Shonna Kaye Dehl and Maggie Bassett
Late Sunday night, a pair of experienced Wyoming outdoorswomen were settling into their tents deep in the Bighorn Mountains when a large black bear decided to aggressively check on their setup.
Shonna Kaye Dehl of Lovell and Maggie Bassett of Powell have plenty of experience camping in the Bighorns and, on their most recent trip, decided to settle in on Fool Creek with four dogs in tow. Among the furry campers included two German shepherds, a Labrador retriever and another shepherd. With plenty of company, Bassett and Dehl followed standard bear-country protocols, including a clean camp and adequate food storage before peacefully drifting off to sleep Sunday night.
At around 11 p.m., that peaceful slumber ended.
“I felt the bear hit the side of the tent,” Bassett recalled. “My dogs growled and I yelled, ‘Hey! Get out of here, bear!’ It just hit the tent harder and I heard the tent starting to rip.”
Bassett grabbed her flashlight and a .38 Special revolver, a compact self-defense firearm that some might argue to be a little light for the job at hand, and fired a warning shot at the bear’s feet. It had no effect. By then Dehl was out of her tent with her own flashlight and a proper pistol (10mm) loaded with hardcast ammunition, far better suited for large predators.
What followed was roughly 20 minutes of chaos.
The women screamed and yelled at the top of their lungs. The dogs barked aggressively at first but quickly realized they were outmatched, and retreated to the vehicles and waited quietly rather than engaging or getting underfoot.
“That bear couldn’t give a crap about our dogs,” Bassett said. “They quickly understood that they were outmatched.”
The bear, described by both women as large and mature — most likely a boar — showed no fear. It circled the camp, ignored the first gunshot and the noise, and kept coming back. Dehl had a clearer shot with the 10mm but held her fire because she couldn’t be certain of a clean, ethical placement in the low light and movement.
Bassett fired a second shot. This time the bear finally retreated.
Shaken and adrenaline-flooded, the women retreated to their vehicles with the dogs. They waited roughly an hour, honking the horn periodically, before grabbing their sleeping bags and driving to a family cabin owned by Dehl. They didn’t settle in until around 2 a.m.
The following morning, they returned to camp and found the remnants of a chaotic and grim scene.
The shredded tents | Maggie Basset
“The bear had come back in the night and had just completely ripped everything apart,” Bassett told Cowboy State Daily. Tents were shredded and collapsed. Yet despite the destruction, the bear never accessed any food, a testament to the women’s proper storage.
They found no blood or other sign indicating that either shot had connected with the attacking bruin. They reported the incident to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department that afternoon, and within an hour, three personnel were on scene investigating and setting traps. After deploying four traps and posting the general area all week, there are no reports of bears being captured and no additional incidents reported.
Both women remain confident that the animal they saw through their flashlight beams on Sunday night was a black bear, not a grizzly. While rumors of grizzlies in the Bighorns persist (one young male grizzly was confirmed and lethally removed in 2024 after preying on cattle near Ten Sleep), officials too believe this was the handiwork of a black bear.
Either way, the experience has left both women rethinking their approach to camping.
“I don’t see myself sleeping in a tent anytime soon, maybe never,” Bassett said. Dehl agreed: “Yeah, we’re going to need four walls.”
Bassett also added that she now has her sights set on a 10mm pistol like Dehl’s.
