Day 2: Bear!

We're camped on a gravel bar, still in the Wulik River drainage.

We awoke to a muskox herd, standing sentinel over our camp today. They were close enough to see their long hair flowing gracefully in the morning breeze. They are huge creatures, made more so by the way they jog through the tussocks - piles of fur and skin flow this way and that. The natives call them omingmak, "the animal with skin like a beard." Their long hair hanging from their lower body sweeps the tops of the tussocks.

After we left camp, we encountered a few hours of pretty bad and slow tussocks, and then some good gravel and old river bed walking. In valleys occupied by windy rivers, old gravelbeds form as the river rechannels itself. The old beds are not obvious, unless you try to drive a tent stake into them, and then you'll find the gravel, only a few inches down. They are carpeted in dense moss, and sprout young willows. For the most part, today's progress was slow, owing primarily to heavy packs and adapting bodies.

At 10:00 PM we had a disconcerting experience.

Roman was leading the way, Ryan second, Jason third. As we were walking, Roman spooked a grizzly bear off his day bed and he lumbered up about 20 yards away from Roman. He had been sleeping, and seemed ... disoriented. He was close, too: I could tell that his teeth were yellow, a sign of age.

The bear stood up on his hind legs and was taking a good hard look at us, if not still a bit groggy. We walked up to Roman, and then started yelling at the bear, trying to make our collective three look like a larger threat to him.

The strange thing about encounters like this is, bears usually run once a group of people get together and yell and wave their arms like we did.

Or they just charge you.

However, this bear did neither, he was acting peculiarly and very curious and was making us quite nervous after several tense moments, especially as he took a few more steps towards us.

This was a large grizzly, for an inland bear (as opposed to the coastal brown bears of SE AK). He stood well over six feet in height and weighed perhaps 600 pounds - the size of a large, mature, male grizzly. He was well fed, healthy looking, and had a beautiful and variegated color pattern of darn brown (head), blond (stomach and face), and light brown (back and legs).

He made no aggressive behaviors and finally turned and moved off his bed a few steps. The bear turned around to look at us, and we continued yelling.

He was very slow to leave the area. We were a little spooked by the whole experience. Finally, he took off and went up to a ridge over looking the river, now about a hundred yards away, still turning to watch us.

When we walked by the bear's bed, Roman looked back and said "Oh my god!".

Jason and I turned around and we saw the horror of the situation.

A fresh moose kill.

We were lucky, and under the grace of God.

Have a great day.

- Ryan Jordan

Comments

[Gil Aegerter]

Holy smokes! Well, good for you, and good for the bear. Let's hope that's the closest you come on this trip!

[Miguel Arboleda]

Boy, all that venison gone to waste! But I'm sure your UL rations taste LOADS better than venison anyway!

[Carol Crooker]

Holy cow! After reading Herrero's book on Bear Attacks I understand just how lucky (blessed) you guys are! Whew!

[Mopah]

Will we get GPS coordinates later?

[Lucy]

Lucky indeed. A good sign for the rest of the trip.

OK guys, now the obvious question: In light of the bear's reluctance to leave its day bed, shouldn't it have been a clue to you (i.e. there's a reason the bear doesn't want to just ramble off) that the clearly prudent thing to do was to go around the area rather than insisting on going thru it? You forced the bear to make a decision between leaving the area and his food and staying to defend both. The bear usually wins in those situations!

Please don't let your intense focus on your need to cover mileage overcome your wisdom and judgement about the powerful forces of the natural system in which you are merely a visitor.

[Mule]

There is little on earth I've found to be as scary as a griz on it's hind legs in front of me.

- Mule

[Kirk]

Mopah, probably best not to harangue about priorities with Ryan and company. I don't think you're thinking about this in the right context.
They were already in contact with the bear. The last thing they want to do is start walking away at that point.
What would be your suggestion, given the hindsight that you so conveniently observe?
Had they known that there was a bear there, and had they known that it was chowing on fresh kill, don't you think they would have avoided the situation entirely?
Get a clue dude!
Don't know if Ryan and the others get these comments, but hope all goes well and you're safe. What you're doing is incredibly difficult, exciting (for us) and groundbreaking.

[Lucy]

Kirk,

It was me, Lucy, who posted that comment---not
Mopah. So, I'm not a "Dude," thank you. And, I'm not unfamiliar with grizzlies either, having spend considerable time in the outback of Montana, the Canadian rockies and Alaska, in prime grizz habitat and with numerous "contact" as you say.

I don't concur with your analysis of not backing off, if noise and other attempts to get the bear mvoing don't work. No, I'm not suggesting turning one's back to the bear and running like a fool.

Rest assured that I have deep respect, regard and awe for what Ryan and his colleagues are doing. I just wanted to remind them from my comfortable chair to stay safe.

Lucy

[Al Shaver]

I'm with Lucy. If a bear of any color doesn't move away in response to my team making itself unattractive then we slowly back away and detour. Keeping in mind if the bear charges to stop backing, hold our ground and pray it's a false charge (greater than 90%).

[Al Shaver]

I see the origin of the name confusion. The name within the same section as a comment is actually the author of the previous post.
Al

[Kirk]

Lucy, apologies for reading it wrong. Thanks for the clarification. All I'm saying is it's one thing to read and think about an encounter after the fact, it's another to be there in the thick of it. Sounds like it all happened very quickly. Yes, backing off would have been better.
:)
K