I remember hearing stories like this from time to time, as a kid in Canada. Even one close to my house.

Must admit that when I was walking on Vancouver Island and in the Rockies I was as nervous as hell about grizzlies. Plenty of warnings reached us, especially about the need for good camp hygiene after cooking food, which was difficult when we were on a multi-day camping trip.

Wow, that’s grim!

Years ago spent a summer in the states as a student, incl a relaxing break with some mates in a chalet in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. One evening we heard a noise out back, near the bins beyond the decking. “Careful” says one of us, “Could be a bear”. Welsh Bob (for it was he) was unfazed by this. “It’s only small bears round ere” he says, “And anyway, its probably just a dog or a raccoon” and armed only with a can of Bud (we’d had a few) he headed out onto the decking to investigate, followed (at a safe distance) by the rest of us. As he reaches the edge of the raised decking a small bear cub ambles off into the gloaming. So he turns to us and says “See it was only a small one” at which point its mum (we assume) rears up from where she had been sniffing around the footings unseen and standing a mere 2-3 feet away lets out an almighty roar right into his face.
I’ve never seen anybody move so fast. In the blink of an eye he had whipped round, twisted his hips and set his legs into motion like Usain Bolt on speed. The only problem being that the decking was wet. A flailing Bob went arse over tit, landed flat on his face and proceeded to half crawl, half haul, himself along the decking, whimpering all the while, as we shouted from the (relative) safety of the doorway that she was clambering up onto the decking (she wasn’t) and “For god’s sake don’t look back, just Moooove!!!”
How we laughed.
In fairness the bear had the last laugh though. She carried on rooting around outside for ages (or it certainly sounded like it, it was soon dark and any noise was obviously a whole squadron of bears planning to break in to the chalet) and we ran out of beers and nobody had the nuts (least of all Bob) to go to the car and get the other case of Bud out the boot.. 🙂

My uncle in Maine has been having problems with a bear trying to get into his biofuel shed – the smell is very tempting apparently.

A lot of the Canadians we met ,told us that they were more worried about mountain lions. 😯

An imaginary mountain lion helped me make the fastest run down a mountain outside of Kamloops, BC, that has ever been made.

I had been on a long climb, and the forest was absolutely silent. Then I heard the crack of a twig, and decided that I was being stalked. So I turned around and headed downhill.

The trail went between two trees which, on my way up, I had to take very slowly in order to get through, but which, on my way down, I just flew through. I have no idea how I managed to get to the bottom of the trail safely, but extreme fear is an incredible motivator.

There was, of course, no mountain lion.

Back in 2000 I worked in the wizard grill (now renamed, thankfully) at the base of Blackcomb mountain and I had to get up at 5a.m to open up for breakfast. On a couple of occasions there were bears in the back yard/trash can area. I remember the first time, still asleep, more than likely hungover turning the corner of the building to see 2 bears snorting around about 20feet away from me….it took me a few seconds to realise what the hell was happening by which time I figured it was better legging it past them into the kitchen area. Iirc they never even noticed I was there. I on the other hand shat myself

Had some polar bear funtime on a snowboard trip in Greenland.

Before we left the airstrip, our logistics guys were talking us through the pepper spray, the 4 types of marine flares, the rape alarm perimeter fence and the rifle with the hollow point rounds, saying “you won’t need any of this, though. You’d be very unlucky to see a bear, chances are less than one percent.”

4 days in, we were sleeping late after a stormy night, waiting for the cloud to burn off. I looked out of the tent door, Bear about 100 yards from the tent, coming straight for us. Couple of pen flares did nothing to faze Mr Bear, he just kept coming. Next up was the pistol flare, which, by pure luck (no clue about the range) I landed right by him, and he broke away into a run for 10 seconds, then slowed to an amble, looking back at us. Couple of rifle rounds over his head and he hurried off down the valley.

Then he just lolled about in the sunshine for ages, rolling in the snow, about a kilometer away. Seemed he knew the range of everything we were firing at him! Then he started back up towards us, more rifle, off again, more lolling, back towards us again, more rife.

This was over the course of a few hours, and it was a beautiful day. We wanted to get up something, but we didn’t want to get up high and watch Mr Bear tear our tents up, looking for the tins of mackerel fillets in hot chilli oil (they had pull rings, he’d have been straight in with a deft flick of a claw.)

We got kitted up for touring, each of us packing heat of some sort, and started moving towards him, couple more rounds when we were a bit closer, then waited and watched while he headed off up to a col. we headed up to where we could see his tracks to see if he was good and gone, and he was. Had a good run down the newly named “Bear Face”, and had a slightly less good night’s sleep that night!

