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Encounter at Shoshone Lake
by Dave Landreth
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In no way is this intended to be a definitive
statement on how to react to an aggressive encounter with a grizzly
bear. However, it may be helpful as one more piece of a puzzle that
might help you to avoid injury to yourself or a bear in a similar
situation.
I had been backcountry in the Shoshone Lake region of Yellowstone
for several days, camping in sites along the northern and western
shores of the Lake. I had seen very little bear sign during that time,
and no fresh sign at all. Indeed, at that time of year, the appearance
of grizzly in the Shoshone Lake area is a rare occurrence. Of course,
nobody tells the griz that....
I had spent the first night across from the geyser basin on the west
end of the lake. It had been an exciting stay, with two huge bull
elk battling back and forth along the lake shore, often passing through
my campsite within inches of my tent. Sleep was hard to come by because
of the uproar, but that’s a small price to pay when you have
the chance to bear witness to such a wild natural pageant. It was
with a great deal of regret that I packed up to head back east along
the north shore of the Lake, passing over the low Cement Hills along
the way. The Cement Hills are a low, rolling spread of deep wet ravines
and dry hillsides that extend for most of the distance along the north
shore. The trail winds and dips through the Hills, seldom climbing
more than 50 feet. Though I’d seen no fresh bear sign so far
on this portion of the trek, the region looked ‘beary’ to
me. The cover was dense in each of the little ravines that I crossed,
and the wet summer had kept everything rich and green. I remember
pausing a few times to look closely at the little stream crossings,
always expecting to see some sign of bear. However, I rolled into
my next camp, not far from the backcountry rangers cabin, without
seeing any sign that bears were in the area.
Once again, the night passed peacefully, with only an occasional ruckus
being raised by the resident bull elk. I hung around camp for quite
a while the next morning, enjoying the views across the lake and putting
off leaving for the trailhead until near noon. I had about 8 or 9
miles to cover on my way back to the trailhead of the Delacy Creek
trail, and knew that time would pass quickly on the mostly flat, easy
path. I had really enjoyed the stay at Shoshone Lake and decided to
check out some of the other campsites on the way out for future reference.
The sites in Yellowstone are usually situated well off of the main
trail, something that I’d like to see in other parks. It adds
a lot to the privacy of the sites that you stay at. Also, when you
reserve a site, you know that you’ll be the only party staying
there, unlike the Smokies, where you might find 20 other people packed
into your campsite.
Maybe it was a premonition, but for some reason,
I was a little paranoid about bears that morning. I had a long stretch
of dark forest to pass through before reaching the open meadows of
Delacy Creek. I was making a lot of noise, or at least it seemed that
I was. Just before I reached the turnoff to site #8R3, I spotted my
first fresh bear sign, a small amount of scat containing what appeared
to be mostly vegetable matter. It was only a tiny amount, though I
kept seeing more and more as I neared the turnoff to the site. I wasn’t
thinking griz though, figuring that in the dense forest at that time
of year, it was more likely to be a blackie. Still though, I started
yelling, “Yo Bear!!!” more often and also whistled loudly
a few times. At the turnoff, I walked downhill to a point where I
could view the campsite. I stopped and made a few notes about the
site and then turned and walked back to the main trail. I noticed
that the trail to the toilet cut up the hill on the opposite side
of the main trail. As a rule, the toilet area is usually located on
the same side of the main trail as the campsite. Curious, I walked
for a short distance up the hill, made some more notes, then turned
and walked back downhill to the intersection. The intersection was
on a small knoll. Approaching from the west, I had climbed a slight
incline, and as I left, I started to ease downhill along the path
through the timber and brush. I had only
walked a few feet when I heard a roar from behind. Spinning around,
I saw a large black bear flowing through the downed trees and brush
like smoke over water. My first reaction was,
“Damn, that’s the biggest freakin’
black bear that I’ve ever seen!”
