Originally shared by Inspiration Adventure Blog
Bumping into Bears (Stories and Advice)
I woke from a deep sleep and it was almost too dark to see the walls of the tent. There was a sound I couldn’t quite make out because I was fading in and out of consciousness. For a moment I thought I heard footsteps. Assuming it was my hiking partner, John, I ignored the sound and began letting go of my thoughts to fall back to sleep. Then there was a barely discernible deep throaty breathing – my heart pounded and my senses exploded into hyper-vigilance and for just a brief instant all I could hear was the blood pounding through the arteries in my head. With eyes dilated with fear, I could now see my hiking buddy still asleep in his bag. And there it was again, the sound of the thick moss outside slowly compressing with each step of a heavy four-legged animal. I could hear its deep nasal breathing more clearly now and with every few breaths it sniffed as if detecting the contents of the tent. My mind flashed back to no more than an hour before when I had exited the tent to pee and at mid-stream I saw a shadowy movement at the far side of the muskeg. It looked as though it may have been a bear, but being too exhausted to care, I finished up and crawled back into the tent to sleep. Now with just a thin veil of fabric between us and a bear while camped deep in the Alaskan bush, I was frozen with fear. In an attempt to avoid detection, I slowed my breathing and tried not to move a muscle. Meanwhile, John was quietly asleep and none the wiser to the possible doom lurking outside. The bear cautiously walked another full circle around the tent as I now labored to control my breathing. Praying that we weren’t about to meet our end, I fought against the urge to hyperventilate as my heart pounded in my chest. – The next thing I knew, it was morning and I was waking from a deep sleep. I don’t know if I had eventually fallen asleep or had passed out from the ordeal, but everything was fine. The only sign that anything happened at all were a series of large dimples in the moss where the bear had walked.
Besides having been stalked in the tent by a curious bear, the only time I was aggressively approached by a bear was when I was a young boy. We were living on a mountainous ridge above the Allegheny River outside of Franklin, PA. It was the week before Thanksgiving when my mom took my brother and I for a hike down through the woods along an old abandoned oil-well road. My family used these old routes as hiking trails nearly every weekend. We hiked down the switch-backed dirt trail through the woods until we nearly reached the Allegheny River. The trail became very steep near a small cascading waterfall then took a sharp left leading through thick forests of mountain laurel. At that point, my brother spotted a clearing speckled with what appeared to be small clumps of snow. After investigating, the snow turned out to be tuffs of deer fur littering an area of about twenty feet in diameter. A pile of fresh bones were discarded near a clump of leaves hiding the bulk of the deer’s flesh. An enormous pile of bear manure was at the base of a tree that had been mauled by the bear’s claws a good eight feet up the trunk. It wasn’t long before all three of us were running as fast as we could back up the trail with an angry bear bellowing from behind a patch of mountain laurels. Unfortunately, this experience led to years of terrifying dreams of bear attacks. I never wanted to encounter one again and the thought of being eaten by a bear was on my mind every time I walked through the woods. Even so, with fear came obsession and with obsession came respect.
I’ve had the privilege of encountering quite a few bears in my life. At around age 10, I saw a large Pennsylvania black bear from the safety of my grandmother’s car. At age 20, I had the good fortune to encounter a very rare grizzly bear while in the Cascade Mountains of Washington. At age 21, I encountered a small silver-tip grizzly crossing the road in Yellowstone National Park. While in Alaska, I saw three brown bears in total including a giant coastal brown bear that, with front paws the size of dinner plates and its shoulders approximately 5’ tall, looked to be pushing 1200 pounds. While back in Yellowstone for my honeymoon, we saw a grizzly bear dart across the road in front of us and another very large one splashing through a stream. While hiking in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania, my wife and I encountered a sleeping Romanian brown bear and another time got to view a brown bear feeding on corn from a hunter’s association cabin. Back in Pennsylvania, I’ve seen four more black bears – one of which was a cub high in a tree. I think I’m at 15 different bears right now.
I’ve learned a lot about bears over the years. It started when I was just a kid looking up stuff in our old encyclopedia as a way to cope with my fear of bears. I’ve also read books, seen lots of documentaries and read magazine articles on the subject. My brother and father-in-law also filled in some gaps of knowledge based on their experiences hunting. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert, but for being just a guy that goes into the woods, I know more than most.
We all know that grizzly bears are the larger more aggressive of the two terrestrial North American bears, but even this may not be true at all times and in all places. The average adult grizzly is around 700 pounds and the average adult black bear around 300 pounds. The grizzly bears that live in the arctic interior can weigh a bit less due to poor diet. For the opposite reason, black bears in Pennsylvania, Minnesota and parts of Alaska are relatively enormous with the largest ones weighing over 800 pounds. Larger yet are the Alaskan brown bears that live along the coast and eat well enough to reach as much as 1500 pounds. Aggressive black bears, having been systematically eliminated over the last several centuries, have left the eastern black bear population fairly docile. Black bears that live in deep wooded wilderness locations out west, in Canada and in Alaska can be a lot more aggressive than the ones we have in the east. But the most aggressive and dangerous bears are the ones with cubs, the ones that are sick or starving and the ones that are feeding; this is true for both kinds of bears.
