I went backpacking with my dad to Middle Velma Lake as a way to get outside and take a break from school. We had to obtain a permit to camp out there, and it was about 20 miles from the nearest road, so the park service required these permits to keep track of what was going on in the middle of nowhere. We got to our camp in the late afternoon, set up, explored, had dinner, and went to bed early, thanks to a crazy mountain-shaking storm that had suddenly blown in. Around 11 at night, everything went quiet again, so soft I swear I could hear myself blink, but on the periphery of my senses, I felt like I could listen to something else. Eventually, the sound became clearer, and it was the sound of someone or something that was bipedal shuffling outside of our tent. The moon was bright enough that when it began to circle our tent slowly, I could catch its shadow on the fabric. It circled us a few times, and I shoved a sweatshirt over my mouth to try and muffle the sound of my breathing - it paused when my dad rolled over in his sleep and eventually took off into the night. When we crawled out of the tent in the morning, there were large shuffle tracks around our tent that led off into the woods. We never discovered whether it was an animal or another person, but it was harrowing.