As the bear moved out of the deep weeds and
brush and onto the main trail, I saw the long claws and got a better
look at its profile and realized it was a grizzly. When I first heard
the bear and turned, it was about 35 feet away. It only took about
two seconds for it to close to within 10 feet. Before it reached the
trail, I had my hands extended into the air, and was yelling loudly
at the bear. I’m a former marathoner, and still do a lot of road
biking, so I’m used to dealing with aggressive dogs. I reacted
to the charging griz just as I would one of the inbred pit bulls that
make cycling so exciting in some of the areas where I train. The bear
stopped moving in, but started circling around me, bouncing up and
down on stiff legs, I suppose trying to look as big and threatening
as possible. It was roaring and popping its jaws. A note: To me, the
sound that the bear was making was a roar. The folks I talked to in
bear management later kept mentioning the bear “growling”
– I suppose that it’s a matter of interpretation. I know
that I’ve never heard a sound quite like it in my life. Damn,
the critter must have lungs the size of a 55 gallon drum. I’ve
had blackies in the Smokies bluff charge me several times, especially
back in the 70s when roadside feeding was creating more of a problem
than it does today. That is a totally different animal though. Most
of the blackies would rush in silently, then turn at the last moment
and saunter by as though they’d never even noticed my presence
in the first place. At most, they would occasionally do a bit of jaw-popping
and maybe slap a few bushes around if they were really agitated. Not
so with the griz – I’ve never witnessed such raw aggression
in any animal.
It was an awesome sight, and I remember thinking
during the encounter that it had to be the most beautiful animal that
I’d ever seen.
I wanted to drop my hand down to reach my
pepper spray, but couldn’t drop my guard until the bear calmed
down a bit. Once I was fairly certain that we’d reached a
standoff, I reached for the spray. I carry
the stuff on my pack belt where it’s quickly and easily accessible
and can be fired ‘from the hip’. As soon as my hand
dropped, the bear jumped towards me, coming so close that it slobbered
on my right leg. I fired the spray almost straight down into the
bears face, giving it about a 2 second blast. It immediately moved
back to about 10 feet, but continued to growl/roar and bounce
up and down. Then it moved back in again – I remember thinking
to turn slightly to my left, presenting my right leg to meet the
charge. By then, I had the spray out of the holster and fired
directly into the bears face from a distance of about 5 feet.
This time, the effect was more dramatic. The bear backed off a
few more feet and gave me a look that I can only describe as ‘puzzled’.
It was strange, but I swear it looked offended – I hate to
give human interpretations to the actions of a wild animal, but
that was how it looked to me, like I had really offended its sense
of dignity.
The griz then retreated, but slowly, seeming to want to save as much
face as possible. It was still displaying a threat posture, spread
out to appear as large as possible. It would turn every few feet,
growl (roar?) loudly, and then move on. It was also rubbing its head
against brush and weeds along the way, probably trying to wipe the
spray off. Just before the griz disappeared from view, I remembered
the camera hanging around my neck and squeezed off a couple of quick
shots, shooting from the chest without aiming. It was dark in the
timber and the pix turned out pretty blurred, but the one accompanying
this account is one of my most prized possessions.
As the griz moved out of my sight, I also started backing away, continuing
to yell loudly and steadily. I moved slow, being careful not
to fall, hoping that the bear wouldn’t reconsider and come
back to settle accounts with me for good. I knew that the two
blasts of spray had probably used much of what was in the can,
and I still had a lot of miles to cover before reaching the trailhead.
Luckily, it did the trick, and I saw no more of the bear.
On the hike out, I passed a number of other hikers and one backpacker
on the popular Delacy Creek trail. Most of them were carrying spray,
but none of them were carrying it so that it could be reached in a
hurry. A couple had it inside their daypacks, and the single backpacker
that I passed, a young fellow from Europe, wasn’t carrying spray
at all. He told me that he was heading west along the north shore
of the lake, which would put him in the spot where I had my confrontation
within the next couple of hours. I warned him about the griz and told
him to make sure that he made a lot of noise as he hiked through the
Cement Hills. He replied that he liked to sing while he hiked, and
that he figured that his singing would be loud enough to ensure his
safety. I spent most of the next two weeks in the backcountry, and
most of the folks that I ran across were similar in their preparations.
