On the trail - June 12, 2011

Proposed Title: Become bear aware while hiking in bear country

It is said that the difference between a black bear and a grizzly bear is that a black bear will chase you up a tree and a grizzly bear will knock the tree down. Note to self; avoid trees as a means of escape if I am attacked by a bear.

I recently received an e-mail from a man who told me that he, his 10 year-old daughter, and their dog had an encounter with a black bear and her cub while they were fishing from the shoreline near Inlet Bay on Horsetooth Reservoir. He told me the mother bear and her cub approached them and acted aggressively. He told me that he instructed his daughter to make a break for it and run as fast as she could back to their car at their campsite. He said he frantically grabbed his dog, kicked off his crocs that were slowing him down, and followed his daughter back to the car. He said the bears disappeared and were not spotted again. His question to me was what should he have done?

If I had to choose one word to describe a bear, it would be unpredictable. This unpredictability is another risk you have to negotiate when hiking in bear country.

So what do we know about bears?

Well, while a bear’s sense of smell is unbelievable, their eyesight is rather poor.

Bears can run faster than a horse for short distances.

They will fiercely defend against any perceived threat to their young.

And while their diet consists of mostly plants, bugs, and berries, they have a tendency to guard a carcass or food supply.

Now that we understand them a little better, here are some things you want to avoid while hiking in bear country:

• Surprising a bear is not a good thing, so make noise when you hike so that a bear can hear you coming. A bear will most likely head in the opposite direction from you if it senses your presence.

• Baby bears are really cute and really dangerous. If you see a cub, immediately try and get as far away from it as possible because mom can’t be far off and you never want to be between a mother bear and her cub(s).

• If you come across a fresh carcass on or near the trail, stay away from it as well. Bears also tend to try and cover carcasses to hide them from other scavengers until they return to feed on them.

Now while bear attacks do happen, there is no hard and fast rule on what to do. As I said before, bears are unpredictable. While one bear might charge you as a warning and then veer away from you at the last second, another may try and rough you up a bit, and still another may view you as one of their main food groups, but this is extremely rare.

While information is good in most cases, I do not recommend you read books about bear attacks, especially if you are hiking or camping in bear country. I have read my fare share of these accounts and let me just say that you don’t really want to fill your head with all of that negativity about bears.

Bears are beautiful creatures and a real treat to see at a distance in the wild. Being bear aware while you are hiking will add to your hiking risk management skills and help you to not stumble blindly into an avoidable dangerous bear encounter.