"Well, you came up here for adventure, didn't ya?"

Bluffgruff said:
I'm zipped to the chin in my sleeping bag, but manage to get unzipped to my waist in just a few seconds. My bear spray is unholstered and ready as I lean out to my right to unzip the tent and fly. Pulling it back. There aren't two bears, there are four bears, all standing around my bright blue food bag. I look the other way for 0.01 seconds because why wouldn't their be more bears the other way? Oh good, only four bears.

In retrospect, this was a truly beautiful scene of nature: a sow grizzly, fat, fluffy, shiny blond guard hairs, spiked together by the rain with the sun angling in to set her hair afire in the golden light of mid-morning. She's radiant, powerful, wise. The vision falls apart when you add that her three mostly grown cubs are focused on the bright blue and obviously foreign food bag. One has its paw on it, turning it over, testing it out.

I yell, "hey bears get off my food!" At the volume and with the tone that only seeing bears up close can produce. The cub takes its paw off my bag and looks at me. The other bears look at me. They're too far to spray, too close for comfort. I think, if they get into the food, they won't want to leave it, and if they eat my food, they might eat me too, and even if they just steal my food, my trip is over.

I roll back into the tent, grab my rifle from the other vestibule, extract myself from my sleeping bag, roll to the open side. Bear spray in one hand, rifle in the other, barefoot, in my underwear, as I stand, I bellow like a thousand Scottish warriors, "HEY BEARS GET OFF MY FOOD!"

But the wise sow is already on her way out, trailing her three cubs at a trot over the hill into the alders and beyond. I swivel around for another few minutes, hoping they're gone for good.

I'm so ******* lucky.

This has has all happened in under one minute, maybe even less than thirty seconds, with the best possible outcome at the end. No dead me, no dead or sprayed bear, all my food in the bag.

Apparently, I have camped in a little bit of a saddle at the end of a tall ridge where bears traveling from one major valley to the next like to walk. The sow and cubs have come from upwind. These are different than any of the previous bears I have seen. I think this makes nine different bears in total.

I put my clothes and boots on and send a few inreach messages in case the bears come back and get me. At least someone will know to come find out what happened.
Click to expand...
Pics or I didn’t happen. 😉 Kidding!!! Wowzers that’s nuts!!!!
 
That land is magical in many ways. We too had several bear encounters up there. Not a great feeling when you have 300lbs of bloody bou meat laying 50 yards from your tent. I know now that wasn't smart. But I didn't want a bear to take my yummy meat! I'd so love to get back up there soon. Loving the story and pics reliving a trip through your story.
 
Bluffgruff said:
I'm zipped to the chin in my sleeping bag, but manage to get unzipped to my waist in just a few seconds. My bear spray is unholstered and ready as I lean out to my right to unzip the tent and fly. Pulling it back. There aren't two bears, there are four bears, all standing around my bright blue food bag. I look the other way for 0.01 seconds because why wouldn't their be more bears the other way? Oh good, only four bears.

In retrospect, this was a truly beautiful scene of nature: a sow grizzly, fat, fluffy, shiny blond guard hairs, spiked together by the rain with the sun angling in to set her hair afire in the golden light of mid-morning. She's radiant, powerful, wise. The vision falls apart when you add that her three mostly grown cubs are focused on the bright blue and obviously foreign food bag. One has its paw on it, turning it over, testing it out.

I yell, "hey bears get off my food!" At the volume and with the tone that only seeing bears up close can produce. The cub takes its paw off my bag and looks at me. The other bears look at me. They're too far to spray, too close for comfort. I think, if they get into the food, they won't want to leave it, and if they eat my food, they might eat me too, and even if they just steal my food, my trip is over.

I roll back into the tent, grab my rifle from the other vestibule, extract myself from my sleeping bag, roll to the open side. Bear spray in one hand, rifle in the other, barefoot, in my underwear, as I stand, I bellow like a thousand Scottish warriors, "HEY BEARS GET OFF MY FOOD!"

But the wise sow is already on her way out, trailing her three cubs at a trot over the hill into the alders and beyond. I swivel around for another few minutes, hoping they're gone for good.

