Last year, we took a 3 week trip out west riding and camping. The very first night in TN, we threw the bag over a branch, but I guess it was a little too close to the trunk of the tree, because in the morning all the dehydrated food my wife spent a week preparing was all over the ground and there was huge slash marks in the bottom of the bag. (interestingly, they did not like our beef jerky, one piece was very carefully removed from the bag and the rest was not eaten, but all the fruits and veggies were goners.) And the last night, near the top of Hagarman Pass in CO, there was a little camp site that you could tell probably gets used only a couple times a year. We really carefully kept the campsite clean, and yet, about 1 minute after we crawled in the tent, we could hear a bear grunting and scratching all over the place outside. I swear that he was watching us the whole time and knew that he was in the clear as soon as the campers went to bed. They know our habits, they know all our tricks, and they do not pay attention to internet advice. I'd say that even if you do everything in your power to eliminate food and body smells, the chances are you are STILL eventually going to have a campsite bear encounter. Just be cool and make sure that there is nothing for the bears to want to stick around for, and you will be fine.
Thanks for all of the information re: bears and camping. Will be leaving on 6/6 from Florida to Alaska and have 2 months to travel. I did get some counter assault bear sray (it is labeled as bear spray) Am I reading that I can bring that over the border w/o bull shit. I too would like to have my 9mm Glock as a deterrent too but that could be a real "bullshit" problem at the border. I am riding a Goldwing so I will more than likely be limited to the campsites just off the roads. I have purchased unscented soap. deodorant. and plan to do my first laundry with unscented laundry soap. They can have what little food I might have at the campsite. maybe I will just stink. It is like scuba diving, spearfishing and keping your fish on a stringer. When the sharks come in, the fish is theirs. I thank all of you for your input. Ride safe...........................Breeze
Just out of curiosity, has anyone heard about or deployed one of those small compressed-air boat horns to try and deter a bear? They are hellaciously loud, and I had one in my hand once on a dock when a belligerent pit mix came charging at me and I let him have a blast about ten feet away. You should have seen it swap directions. I know a mean dog is not a bear, but just wondered if they could be spooked away as a last resort if they showed aggression or got close to the tent. I suppose it could make them even madder, lol.
It depends on the situation. In my experience, loud noises ("bear bangers" , air horns, gun shots) work most of the time when a bear is just snooping around and you can catch them by surprise. (Like is they are sniffing around your tent.) In a situation where the bear is being real aggressive, I have had less success. I put a 300 magnum round into the ground inches in front of an aggressive young male black bear at 10 feet a few years back, only to have him stand his ground and keep huffing and clacking his teeth. I don't think a noise would make a bear "madder" though...
See these? Two year-old triplets that I spotted along the highway just outside Valdez last Saturday. At that age a person could run toward them, yelling, and they'd scamper like an equal number of young puppies. Six months earlier, however, with mama present, any move toward them would have resulted in you looking like a cube steak in short order. And next year, as three year-olds with another year of survival behind them, they will be at their worst - the equivalent of teenage humans. Sometimes bears will take off at the first sign of human presence, but a sow can't be depended upon to do any certain thing if she has cubs in the vicinity. Making noise might deter a bear for a few seconds, or even minutes, but it is best to find a better location immediately after the bear departs, if it will. There's a mountaineering group up here that hikes all over backcountry unarmed. One of their members told me - years ago, before bear spray - that they all carry those compressed air boat horns. Whether they work or not Maybe 99% of the time. But nothing is 100%, and not all bears react the same. You wouldn't want to run into a deaf bear with just that for your safety net. As triplenickel suggested, wilderness camping, where the predators are not accustomed to human presence, is quite often the safest. One of our Alaska inmates, HayDuchessLives, spends a lot of time in the backcountry during bear season, with several encounters in her experience. She's still here to tell about them, because she has a lot of respect for the animals and practices the utmost in bear safety. My home is in prime grizzly country, with bears passing through the area spring and summer as they travel between their mountain range and the Copper River, where salmon are thick during the summer. Bear safety is part of life, and the worst that has happened in many decades is a bear breaking into a cabin or two. But we don't let our guard down. Last summer a young grizz climbed in through the open door on a road grader parked near the community dumpsters and, as is common to bears, tried to continue on out the other side (they have an aversion to turning around and going back whence they came). Didn't make it, but busted a window out of the door before finally doing a u-turn inside the cab. They're interesting animals, and most of the time will leave you alone. In fact, one of our local state game biologists was giving a presentation recently, and mentioned a large boar grizz that they had tagged. Fish & Game was able to keep a close eye on that bear's location, which was very near a popular hiking trail. They have spotted the bear laying in the brush, casually watching hikers traipse on past, without having an inkling that the bear was anywhere around. Worry more about traffic sharing the highways with you, and less about bears. The other drivers are out to get you - the bear just wants to be left alone.