Many had spray but few had any idea of what they’d actually do
if they encountered an aggressive bear.
Lessons learned: More than anything else,
I feel that having previously thought through possible encounters
was the most important part of my coming through the encounter
unscathed. That, and of course, the tolerance of the griz. I can’t
emphasize enough the importance of pre-hike preparation if you’re
venturing into grizzly country. You have got to consider the possibility
of an aggressive encounter, and you need to have a plan in place.
I owe a lot to the folks that I know that deal with grizzly on
a near-daily basis – people like Tim Manley, Grizzly Bear
Management Specialist in northwestern Montana, and Carrie Hunt
of Wind River Bear Dogs. Both of them, along with a number of other
people with a lot more knowledge and experience than I have with
travel in grizzly country, have contributed a lot of good advice
and common sense rules for proper bear country etiquette.
On this occasion, I was carrying one of the 9.2 oz. canisters
that are sold at the Park stores. Fearing that I'd empty it too soon,
I ‘rationed’ the spray when I used it, rather than delivering
the large burst that is recommended. In the future, I’ll tote
two canisters. It’s un-nerving to exit the scene of an aggressive
encounter with miles of trail still ahead of you, knowing that you’ve
used all or most of the spray that you had with you. (I later weighed
the canister at the Grant Village post office and found that I actually
had a lot more spray left than I thought. It evidently didn't take
much to turn the griz, but it's obvious that the first burst wasn't
long enough to do the trick. If you have to use it, make it count.
I was lucky...)
It’s common to hear folks that have had little real experience
with bears chatter on and on about how the only defense that you need
is a good .44 Magnum. That’s bullshit, plain and simple (Bear
Spray vs. Bullets). If you’ve never been up close and personal
to a charge by an angry grizzly bear, you have no idea of how fast
they can move. Chances are that if you don’t pull a Barney Fife
and blow your toe off, that you will simply wound the bear and really
piss it off. A mature griz is a huge beast, and a bullet has to be
placed precisely to stop a charge. Few people have the skill or nerve
that is needed to do that. With pepper spray, you simply fire the
canister, projecting a wide cloud of red-hot spray that the bear has
to run through. The stuff works, it works very well, and most importantly
to me, the bear as well as the human survives the encounter. I do
not want to be responsible for the death of a griz and if traveling
in grizzly country means that I have to start packing a gun, then
I’ll stay out. That’s my side of the bargain that I make
each year when I backpack in the northern Rockies.
Having said that, to quote Stephen Herrero, author of Bear Attacks,
the Causes and Avoidance, pepper spray isn’t brains in a can.
Nothing beats using proper bear country etiquette when traveling through
wild country. Keep a clean camp, make plenty of noise, avoid traveling
at dusk or dawn when the bears are most active, avoid solo travel
if possible, and never, ever, approach a carcass. Don’t camp
on trails or even close by a trail – the bears often use them
when moving through the backcountry themselves and it doesn’t
make sense to block their passage with your tent. Obey area closures
inside the National Parks that the griz call home. Bear management
has a tough job protecting the few remaining grizzlies in the lower
48 and we can help out a lot by using a little common sense and by
following the rules that they enforce.
And so, I now turn to what I did right and what I may have done wrong
in my encounter at Shoshone Lake. In my opinion, the burden of ‘doing
it right’ falls on me, and not the bear. I’m in its home,
and like a guest in my own home, I should follow the rules according
to its sense of what is right and what is wrong, to the best of my
ability.
