Bears - how often and how to deal with?

[Singlespeedpunk]

As a UK dweller the idea of riding something like the GDR with large animals about that can easily kill you is really rather scary. I have read all the normal advice that is on-line (mainly promoted by bear spray manufacturers!) but how often are they encountered and what normally happens?

I know the TD riders this year have had quite a few encounters rainging from Jill and John bluff charging them off the trail to Cricket having an hour long dusk stand off with a big Grizzly!

So spray? .44? or karma?

SSP

(once saw a badger on a night ride...easily 10-15lbs!)

[Moondoggy]

I`ve only had experience with black bears in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota.They`re kind of like large raccoons. All they want is your food. They can climb trees and are great swimmers. Keep a clean camp site, no food in your tent. and hang your food from a ten foot tree branch. Keep your distance when you see cubs. Mommy`s near by and won`t be happy. You can usually send them on there way by make a bunch noise and shouting rude things at them. I`m sure other people here will have ideas on how to deal with Grizzlys. My guess is most problems accure when a chance encounter happens. I`ve herd that making a bunch of noise while you`re riding can help. I like to think that my singing will repeal most bears, and humans for that matter. Squirrels seem to like it though

[multisportscott]

Hey SSP, and all others, thanks for posting this question. My partner and I are heading over this year (six weeks tomorrow, yahoo) to tour the GDR from New Zealand. We are also concerned about Bears 
Jo, my girlfriend's main question, which she can't seem to find an answer to, is, what do we do if we need to get up at 3am to take a leak (for want of a better description)? Do we have to walk a mile from camp? Do we have to dig a hole? What do we do?
We will be watching this thread closely.
We won't be touring very light, by Bikepacking.net standard!
Any tips greatfully received.
We don't even have anything as big as a badger in NZ. The worst thing we have are Sandflies!!!
Thanks in advance, Scott and Jo in Christchurch New Zealand!!

[dave54]

There are two bear species along the trail.  The first is the common black bear (which comes in many colors -- black, brown, cinnamon, blonde, or even mixed).  The previous poster called them raccoon-like.  That is playing them down a bit.  They are normally not aggressive unless you get between momma and her cub.  In most circumstances make a lot of noise and wave your arms and they will scamper off.  But still be cautious -- they are a very powerful animal with long and strong claws.

The Grizzly is a different matter.  They are not frightened off so easily, and can be aggressive.  Fortunately, they are not all that common.  Many hikers spend years in grizzly country and only see signs and fleeting glimpses.

You cannot outrun either one if they decide to charge.  For such a large and clumsy looking animal they are amazingly fast and agile.  The Glacier and Yellowstone National Park websites both have sections on bear safety.  The best way is be very careful with your food and food preparation.  Do not leave food laying around camp at night and do not bring your food cache into the tent with you -- you may have an uninvited tentmate in the middle of the night.  Many backcountry travelers will stop to cook dinner earlier than normal, then pack up and move down trail another couple KM to make camp for the night -- so no cooking or food odors lingering around your campsite.

There is an old fable about women attracting bears during their periods -- old wives tale, no basis in fact.  Don't worry about that.

The Black bear is found along the entire length of the trail in a variety of habitats.  The Grizzly is found in the Montana and Wyoming sections.  the southern half of the GDR is outside the grizzly range. 

[Rob]

So spray? .44? or karma?

I plan on using one of these.

http://www.deltacycle.com/product.php?g=1

And some bear spray. 

[Moondoggy]

You don`t need that. You just need to be able to out run at least one person in your party.

[dave54]

You don`t need that. You just need to be able to out run at least one person in your party.

And always camp near other people.  After they go to bed, sneak over to their tent and smear some peanut butter/anchovy paste.  Then you won't be bothered by the bears...

[DaveC]

9 months living in Montana, and in spite of loads of dawn and dusk rides and a solo backpack in the Bob Marshall and a backpack in Yellowstone (where we saw scat and tracks every 1/2 mile for the first 30) I have yet to see a bear.

I worry about bears in two situations:

--Habituated bears who've gotten food from people before, and want yours.  There are some pretty scary stories of both black and GRIZZ doing gnarly stuff in these situations.  Avoid certain camps and certain areas at certain times as a matter of course.  I use a canister when required, and otherwise cook well away from camp and hang my food.