I've heard some people claim that bears are more scared of fire than anything else and for that reason they carry a few flares. Any input on that from those of you who live in bear country?
The only known 100% Bear Proof place is to stay home. If that is not an option, bring along Bear Spray. You will probably not need it but if you do it is a great last resort. I have been as close as 10 feet from a Sow and her cubs in a remote area of Alaska and was lucky. But you may not be.
I've lived (and hiked, and ridden, and hunted) in this area most of my life, and combined, we have about all the bears, black and grumbly, you could ask for. We average a bear attack fatality about every other year, and cougar attacks are also starting to show up occasionally, something I can't remember ever hearing about when I was a kid. Having said that, in order of probability of something punching my ticket (other than my own stupidity) I see it like this: four wheeled vehicles including quads, moose, and finally bears. If I was afoot hunting, fishing, or backpacking, the list would be the same minus the vehicle threat. I have been nearly wiped out by logging trucks, pickups, and quads I have met on corners going far too fast while taking all the road. Couldn't even begin to count how many times - I take the outside edge/bailout lane on corners now out of habit. I can't recall anyone here being killed by a moose, although I know of a few who have been moose stomped. So statistically, swamp donkeys are safer than bears, but I have had far more scares with moose than bears. Perhaps because they amuse me and I am dumb enough to fool around with them when I should know better. I have shot one black bear that was acting far too predatory and exhibiting stalking behavior, and that seems to be at the root of most bear deaths around here. I think triple nickle is on the right track when he points out increased habitation equals increased risk. Around here, there are more and more people in the bush near the easy access than ever before: more roads, more SUV campers, more hikers, more quadders, the "new" mountain biker group, etc. Including more and more hunters - but fewer and fewer hunt bears these days. Where bears once vanished if they saw you, now they're just as likely to stand around and eyeball you. Lots of hunters are reporting bears coming to gunshots like a dinner bell - two hunters were killed while quartering their elk here a few years back. Roadside campers often camp like slobs, even if they do clean up garbage when they leave - leftover food frequently gets thrown in the bush "because the animals will clean it up". A bear runs into people a dozen times, nothing bad happens, and once - just once - the reward is a snack. That's what the bear remembers - food. Bears are incredibly food oriented. You just have to watch a grizzly excavating half a hillside, throwing massive boulders around, to dig out one lousy little pika to see that. How many calories were expended for how many calories in a pika? So once bears learn people can equal food, even bad experiences won't deter them - which is why habituated bears unfortunately often end up having to be shot. So yes, I keep food and other goodies in ziplock bags to minimize smell. I try to keep food out of contact with my gear. I don't cook and clean where I am going to sleep for the night. I hang everything but my essential sleep gear well away from camp. None of that guarantees bear proof, but my campsites are usually never before used campsites given my type of travel, so running into a bear that wants that food and can figure the rope trick out first time around is reasonably small. And I carry a handgun where legal. Not out of dreams of stopping a charging bear with a headshot, but rather the ability to stick the barrel somewhere against his head or hide and pull the trigger if I wake up in the night to find myself being chewed on as a bear burrito. Bear spray is all very nice, but when you're being chewed on and dragged inside your tent/bivvy bag, bear spray don't get out to the bear so good. Your chances of being attacked when you're up and walking about within your campsite, or as you're motoring down the road are very miniscule in my opinion (although a grizz sow did attack the back of a truck driving down a gravel road here a couple of years ago). Those are just automatic safety precautions I take out travelling around here - just like taking blind corners wide and slow in case I meet an asshole coming at the speed of heat and taking up all the road. And other than taking those precautions, roads and bears are just small and smaller risks you accept to live and travel around here. If you're still nervous, consider this: thousands of people engage in back country recreation in bear country around here every year, most of them doing little or nothing in the way of bear safety. A good percentage do things downright stupid in bear country. For whatever reason, the vast majority of them get away with it year after year after year, without a single problem from bears. Given that, whatever basic bear safety somebody chooses, they have probably tipped the chances enormously in favour of them never having a bear problem, ever, in their visit/travels through bear country. And again, I think triplenickle was right - the more you travel and camp away from where other people have camped before, the far less likely you are to have a bear problem.
I think these two statements bear repeating (pun intended). I always try to eat at least a mile from where I'm going to make camp when backpacking. No trips on the bike yet that have warranted bear safety measures but I'd probably eat about 5 miles away from camp just because I can.
