How Not to Get Eaten By a Grizzly

 
When we rolled through the entrance to Glacier National Park last month, the ranger handed us a brochure called, "Bears: Important Safety Information."  Note photo of bear to left. Big teeth!

I scanned the brochure: be observant, travel in a group, and make noise--a loud shout every few minutes is good. 

That afternoon we decided to go for a hike, and we ran into a group of middle-aged women at the trailhead, just coming off the trail. 

I asked one of them if she carried bear spray.

"Always" she said, looking alarmed. "Don't you have some?"

"No," I said.

"Then you'd better borrow mine, "she said, firmly, pulling a can from a holster around her waist.

"Point the nozzle toward the bear," she demonstrated.   "And make sure you're not down wind, or it'll all blow back in your face."  Which you don't want to happen because it's pepper spray.

"How far away is the bear?"  I asked, trying to imagine having enough wits about me to determine if I were down wind or up.

"Oh, about that close," she said, pointing to Jerry, who was ten feet away.

That close!  This was an exercise in futility, I thought.  But I took the can and promised to return it to her later that night.

In the general store the next day, I checked out the price of bear spray: $50.    Jerry recoiled.

"We're not going to need it," he said, being a thrifty type who's always most at ease in the outdoors. I was nervous, but also cheap, and, besides, I also couldn't see how we'd have the presence of mind to use it.

So we did two long hikes in bear country with no protection but my own personal system of bear deterrent, developed on the spot.

A whistle I keep in my fanny pack and my water bottle. I walked along the trails tapping the whistle on the side of  bottle and saying, "We're HERE!  We're HERE!"   Occasionally, I'd toot lightly on the whistle, enough to drive away a bear but not so loud that I'd look foolish to other hikers (?). Although some of them wore bear bells and jingled like Santa Claus.

We weren't attacked!  We even hiked past thickets of berry bushes, which bears love:

 

This sign gave me pause, though:



When I got home, I checked out bear spray online.  One website advises "rehearsing with the spray at least seven times," and adds that bears are "fast as lightning."  The cheapest spray I found was on Amazon: $38.99 for a brand called "Frontiersman."  The holster, highly recommended, is an additional $12.95.  You can use it on a bear as far away as 40 feet.  Whew (?).