Bears!

I couldn’t believe it, but there they were. The grizzly sow and her cub had just come over the rise in the trail in front of us, not 30 feet away. The mom was huge, maybe 4 feet at the shoulder, and the cub was the size of a Saint Bernard. The sunny morning in the alpine backcountry of Glacier NP seemed to me to be the wrong setting for our impending horrible death. But fate is funny that way. As mom sized us up, we whipped out our bear spray. The cub shifted side to side impatiently…

For most people, bears are high on the list of dangers in the wild. We’ve all heard the harrowing accounts of bear attacks on unsuspecting campers. The fun weekend trip that ended in tragedy, trope. So what does someone like me, who has spent over 14,000 hours in the outdoors over the last decade, do to protect themselves from this ursine menace?

Bears, at least for the lower 48, come in two flavors: Grizzly and Black Bears. Roughly 1,500 grizzlies are found across Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and a bit of Washington. There are over 470,000 black bears found across 41 states. Grizzlies weigh 400-600 lb., are 3.5-4.5 ft. at the shoulder when on all fours, and 7-9 ft. when standing. Black bears weigh 125-500 lb., are 2.5-3 ft. at the shoulder on all fours, and 5-7 ft. standing. Grizzlies, while not necessarily aggressive, tend to not back down and seem to know they are the apex predator in any situation. Black bears are usually timid. However, when cubs are involved, both species will aggressively defend their young.

Bears are big, powerful animals who are pretty smart, being on par with the higher primates. Their sense of smell is 7 times better than a bloodhound and 2,100 times better than yours. They can sustain a speed of around 25 mph. You can do 10-15 mph, maybe. On a good day.

So bears could definitely catch you and kill you if they wanted to. You would have little to no chance against them. “But what if I have a handgun?” you say. Well, I attended a conference once where this exact question was put to a wildlife biologist and grizzly expert from Yellowstone Park. He laughed and told the inquirer that unless he had a large-caliber handgun with special magnum cartridges and was a crack shot, it would be more effective to throw the gun at the bear. It might distract the ursine and allow the guy to climb a tree. He said shooting the bear usually doesn’t do much other than make the bear angry. “You don’t want a bear attacking you, and you especially don’t want an angry bear attacking you! Carry bear spray.” he finished.

It turns out that, just like the rest of us, most bears are just trying to make a living. They don’t see you as food, so they don’t hunt you. They will usually avoid you if they can. The exception are bears that have figured out that people carry food. Then your food bag is an object of great interest to them.

And it is super important to keep bears from your food. Most people think that it is all about keeping the bears out of our food, but really it is all about keeping our food out of the bears. Once a bear gets into a food bag, the easy, high-calorie food can make them habituated problem bears. So they are often put down by wildlife managers. The saying goes, “A fed bear is a dead bear.”

To prevent this tragic end, several methods and devices have been employed to keep bears and your food apart. The first thing to do is to put all food and other smellables like toothpaste into an odor-proof bag. That bag goes into your food bag. From here there are a number of ways to keep it from the bears.

One method is to sleep with your food bag in your tent on the assumption that the bear won’t come in because you’re there. Frankly, I think this is a pretty naïve assumption and strongly discourage doing this.

Another, more classic method is to hang your food bag from a branch on a large tree. The bag should be 12-15 feet off the ground and at least 10 feet from the trunk. Getting your rope over the branch by tying a rock on it and heaving it over can be quite entertaining. Once you pull your food bag up to that 12+ foot level, you can tie it off to something on the ground. However, in many places, bears have figured out that all they have to do is cut the tied-off end, and the bag drops out of the sky like magic. So there is another way, called the PCT method, where the rope is not tied off, which I will leave you to look up if you’re interested.

Yet another method is to use a special bear-proof bag made out of bulletproof fabric. The extra-long drawstrings (actually bulletproof ropes) for these bags are used to cinch it closed with a special knot. Then the bags are tied around a 6-inch or greater diameter tree with another special knot. Bears cannot rip or tear these bags nor can they take them due to being tied to the tree.

Finally, there are bear canisters. Large, hard-sided plastic or carbon fiber containers with a lockable top that you put your food in. These are then stashed on the ground somewhere away from camp. They are heavy and awkward to get into your pack, but bears usually can’t get into them, and they are hard for them to carry. However, in some locations, bears have learned to roll them off a cliff, and they will shatter. Mission accomplished for the bear.

So given all this background, what do I do about bears. First, I never slept with my food. (We were just good friends.😄) I did spend the first part of my backpacking career hanging my food. On the PCT, I got pretty good at getting the rock and my line over the limb on the first throw. I was required by regulations to carry a bear canister on the PCT for a couple hundred miles through Kings Canyon and Yosemite to beyond Lake Tahoe. Finally I learned about the bulletproof bear bags and started using them. They are presently my go-to method of protecting the bears from my food.

For personal protection from bears I carry bear spray when in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Washington. It is over 90% effective in preventing attacks, way better than guns, and you don’t have to be a crack shot to use it effectively. In black bear country, I try to be aware of my surroundings. Of the dozens of back bears I’ve seen on my adventures, none, zero, have been aggressive. They have all run away from me. There are a few places known for aggressive black bears and in those areas I take bear spray.

Back in Glacier, time had stopped. The mother grizzly and her cub were paused at the top of the rise 10 yards away. Cappuccino and I started backing down the trail, talking to the mammoth animal in what we hoped were soothing tones. We lavished praise on her and especially her cub. Still on all fours, she cocked her massive head. Cappy and I moved off the trail as she and the cub started walking toward us. We walked/scrambled 30 feet uphill away from the trail. Mom kept an eye on us, but apparently did not see us as a threat and continued past us with junior. She was on a mission. When we were sure they were gone, Cappy and I were able to breathe again.

Until next week safe travels and happy trails…