We are often 75-100 miles from a large source of artificial light and at 7-9,000 feet. The Milky Way is awe inspiring with those conditions. Once about 7 years ago I woke up at about 4:300am to answer the call of nature. When I shined my flashlight over the tailgate to make sure there was no snakes I noticed a fresh set of Mt. Lion tracks on top of my tracks from the prior evening. He was just sniffing around to see what we were.
As far as brave goes. I used to tent camp when I was very young and one night the next tent over got raided by a bear in the middle on the night. The tent fabric didn’t even slow him down. So I decided to not drag a tent along. It does save set-up and take down time.