First of all, it’s important to announce your presence when traveling
through grizzly country. Most maulings are the result of the bear
being surprised. The griz evolved as a beast of the open tundra, where
climbing a tree wasn’t often a viable form of defense. It learned
to stand and fight – the old saw about the best defense being
a strong offense is the creed that the griz lives by. I had been making
noise as I hiked along the trail from my camp that morning, especially
after seeing the scat on the trail. However, I wonder if the noise
was really adequate. I do know that the volume of my yelling increased
substantially after the encounter, as well as the frequency. Sure,
if you’re used to hiking in places that aren’t honored by
the presence of the Great Bear, it’s hard and sometimes downright
embarrassing to move through the backcountry sounding like a character
in a Monty Python movie, but it is a powerful tool in protecting both
you and the griz from an unexpected encounter. In short, if it knows
that you’re coming, it will usually either move out of the area
or hunker down calmly until you pass on by. In my encounter, I think
that I may have antagonized the griz by walking back and forth several
times, right by where it was probably concealed. I was checking out
the campsite at the time, but from the bear’s perspective, it
probably appeared that I was coursing back and forth looking for it,
much as the bear would do if hunting for elk calves. I probably passed
right by the bear, within a few feet, at least 3 or 4 times without
it revealing its presence. I was making a pretty good bit of noise,
so it knew that I was there, but I finally over-stayed my welcome.
By the time I finished taking notes on the campsite and moved on out
the main trail, the griz had had enough and decided that it was time
to put me in my place.
OK, now the encounter is taking place. I’ve ran into griz in
the backcountry before, a few times in pretty close quarters. In each
of those instances however, the encounter ended quite peacefully,
with the griz and I each being able to make a dignified retreat. Each
time, I was making plenty of noise and the bear was aware of my presence
well before I moved into its personal ‘space’. On one occasion
years ago, not long after I started visiting Yellowstone, not far
from the petrified tree on Specimen Ridge that the ranger-guided trips
are taken to, I bumped into a griz while descending the Ridge, off-trail
and alone. I knew that a bear was somewhere near by, as evidenced
by a huge pile of still-steaming scat and numerous digs that I found.
However, I had no way of knowing whether it was behind or in front
of me, so I continued on towards the open meadows at the bottom of
the slope, making a lot of noise and moving slow. When I was nearly
to the edge of the timber and it appeared that I’d made it safely
past the bear, I settled down on a stump to watch a small group of
mulies work their way up the hillside. I must have sat there for about
10 minutes or so in the quiet, dark woods, watching the deer browse
nearby. When I finally stood up, so did the griz, and it was only
10 or 15 feet away from me. It was mid-sized, probably about 300 lbs.
and displayed absolutely no aggression at all. It was really quiet
in the timber, far below the top of the ridge, and I’ll never
forget the sound of the water droplets falling from the tips of its
claws into the small springhead where it had been laying. I could
clearly hear the sound of its easy breathing as it stood upright,
calmly gazing at me, nearly eye to eye.
Then, it dropped to all fours, backed away a few feet, then turned
and loped off over the small rise behind its hiding place. In that
instance, I never felt threatened in any way and even remembered to
hit the button on my camcorder as it ran away, getting a quick shot
before it disappeared.
I’ve ran into griz on the south side of
Specimen Ridge as well, but at a pretty good distance. In those instances,
the bear made a brief run towards me with head and ears up, clearly
moving in just to verify what I was. They then boogied out of sight.
Again, I was making plenty of noise, and when the bears moved towards
me, I talked to them in a loud voice with my arms spread out to help
them recognize me as a human. It worked.
In the Shoshone Lake incident, I reacted as I would to an angry, aggressive
dog. I returned aggression against aggression. It’s not something
that I’d advise as a defense, but it felt right on that occasion.
I don’t think that simply talking to the bear in a calm voice
would have gotten its attention and turned the charge. Again, that’s
just my impression, but it worked. Having previously thought about
the possibility of being charged and what I’d do if it happened
helped a lot, making it possible to stay calm and perhaps even detached
a bit during the encounter.