When we got back to the airstrip at the end of the trip, the guys said “You were so lucky to see a bear, chances are less than 2 percent!” We were the second group in 20 years and 170 expeditions they’d done the logistics for who’d encountered a bear, so we’d just doubled the stats!

You need a lycra holster and a side arm for riding in the wilderness:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/745mJb]Side arm on a mountain bike?[/url] by brf, on Flickr

We honeymooned in the Rockies, did a bit of hiking etc. Never went far into the bushes when I needed a pee. Saw a few bears that month as well, they were about a month out of hibernation and all either hungry or with cubs.

Someone was killed by a mountain lion on Vancouver Island while we were there. Made us think.

Of course, if you ever find yourself in a bear-self interface scenario, it is important to ensure that you know what type of bear it is – and particularly if it is a Grizzly – in order that you can tailor your response accordingly. Fortunately t’internet is here to help, so without further ado (and thanks to Urban Dictionary, spelling mistakes and all) I give the Singletrack massif the fully comprehensive, all you need to know guide to that fearsome all-American furry warrior, the Grrrrriiiiizzzzly Bear:

One B.A.M.F. of a bear. Unlike it’s relative the brown bear, this beast will kick the ever loving shit out of YOU. Seriously, these things are huge mother ****, and could kick Mr. T’s ass. If you encounter a grizzly, don’t run; They’re faster. Don’t try to climb a tree; They’re faster. Don’t hide; They’re smarter. And they can see through walls. And trees. They grizzly was once very similar to the brown bear, but while the brown bear decided to go on its pussy bitch ways, the grizzly decided to break anything that tried **** with it, from small children to garbadge trucks. Over time, this case of serious bad assery allowed the grizzly to evolve and level up, allowing him to gain new abilities, skils and powers. Once the grizzly reaches a new level (which should be within the next year if it continues its grinding patterns), it will gain the LAZER eye ability, poplarized by the great eagle of Anubarak. Needles to say, once the grizzly reaches level 527, we’re all pretty much ****. Running a simulation to detrermine the average experience per annum devided by the increasing level requirement, we can predict the grizzly will rule the world by mid-to-late 22 century. The only option and chance of survival if a grizzly is encountered on your travels is to seranade it by speaking kindly and softy (and possibly making slight innuendo implications), and praying not only to your god, but to every god you know of that the monster before you takes pitty on your pathetic attempt to beg for your life, and decides your tough meat might infect its young and you’re too feeble for it to simply club to death with its massive, yet somehow gentle claws. That, or if you have a gun. A **** huge gun. Oh, and in the case of a zombie invasion, if there are zombie grizzlys, the world is ****. Straight up. That is, if the grizzly can get infected. That means the zombies would have to get close enough to the bear to bite it. And that’s just plain not going to happen. Rest easy young ones, rest easy. For now.

Before we left the airstrip, our logistics guys were talking us through the pepper spray,

That reminds me of this:

>>

In light of the rising frequency of human/grizzly bear encounters, the Montana Department of Fish and Game is advising hikers, backpackers, hunters, and fishermen to take extra precautions and keep alert for bears.

We advise outdoorsmen to wear noisy little bells on their clothing so that the bears are not startled unexpectedly by a human’s presence. We also advise outdoorsmen to carry pepper spray with them in case of an encounter with a bear.

It is also a good idea to watch for fresh signs of bear activity. Outdoorsmen should recognize the difference between black bear poop and grizzly bear poop. Black bear poop is smaller and contains lots of berries and squirrel fur. Grizzly bear poop smells like pepper and has little bells in it.

Ho, ho. We weren’t convinced about the pepper spray either!

If you’ve tried scaring a polar bear away with 4 types of marine flares, and firing rifles over it’s head, and it’s still coming for you, what are going to reach for next?

As the rifle was bolt-action, they told if it came to it, that if we decided that we needed to kill the bear, we should wait until the bear was 6 feet away, to ensure we got a clean chest shot. If we fired from further away and missed, we might not get another go. We weren’t convinced we’d have the nerve to wait until 6 feet.

Met some french guys a while later who’d been told the same thing. They said “Yes, we decided to translate that advice: 6 metres!”

[video]http://youtu.be/8dspAa9NQ-c[/video]

footflaps – Member

You need a lycra holster and a side arm for riding in the wilderness:

That looks like just the thing to properly irritate a bear tbh.

My brother realised halfway through a bear encounter that a Nissan Micra isn’t really designed to be bearproof- up til that moment they were sat about 10 feet from it with the engine off, happily filming and taking photos and giving it a name (named after a girl he went to uni with). Luckily it wasn’t into imports.

Supposedly the bear spray actually works much better even than long arms… He doesn’t have any of that though because he’s a muppet. He’ll need it to defend himself from that girl if he ever comes home and she’s seen the video.