--Surprising a bear, especially momma bear.  Roaring around a corner on a FS road at dusk seems like a good way to do this.  I have a load freehub, and have yelled in warning and taken the outside line in a few cases when the bearanoia was high.  Likewise, I blow a whistle and clack my trekking poles when hiking through berry patches at dusk next to a load stream (like this evening).  I do not carry bear spray, and would need a handgun with more muzzle velocity (and more regular target practice) so I don't carry a gun either. 

I'd hate to have to shoot a bear anyway.  We need more of the critters, anyway.

[Newfydog]

Even a Griz will not bother a group of three or more.  One charged a friend of mine and did a fast 180 when the others came around the bend.

Don't sleep with your food.
Carry spray.
Feel lucky if you actually see one.  I've seen Griz in the wild once.  I lived in Fernie BC for three years and while I saw some steaming piles, I never saw a griz, and just a few black bears.

[multisportscott]

Hey, thank you all very much for your answers! This is all a little more reassuring.
Anyone game to answer the night time toilet question? I am sure we are not the only who wonder about this!!
Are bears attracted to the smell of urine??
Cheers, Jo and Scott

[Moondoggy]

Hey, thank you all very much for your answers!
Are bears attracted to the smell of urine??
Cheers, Jo and Scott

Only the perverted ones

[dave54]

Are bears attracted to the smell of urine??

Bears really do not like being around people.  Given a choice most would try to avoid contact.  So I would suspect the odor would be foreign enough they would stay away.

Bears are not the salt cravers like deer, elk, and bison.

Bison could be a bigger threat than bears.  They are not aggressive, just big clumsy wild cattle, that are curious enough to wander into your camp and make a mess of things.

[Eric]

not sure about Urine - but yes to sex.
So no sex on bike packing trips in bear country!! you'll get eaten - and it will not be the good kind!

[12wheels]

Very good advice:

[lukey]

One charged a friend of mine and did a fast 180 when the others came around the bend.

 I lived in Fernie BC for three years and while I saw some steaming piles, I never saw a griz, and just a few black bears.

I lived in Jasper Alberta for a couple of years.  Lots of bears up there.  My neighbour there was mauled by a Grizzly on a solo mountain bike ride.  He lived, but it was a pretty close call.  He was a very big, strong guy, and the mauling happened within 1km from the town hospital.  Fluke encounter, apparently he actually struck the bear on singletrack right near the golf course - not a normal place to see a Griz.

Every three or four years someone is attacked or killed somewhere.  It seems to me that it's usually someone moving fast and quiet.  I think there is at least some danger for off-road riders.  A google search for "bear cyclist" turns up a number of events reported in the media.  However, bad encounters are very very rare.  No need to be hysterical, but why take chances?

While I was living in Jasper I personally had weekly bear encounters while biking.  Most sightings were black bears, and most of the bears were already running away from me by the time I spotted them, although a couple of them presented bigger problems.

My advice is to always take a bear bell (or two) to hang on your bike while moving in bear country, and when in treed areas or places with limited sightlines, to yell and make noise when "overrunning" the bell noise on fast downhills, near loud rivers, or when coming around blind corners (especially if the blind corner is where there are rocks or cliffs which block sound).  Camping/food handling advice above is spot on.

I was also told that if you come across remnants of a freshly killed animal (hair / hide / bones etc.) you want to get far away.  Sometimes a bear will hang around and scavenge/defend these areas.  I found that the bikers in the Jasper area would exchange info about fresh animal kills in an effort to avoid these trails (and avoid bears).

Rather more lightheartedly, I also knew a woman whose bike was attacked while she was off the bike and it was parked somewhere.  A black bear essentially ate the saddle.  It had this big "shark bite" missing from it.  This happened, of course, in front of a crowd of tourists at a popular gift shop.  Those lucky people had a terrific story when they got home.  But blech!  I would never want to eat a saddle. 

[threepin]

I live outside of whitefish and my driveway is on the GDR. I would debate some of what has been said regarding bears in this region. If find that they are quite common and that the encounters are probably 50/50 black and griz. It can actually be hard to tell them apart if not seen well.  I would say that if you do the route and pay attention at all you should have at least one sighting in BC or northern montana. last summer we rode from Banff home and saw 3. I also had my first and only badger sighting on he same trip. I am at 10 encounters this year since mid april- also having spent more than a month away traveling for work.

Having said all that, Bear encounters are cool. They usually run very quickly away once they know of your presence. The nature of the Gdr is such that sight lines are usually fairly long as you are on forest roads a lot. The possibility of seeing bear,lions,wolves, wolverines(pretty unlikely) etc is one of the things that make this area great. The upper flathead valley one of the highest concentration of carnivorous mammals in the world. I tend not to take bear spray for the days but so I can sleep in a tent without thinking of being food. Peeing is always good to let animals know you are there. A .44 would not be looked upon well in BC.