I'm so ******* lucky.

This has has all happened in under one minute, maybe even less than thirty seconds, with the best possible outcome at the end. No dead me, no dead or sprayed bear, all my food in the bag.

Apparently, I have camped in a little bit of a saddle at the end of a tall ridge where bears traveling from one major valley to the next like to walk. The sow and cubs have come from upwind. These are different than any of the previous bears I have seen. I think this makes nine different bears in total.

I put my clothes and boots on and send a few inreach messages in case the bears come back and get me. At least someone will know to come find out what happened.
Click to expand...
I'm loving this story, but I'm curious about this "food bag." Was your food not in bear cannisters? I would think you'd have to use them in a place like that.
 
Dougfirtree said:
I'm loving this story, but I'm curious about this "food bag." Was your food not in bear cannisters? I would think you'd have to use them in a place like that.
Click to expand...

Definitely no requirement, though it's not a bad idea. Bear cannister wasn't even mentioned by the local who had been there. Then again, an Alaskan resident could shoot any bear there, grizzly or black, without a locking tag, so maybe there was little question about the course of action if there was a bear in camp (easy pack out)?
 
brownbear932008 said:
That land is magical in many ways. We too had several bear encounters up there. Not a great feeling when you have 300lbs of bloody bou meat laying 50 yards from your tent. I know now that wasn't smart. But I didn't want a bear to take my yummy meat! I'd so love to get back up there soon. Loving the story and pics reliving a trip through your story.
Click to expand...
Watched a YouTube video where a guide prefers to keep the meat close to the tent because the further away the greater chance that it will be eaten.
 
My head is figuratively and literally spinning. My thought is to get myself and my food far away from here.

I take everything that has any food odor with me and walk about 800 yards uphill into a broad fen-like area with good visibility in all directions, where I eat breakfast and debate my next move. I really don't want to sleep where my tent is, but it's already 10-11 miles back from the jeep. I really DO want to hunt the hilly tundra where the bulls from the night before disappeared.

Food bag goes on huge rock, and I'm off on a journey with the the idea that bivying under a rock in my insulation is a good plan.

Screenshot_20230305_024140_Gallery.jpg

I circle this massive ridge complex, finding ptarmigan that almost get win-magged after giving me a heart attack, a bear den, and lots of caribou sign.

Screenshot_20230305_024157_Gallery.jpg

Screenshot_20230306_061059_Gallery.jpg

Ultimately, creeping through the rocky ridge where I'm expecting the three bulls from the day before, a bull pops out at a trot at 190 yards. I drop everything and get ready to shoot.

Screenshot_20230305_024333_Gallery.jpg
Screenshot_20230305_024227_Gallery.jpg

It turns out to be an immature bull, and I ask myself if I'd rather go home empty handed or with this bull. Today, he gets a pass.

I continue on, trying to glass every valley from the ridge, hoping for the three bulls from the day before.

Screenshot_20230305_024217_Gallery.jpg
Screenshot_20230305_024417_Gallery.jpg

If you think "only the ram knows" applies to sheep, "not even the caribou knows" applies to caribou. I keep finding the same immature bull; he's searching the whole region for some other caribou to hang out with. Two encounters in range, a third and a fourth at distance.

As the day wears on, I run out of water, but no worries, there are tarns, pools, and puddles everywhere.

Screenshot_20230305_024402_Gallery.jpg

I walk out as far as 16 miles from the jeep, putting on another 10 or so miles in the process. I haven't seen the three bulls, and I'm bummed out about that.

I have enough food to make it until the next day, but not my stove. I have my down jacket and insulated pants and a small tarp, but not my sleeping kit. I decide if I'm going to bivy, it has to be out of the wind and under a rock somewhere. I don't want to walk the several miles back to the tent, so a rock it has to be.

I check out a few different tors and settle on this one since it seems off the ridge where the wind wont be as bad.

Screenshot_20230305_024443_Gallery.jpg

It turns out to be less than ideal choice.
 
I keep the food near. Or it will cause an issue with bears feeling like they have a chance. Most folks around seem to prefer keeping any harvested game or their food where they can see it n protect it.
 
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