What have been your experiences with black bears? I am considering a thru hike, and my ONLY fear is bears. Some people say that if you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you- but other things I read scare the crap out of me. How many have you have seen bears on the trail- what was your experience?
Andy
Hi Andy, I have Thruhiked the AT twice, 05 and 07 and had to get lucky just to see a bear the second time I hiked… It is a very low risk but people do see them sometimes. I think the rattlers in Pa are more dangerous. Do the Hike. Butch
Butch Cassidy
bears are a bit unnerving to me, too, but our experience has been that the reverse is the truer scenario…most of the bears we’ve seen actually seem ‘unnerved’ by US!..usually they were ‘high-tailin’ it through the woods when they heard us coming…we had read that you should make yourself ‘look bigger’ to the bear by raising your arms(and making lots of noise)…we’ve done that and it worked!..there was only one occasion when a bear actually paused and turned to look back at us…still, don’t be careless with your food and remember that we are ‘guests’ in THEIR home…not vice versa!..yeah…i’d agree that it’s the rattlers that might pose a worse threat (although in '03, we didn’t see a single one of THOSE either!)
maw-ee
I thru-hiked the AT this year. I was hiking along by myself in Vermont when I heard something coming down a tree about 15 feet away. I looked up and saw it was a bear cub, and at the same moment I was thinking “oh sh*t”, along came mama bear on the trail in front of me…3 times my size. I talked to her as I slowly backed away until I was out of sight. I waited a good 25 minutes before continuing on. I lived to tell the tale! Usually you’re lucky to see the bears as they hightail it away from you. Oh, and I never saw one rattler in PA! I think the deer ticks are the scariest thing on the trail!
Jessica
I had one encounter with a mama bear and her three cubs in 2004 near the New Jersey/New York state border and another encounter last summer near Neels Gap.
In the 2004 incident I was walking along and came upon a mama bear and her cubs playing with a empty gallon water jug. The mother looked up, saw me and then turned around and ran away from me as fast as she could, leaving her three cubs by themselves. They ran in three different directions and climbed trees. One of them was headed right toward me and I had to yell at it or it would have climbed up on me. It then went up a tree. I backed off a bit and the cubs came down the trees and left. Never saw any of them again. This incident tells me that mother black bears are not nearly as dangerous as people say they are. This does not mean you should pick up a baby bear and play with it!
In the second incident, this year, I stopped at a campsite and was pretty much all set up. I was about ten miles north of Neels Gap. There was a lot of garbage around, but I discounted it because it was such a pretty place with a nice view of the surounding mountains. I took a nap and when I woke up, there was a young bear, maybe 200 lbs, sitting about 15 feet from me, sort of like a dog looking for a food handout. I chased it off, but it kept coming back. As a result, I packed up and went a couple miles down the trail without incident. The bear was never agressive, I swear I could have gone up and petted him without incident (to be clear, this it NOT ever a good idea). I’m sure if I hadn’t already hung my food bag, he would have been all through it. From the looks of it, I think this bear had been fed by other people fairly frequently.
As you can see, in my experience, black bears aren’t all that dangerous. Three things to remember: 1) don’t bother them and they will leave you alone 2) Don’t, under any circumstances, run away from a bear. In almost all the incidents I read about bears hurting people, the person tried to run away, which turns on the bears preditory intincts 3) if a bear has your food, pack, etc. don’t try to take in back from him. Once they have it, as far as they are concerned, it belongs to them and they will defend that right.
Enjoy your hike - if you’re lucky you’ll get to see a bear along the way.
Bear Bag Hanger
I’ve been on the trail three different times and I have been lucky enough to see bears each time. (Ga.Tn.N.C.) The last encounter wasn’t as enjoyable as the first two. I was one of the hikers who stayed at Roaring Fork Shelter last April when the local bear would make a visit to the shelter each night. We read the journal and didn’t believe what we read about the bear. We found out though. The bear walked around the back of the shelter, staying about 50 feet away just before dark. Then about 2:30 a.m. a large black bear stuck his head in the shelter. talking about some intense moments. But as with the other encounters, alot of noise and movement made the bear scamper off.
wolfman
Someone once said to me, the only part of a black bear your likely to see is its behind. The few bears I encountered in the South seemed very timid. Maybe its because of hunting, not sure.
I also saw bears in the Shenandoas who seemed very blase about hikers. Like most of the animalsin the park, including the deer, you could probably walk right up to them, not that I would recommend this.
I also had an experience in NY in 2004 where a young bear was running about 20 yards parallel to the trail as I was hiking along. He almost seemed to be following me but my main concern was that he was so young that his mother might be nearby. Nothing came of it though.
