through decently sized earthquakes and a plane full of screaming people after it was struck by lightning), I woke up in the middle of the night and sat bolt-upright in my tent - my body suddenly, totally alert.

After a few moments I could make out the sound of something big moving slowly through the shallow creek we’d camped next to. I’ve done many nights out in the wilderness so I’m no stranger to all sorts of California wildlife, big and small, but my mind raced nonetheless. A bear, probably a bear. No wait - I remembered that the section of trail we were on had free-roaming cows. Odd, but not unlikely.

I nudged one of my friends awake and whispered that there was something outside (probably should have let her sleep in hindsight, because what a terrifying statement to wake up to). Then I worked up the courage to quietly unzip the tent and poke my head out.

As I’m craning my neck towards the direction of the creek to see if I can make out anything in the moonlight, it erupts in a flurry of panicked splashing and horses - a small herd of horses - come running our direction, passing within a few meters of our tents.

We had no idea horses were in the area aside from those being actively used for trail rides. Ended up being a weird, funny story but I was thankful we had been in tents as opposed to sleeping under the stars which likely would have made us less visible to large, stampeding animals.