On another note, having seen almost all of the future bc route and ridden the existing route I would encourage people to consider the the new route- it is much more of a remote, mountainous, setting and more in what i believe to be the spirit of the route than the existing one- routefinding is not hard, though the connector trail has a short hill that would be a real bugger pushing a heavily laden bike and probably would require a couple of trips with a BOB. It is so short though that I think it would be worth it.

[Pivvay]

I've had good bear experiences. Generally you need to know the differences between blacks and Grizz and how to respond appropriately, esp if you get into a bad situation. Carrying spray isn't a bad idea. I carried it in Yellowstone but not on the GDMBR. IMO, bears that associate humans with food...Yellowstone, the Sierra, certain Colorado campsites...are the dangerous ones. The real wild bears generally want nothing to do with you so long as you don't force them into a fight or flight situation.

I've seen 3 grizz and a dozen blacks on my two trips on the GDMBR. Every black bear ran FAST when it heard me. Every Grizz did not run but checked me out and went back to it's previous business. Making noise helps a lot so sing, yell, blow whistles, whatever you want to do. I find bear bells annoying and not loud enough but if they make you feel better, use them.

Mother and cubs situations can be bad. We had an interesting encounter before Galton Pass this year with a large group of cyclists and a mom and cubs that got split. It ended well but I was thankful to be in a group of 7 people in that instance to be overwhelmingly large to a bear. And if it had been a Grizz I'm not sure what would have happened. We might have been waiting for a while longer.

Anyway if you're nervous, find yourself some accurate bear information and read up. They're nothing worth staying home for and if you're lucky you'll see some from a safe distance. They truly are magnificent, are worth a little extra worry and planning about your sleep spots and add to the beauty of the route.

[DaveC]

My wife and I flushed two black bears out of a marsh while backpacking in Yellowstone last week.  A few blasts on my sternum strap whistle really got their attention and got them moving off.  I think it's a much more emphatic warning sound than yelling, singing or bells, and now use it regularly when coming up to thick brush and the like.

The Yellowstone backcountry office says that, of all the 30+ bear attacks they've had in the last century, none have been on groups larger than three.  I am more hesitant to go solo in bear country than otherwise.

[HopeHal]

New Mexico, USA

We see black bears more often than not when hiking but less often than not when biking.

Respect is the operative word.  Think wild dog on super-steroids but smarter than a raccoon: Very powerful and hungry animals.

In the far back country the bears don't spook much when we cross paths.  Sometimes we will sit down and stare at each other.  The comment about no bear problems for parties of three or more applies here.

The suggestion below about not cooking or eating near your campsite is the best. Hanging food at night is standard anyway. Seriously consider never eating near where you sleep.  Though we get slack on this when camping near the #**!!&* cows;  The ranchers do a 'good' job of keeping the bears spooked.

We have found that eating vegan while backpacking saves a lot of critter hassles and you don't smell like a predator. Works great, we see much more wildlife! We got this idea from stories about how, back in the day, the indigenous folks would go meatless before and during a hunt.  If we fish then it is on the last day.

No Grizzlies in NM and no experience when hiking out of my home range but the thought of it is worrisome.  People describe grizzlies as psychotically hungry.

Seeing bear cubs is fairly common.  We think it is because the cubs are less likely to run away and a few times the mom shooed the cub up a tree and stood her ground staring at us.  Be sure to apologize to momma as you back away respectfully...

I have had black bears sniffing my tent door at night.  Bring your whistle into the tent with you if your concerned but snorting back at them works just fine.  Sometimes black bears will jump out on the road and play race with your car, just like a dog.  They are incredibly fast runners!  I worry about this happening when biking but so far bike-bear encounters have been brief with the bear wanting nothing to do with the scary human on wheels;  This may change as mt bikers discover bikepacking.

Respect and paying attention are basic backwoods skills anyway so enjoy and appreciate these spiritual encounters without fear.

[Eric]

lots of good info here.
I think the bottom line is This - Don't be bearanoid. Its fun seeing bears.

For the most part they do not want anything to do with you, after the initial curious stage of an encounter they'll usually run and not look back.
In Alaska hanging food is usually not an option due to small trees or lack there of, so we usually just sleep with it. Would rather have the food and not starve than have it devoured by bear or other critters.