Luck no doubt
played a large role in the outcome of the encounter. The
bear made a lot of noise as it initiated its charge, alerting me to
its presence. A lot of folks have been mauled in instances where the
only warning that they had was the sound of heavy panting and pounding
feet against the earth a moment before the bear slammed into them.
Luck again was with me in that the air was calm and dry, making the
spray as effective as possible. Heavy rain or strong wind can reduce
the effectiveness of pepper spray, and strong wind can sometimes turn
the spray on the defender, That’s something you certainly don’t
want to live through, but it still beats the heck out of getting mauled.
I was hiking alone – that’s a bona fide risk factor when
traveling in grizzly country. Over the years, I’ve hiked and
backpacked for thousands of miles in the Yellowstone region, both
inside and out of the Park. I suppose that it was inevitable that
I’d eventually have an aggressive encounter, and if that is the
only one that I ever have, I’ll consider myself a lucky man indeed.
While it’s safer to travel with a group, I have to face the fact
that I’d probably have few chances to hike or backpack in Yellowstone
if I waited until I could organize a group outing. I live for the
time that I spend in the wild country of the northern Rockies, and
traveling alone is a risk that I’ve decided is worth taking in
order to have a life worth living. To compensate for the solo travel,
I’ve become almost obsessive in my desire to keep a clean camp,
and I work hard to stay extra alert when in the backcountry. Another
factor in my decision to often hike alone is that a lot of the groups
that I pass on the trail are breaking many of the rules that I consider
to be of supreme importance. I feel safer by myself in the backcountry
than I would with most of the groups that I encounter. I’ve passed
camps, especially the horse camps near the boundaries of Yellowstone,
with food strewn everywhere, and hikers with their pepper spray tied
out of reach on the backs of their packs, or even worse, stuck inside
the packs. I’ve watched as wanna-be photographers risked both
their lives and the life of a grizzly by moving inside its ‘personal’
zone in pursuit of a photo.
And finally, there comes the filing of a bear encounter report. This
is important, especially if you care about the life of the bear. I
wasn’t aware of it at the time that I had my encounter at Shoshone
Lake, but two fellows had been attacked by what was probably the same
bear the day before I passed through. I say that it was probably the
same bear since it happened in almost the exact spot where I had my
run-in. In that case, the hikers had noticed scat on the trail and
continued hiking, only to be met at the top of a knoll by the charging
grizzly. At least one of the hikers had pepper spray, but his hiking
poles were in his way at first, and he had to get past them before
he could use the spray. One hiker received a puncture wound to his
leg, but the other hiker was protected by his pack as he lay on the
ground. Had they stood their ground together against the bear, it’s
possible that the attack could have been avoided, but that’s
conjecture on my part. At any rate, I reported my encounter upon arriving
at the Grant Village backcountry ranger station, and to protect the
bear, Kerry Gunther, head of bear management in Yellowstone, made
the necessary decision to close the area to human travel to give the
bear time to calm down. I believe that it is especially important
now, in light of the attempts to remove protection for the griz outside
the Park, that the bear’s needs inside Yellowstone are given
preference over that of human users whenever possible.
One more note regarding the spray: Be careful
after using it not to touch your face! I forgot this rule and rubbed
my face right after the encounter, smearing spray residue into my
eyes. The pain was memorable, to say the least. I think that I got
the spray on my fingers when I fired 'from the hip'. I had to twist
the canister so hard to shoot nearly straight down that I shoved it
down in the holster, causing some of the spray to hit the top of the
holster and my fingers. That may be why the first burst wasn't as
effective as the second blast.
Report
in the Bozeman Chronicle about the two hikers that were attacked,
apparently by the same bear, on the day before my encounter.
Bear
Pepper Spray: Research and Information
The complete story on backpacking the Shoshone Lake Geyser Basin
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© 2005,Dave Landreth/griztrax.net