Thanks for the info, I ditto the moose from last summers trip to Newfoundland, they are very thick up there, Leaving for Alaska on Monday. first trip to there,very excited to see it. Ride safe Breeze
The best way for camping in bear country is have a partner with you and make sure you are the faster of the two.
As others have already mentioned, pick a safe, CLEAN, visible site. If you feel wrong, like something is watching you, well, something probably is. Can you hear, or is the stream/road close enough to drown out noise? I have never had a close call in camp in AK, YT, or BC but that's not to say it won't happen tomorrow. I did wake up one morning at the end of a road near Mezadin Jct. and find a dump site full of garbage (probably 2yrs old or more) about 30ft. from my campsite. Left a few short minutes later and a sow with two cubs was in the road about 150 yds from camp. Always arrive early enough to check your site! The only bear I have had in camp was in New Mexico and yes, I was cooking in camp. In my sleeping bag, no tent, left a few bites of chorizo and rice in the pan at arm's length. It seemed like he spent half the night licking it clean. Closest track was about 2 ft. from my head, acted like I didn't exist.
Bears appear to have become more embolden over the past 4 decades. May have something to do with the Grizzly's protected status and the encrochment by humans. In any case, I will never camp in a tent in bear country. Too many stories of people being dragged out of their tent and eaten. For one thing, I would never get any sleep and another, there are plenty of really nice and cheap places to stay just about where ever you go these days. On my Alaska ride, just whenI thought I was out in the middle of nowhere and miles from any motel, I come around a turn and here's this brand new, delux wilderness inn and restaurant. The paint wasn't even dry it was that new. Again, pleanty of places to stay where you can get a recooperative night's sleep. http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/07/grand_rapids_man_killed_in_gri.html http://www.southeasternoutdoors.com/wildlife/mammals/fatal-brown-bear-attacks.html
It sounds like people are being killed in their tents on a monthly basis. But that's not happening. In fact, if you searched diligently, can you find even one bear death a year where the victim was killed in their tent? I don't think you can. Maybe once every five or ten years, but not even once a year. Compare that with all the tent campers out there each year - 100's of thousands. All the backpackers with no choice but to sleep in a tent. It's sort of like parachute accidents. 100's of thousands of jumps without a death, but when one guy finally thunders in (usually from doing something stupid or risky), then it is coast to coast news. All about those crazy people doing that risky skydiving thing - when in reality, most skydivers who die are killed either in an MVA travelling from/to the jump base, or when the aircraft they're riding in crashes. It's all about perception. Bears are a slight risk while adventure riding. And as far as risk level goes, far, far below the risk posed by the traffic you will meet on those roads. If a personal phobia about bears causes you to lose sleep, then I can understand that - one guy who rides with us will never go out overnight because he's sure the spiders will get him. Not poking fun - many of us have personal phobias about some critter or other, and I was freaked out by spiders for a long, long time. But those phobias don't equate to real risk in many cases. As for finding a hotel just about anywhere... not this "anywhere". You can ride around a lot in this area without coming across a hotel - or in many cases, a gas station. If you don't mind a long round trip out to the highway just to spend the night in a hotel, yeah, you can do that, but it will eat a lot of your day just commuting from the hotel to where you're riding.
YES. A fellow geologist was working in Alaska and the group left thier lunches in the helicopter and a bear tore the thing up to get at food. I have watched grizzlies turn over rocks wieghting several hundred pounds to get at grubs underneath.
"It sounds like people are being killed in their tents on a monthly basis. But that's not happening. In fact, if you searched diligently, can you find even one bear death a year where the victim was killed in their tent? I don't think you can. Maybe once every five or ten years, but not even once a year. Compare that with all the tent campers out there each year - 100's of thousands. All the backpackers with no choice but to sleep in a tent." Well, I'm not paranoid about being eaten by a bear, however, it's very hard to get a much needed recooperative night's sleep when you're in a flimsy tent in bear country and every snap, clunk or russtling in the brush makes your heart nearly redline. I've been around bears quite a lot actually, and I'm not affraid of them when I'm awake. I just don't want to wake-up to the sound of my face being ripped-off.
You're right. A quick google of fatal bear attacks in North America only showed a few for 2010. And in only one of those was the guy pulled from his tent and killed. While food is sometimes to blame, that wasn't the case in the attack of Rich and Kathy Huffman; they were killed inside of their tent. And there was another one in 2011 that's just going to court, I think, where the kid was killed in his tent at a campground and the rangers had failed to warn visitors that there were aggressive bears about, known to have threatened humans. I guess you just gotta deal with the odds, follow the basic rules and hope for the best. Ah, what's a guy to do? Hide in a shell?