For their size, bears are ninja quiet while walking through the woods. It makes almost no sense how such a large animal can move so stealthily, but they just do. They are also tremendously difficult to spot if they want to avoid your gaze. Some bears freeze in place making them blend in to their surroundings. I’ve even seen a black bear lay down flat on its stomach with its head down temporarily disappearing in a thicket of ferns. They also have a tendency to quietly circle around behind you while you’re hiking as to avoid detection. My brother told me he was once tracking a bear in snow only to come to a dead end where the tracks just stopped. It appeared as though the bear completely vanished because it had jumped straight out of its tracks and landed 20 feet away on the other side of a thicket. When he finally found its tracks, he followed it back the way it came – meaning he had passed within 30 feet of the escaping bear while tracking it. I also watched a bear take great care to avoid stepping in puddles and mud in a large wet muddy area; it jumped like a cat over the large puddles and left no tracks in the mud whatsoever.
Bears squeeze into caves much smaller than one would reasonably consider and in some cases, ridiculously small. They’ll also den in the hole left behind from the root ball of a fallen tree or just dig one of their own. Surprisingly enough, some bears are completely fine with denning in a thicket or brush after making what appears to be a giant bird’s nest. This is how we encountered the sleeping Romanian brown bear and I believe that particular one was already in torpor. In areas of heavy snow, bears enjoy making dens in thickets and brush which after heavy snow forms snow wells. This is how my father-in-law woke up a Brown Bear; he stepped up onto a snow well to get a better visual while boar hunting and then suddenly fell into the well waking a very surprised and angry bear. Eastern black bears have adapted very well to people and have been caught denning under decks, porches and mobile homes with home-owners none the wiser and from what I’ve heard, this is more common than you’d think.
Bears can be fun to see, but not at the camp site. These are the things you can do to help keep bears out of your tent and therefore you out of their mouths. The first thing to avoid is food inside the tent; never ever bring food in the tent for any reason at any time – not even then. Store your food out of the reach of a bear at least 100 feet downwind from your tent. This can be done by hanging it at least 20 feet off the ground and 10 feet out from the trunk in black bear country or at least 30 feet off the ground in grizzly country. A bear-proof food canister can be helpful at keeping the bear from your food even if they get their paws on it. Keep in mind, double-bagging food in air-tight zip-locks can help keep the scent to a minimum. Also eating bland foods is recommended in areas with high populations of potentially aggressive bears. Avoid setting the camp up near game trails, rivers and streams during the salmon run or near other food sources. It’s also a good idea to protect your tent with a portable electric fence if you’ll be in serious bear country. After having a bear stalk around my tent at night, I don’t think I’ll ever camp in the backcountry without one. Special care should also be taken while camping during times of draught or at times when rangers communicate that bears are low on their preferred food source. Hiking in noisy groups will help fend off the bears, but I’ve read somewhere that bear bells are fairly ineffective.
When encountering any bear, the most reassuring behavior it can display is standing up to investigate or walking away from you. The most aggressive behavior is having it stare at you with its head low, foot stomping or if it makes loud chomping noises with its teeth; I’ve seen this behavior and it’s not a good feeling. A grizzly may feign disinterest, but it’s probably paying close attention to your behavior. Avoid communicating aggression to a grizzly bear such as staring directly at it with your chest facing it. Instead, communicate disinterest by standing with your side to the bear and keep an eye on it indirectly while walking slowly away. It’s also said that turning your back on a grizzly will help to disarm its rage, but I think I would personally have a difficult time with this. Grizzly bears may also leave the area and then quickly return in a rage; this is especially likely if it had been feeding or if it feels you were behaving aggressively.
There have been more documented cases lately of black bears engaging in pursuing hikers, sometimes for miles, in a display of predatory behaviors. They can also became enraged like a grizzly bear, especially if it has cubs or is sick or starving. If attacked by a black bear, do not play dead. This is because black bears enjoy eating fresh killed meat and if they think they’ve killed you, they are likely to keep biting. Instead, it’s recommended to fight back especially by striking the soft of its nose.
Grizzly bears are well known for their rage and potential for seemingly unprovoked attacks. As stated previously, communicating behaviors of disinterest and especially not running away or screaming will increase the likelihood of the bear leaving you alone or engaging in a bluff charge where it nearly contacts you, but runs right by you into the woods. Only play dead if it contacts you; if you play dead before it contacts you, it will roll you around to try and figure out why you spontaneously died. If you play dead after, it will likely bury you in leaves and walk away because it prefers to eat rotted meat.
That said, there are ways to fend off a bear attack besides fighting it off or playing dead. Many hikers carry rifles or high caliber hand guns in the wilderness of Alaska. This is only as effective as the skill level of the user. Many hikers that carry guns have still been attacked because they were either not quick enough at drawing their weapon or not accurate enough with their shots. For example, just getting a non-lethal shot into a grizzly bear frequently provokes a more violent attack. There are also stories of how grizzlies have taken a lethal shot through the heart only to continue their attack for as long as a minute before dying. The most effective deterrent is bear pepper spray. This has been proven through researching incidents in the field. Because most sprays are fairly small and come with a belt clip or holster, the sprays are carried in a quickly drawn location. Also, because these types of sprays blast a wide cloud up to thirty feet from the nozzle, it doesn’t require a skilled aim. The spray is also super-concentrated and can blister eyes and throats which has an instant effect on the bear causing it to immediately stop an attack. The biggest drawback with pepper spray is the risk of self-injury while defending yourself from a bear attack. It’s pretty tough to hike out nearly blinded by your own spray or gasping for breath because your airway is swelled. Also, there are stories that residue from bear pepper spray actually attracts bears as early as the day after using it. It’s recommended to evacuate from the backcountry immediately following the discharge of a bear pepper spray canister to avoid further encounters. Also everything including your pack and tent need to be thoroughly washed to prevent attracting bears on another trip.
Well, that’s about it. I shared pretty much everything I know about bears.
© Bryan McFarland original 2004 and rewrite 2015
#bears #hiking #backpacking
Cool pic?