So, the bottom line is that you are likely to have some encounters with bears but most likely they will be at a distance. Take care of your food in camp and you should be just fine.
jalan jalan
Andy - I’ve had over 100 black bear encounters on various thru-hikes. I love bears and actively try to have encounters by walking quietly and stopping whenever I hear rustling in brush (bears are very noisy through brush). Nearly every encounter ended with the bear noticing me and then running for its life. (If a bear starts to get too close without seeing me - maybe less than thirty feet - I’ll make a noise to let it know that I’m there)
I’ve only had three or four scary encounters. None of them were on the AT. (probably because they are hunted everywhere along the Trail except National Parks)
On the PCT in '05 near Stehekin, WA I had a bear charge me. It was downwind and could smell food in the mesh pocket of my backpack. I did not want it to tear my favorite pack to shreds, and I certainly didn’t want to encourage it to frighten humans to get food, so I grabbed a large dead branch and heaved it towards the bear & then acted aggressive towards it. (big and noisy) It stopped its charge and retreated to a nearby tree. It took some more aggressive action (rocks) by me to actually tree it. But I wanted it to have at least a tinge of fear of humans. The other incidents were on the PCT in '97 & in Alaska & the Yukon in '95.
Even if you happen to run into a nasty old ‘camp’ bear (one that associates humans with food) its comforting to know that the bear isn’t at all interested in you, just your Snickers bars. Bears are opportunists, like almost all animals (and people 
) so when you know what they are after, you have the upper hand psychologically.
As an interesting aside - I met a rock climber from the ‘golden years’ of big wall climbing in Yosemite. He told me that he and his buddies would party at Camp 4 in the Valley almost every night after climbing. The general rule back then was that when the first guy passed out, they would put a “bear halo” around his head (candies in a semicircle around the guys head). Sure enough a nasty ole Yosemite bear would show up during the night and eat the candies right around the guys head! He said that when it happened to him, he would sometimes wake up and then just pretend he was still asleep so that he wouldn’t frighten the bear! Nobody was ever harmed in all those years… (no wonder Yosemite became synonymous with bad camp bears)
So… I wouldn’t worry at all on the A.T. and instead look forward to seeing one. When you realize that black bears are never interested in eating you or even harming you, they are no longer scary.
Happy Trails,
freebird
freebird
Dear Freebird,
Please tell us of your encounters with bears in the Yukon and Alaska.
Soon, I will be living on the Yukon River, for an extended period of time. Naturally, you experiences are of great interest to me. As they will be for other readers, I am sure.
Thanks, Conan
Conan
I saw 10 bears on my thru hike in '05 and had no negative experience with any of them. They are frequent visitors to my yard in NW Wisconsin and have never been more than a nuisance. Yet. A few years ago a neighbor came face to face with a black bear while scrambling through a thick, brushy area. He decided to poke the bear in the snout and chase it away. The bear tore him up pretty good, but it could have been worse. He had serious lacerations to his head, face and arms. The moral of the story is that just because a bear or bears acted /act in a certain way once doesn’t mean they will behave that way again. They are wild and unpredictable, that’s what makes them bears. You only have to be wrong once. Be careful out there.
Nimblefoot
Hey Conan -
Here’s two stories from Alaska & 1 from the Yukon. Enjoy!
Alaska: In the summer of '95 my buddy ken (‘katz’ trailname) and I traveled all over Alaska backpacking in a lot of the cool areas. At one point on this trip we took the ferry from Valdez to Whittier and were told by locals to backpack over Portage Pass to Portage Lake, which has a beautiful black sand beach and an incredible glacier which calves ice burgs into the lake. At the Pass I was way ahead of ken and decided to wait for him. I sunbathed on a large granite slab for probably a half hour. The wind was blowing from the North that day. When I got up to look back down the north side of the Pass to see if Ken was coming, I was shocked to see a black bear not more than 4 feet away! He was as shocked as I was, as he could not see me or smell me from the other side of the rock. I did not know what to do - we were both terrified and frozen in our tracks so to speak. I could see the fear in his eyes and I’m sure he knew I was petrified as well…
After a LONG period of stalemate (45 seconds?), the bear slowly backed off facing me and when he was about 30 feet away he turned and ran for his life. Since this incident, I have always done exactly what he did - especially if I run into a mom with cubs.
That same month while I was in Wrangell St. Elias N.P. Ken and I took the aerial tram (two person aluminum zip line) over a ranging glacier melt river to McCarthy. We then mountain biked up to the Kennecott copper mine ruins near Root Glacier. This was in the middle of the night, but since we were close to the Arctic Circle near the Summer Solstice, there was plenty of twilight. En route to kennecott, when we rounded a hairpin turn on the jeep road, we ran into a huge Brown bear (Grizzlies are a type of Brown Bear. Alaskan Brown bears can weigh as much as 1,500 pounds!). It was much too close to be comfortable for us and the bear - about 20 feet. (animals, like people seem to have a boundary zone - inside that zone they are threatened) The bear stood up (he was probably 9 to 10 feet tall erect & his head was the size of a hood of small car!) and rocked his head back and forth sniffing the air. I instinctively knew he was determining what kind of threat we posed. In the mean time I got off my bike and prepared to throw it into the charging bear if that happened and then run for my life! I am well aware that you are never supposed to run from a Grizzly or Brown Bear and had recently been lectured on this by a Ranger at the Park HQ, but there was no way that I was going to lie down on the ground and take even a minor mauling by that monster! And besides, Ken is a short, slow, rather fat middle aged guy (like ‘katz’ in Bryson’s book - thus the trailname) so I figured my chances were better than fifty/fifty Thank God the bear got down on all fours, took a few steps into the brush and let us go by him.
The final encounter happened south of Dawson in the Yukon or northern B.C. We were heading back to the ALCAN Hwy and I noticed a tiny little black bear cub about 10 feet up a tree on the left side of a remote section of highway. We stopped the van and saw mama bear about 100 yards into a field to the right of the highway. I realized that this was the perfect opportunity to study the reaction of a mama bear with a cub. I got out of the van and stood in the road between the cub and mom. I only had about ten feet to get to the van (an old Ford E350 with the heavy duty metal exterior) if I had to make an escape. The mama kept calling the cub and the cub kept whining back from the tree. (I stood in the road not moving) After maybe 5 minutes, the cub shimmied down the tree and started walking towards mama (who was directly beyond me about 100 yards) The cub made no attempt to go around me, but literally almost stepped on my toes. I stood motionless watching the mom intently. When the cub got within maybe 5 feet of me, the mamas demeanor suddenly changed - her hair raised up and she charged like a vicious dog. I sprinted to the van. It appeared she was running at least 35MPH. I got in the van with a couple seconds to spare and she nearly rammed the van with her head. (the van was idling in case we had to floor it) She looked at me through the windows, growled ferociously, looked over to her cub and then casually walked away with the cub as if nothing had happened. The charge looked like an instinctive reaction more than a rational pre-meditated action.
After these encounters, I’ve always been wary of a mom with cubs, I never ever try to frighten a bear, and I always keep my distance. In my personal experience, nearly every bear that I have run into is afraid of humans and just wants to be left alone. The very few ‘camp’ bears that are considered ‘bad’ bears are just looking for some free food - which unfortunately they have been trained to do by careless humans.
Of course, I’m not by any means a bear expert - these are just my observations.
Happy Trails,
freebird
freebird
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodiak_bear
Few Kodiak bears have been weighed in the wild, so all weights are estimates. Size range for females is from 500 to 700 pounds and for males 800 to 1,400 pounds.[6] Mature males (larger than sub-prime males) average 477-534 kg (1,051-1,177 lb) over the course of the year,[7] up to 1,500 lbs at peak times.[3]. Estimates for exceptionally large males in the autumn range from 1,500 - 2,000 pounds.[citation needed] The largest wild Kodiak bear on record weighed +2,500 pounds (+1,134 kilograms)[8] and was almost 14 feet tall on its hind legs. In captivity, Kodiak bears have reached over 3000 pounds. Weights vary by gender, age and time of year. Females are typically about 20% smaller and 30% lighter than males[3] and adult sizes are attained when bears are 6 years old. Bears weigh the least when they emerge from their dens in the spring, and can increase their weight by 20-30%[6] during late summer and fall. Bears in captivity can sometimes attain weights that are double those seen in wild bears.
Shaggy D.A.
Dear Freebird: Those are impressive stories. Most striking is how close you were to each bear. Astonishing that two walked away at the ranges (4 feet and 20 feet) you described. Equally striking was the mother bear’s reaction despite your stillness–it was fortunate you had 100 yards between you, and only 10 feet to get to your van.
Thank you for sharing. You’ve given me a much better understanding of what might occur should I encounter one suddenly, close up.
In Denali National Park I’ve watched grizzlies, a mother and two large cubs, from a distance of perhaps 60 yards, but that was in a straight line, and there was a small gulley between us, making traveling distance somewhat more. Nonetheless, I stayed very close to my car. In my case, the three bears appeared to be absolutely unthreatened and unconcerned, while poking into bushes in an apparent quest for berries or other plant food. Even so, the two large young ones exhibited curiosity, turning to watch us frequently, while the mother acted like she’d seen it all before and basically ignored us (there were other cars and people on the road as well as I). It was interesting how the two cubs never got too far away from their mother: she would move, they would play and tussle, then look up, locate her, and trundle behind. In all, they were so engaging to view, so peaceful in appearance, that one could easily forget their destructive power and the potential for harm if we got to close or otherwise set off certain instincts (as you did).
Thanks again, Conan
Conan
Andy, I’ve never encountered a bear in the Northeast myself though I’ve probably hiked 500 miles or so on the AT (VA, NH, ME). I spent one summer deep in the wilderness of BC, at an enormous lake called Chilko Lake. One hike I did took me over some passes in the Coast Range to the Pacific Ocean, essentially a bushwhack. On my way back from the ocean I was walking down through a meadow, absolutely beautiful, following a narrow stream. I looked over the stream into the bushes and saw what I thought was the head of a big black rabbit, with big ears, peering out. I was very surprised! A wild black rabbit? A second after the momma bear stood up behind the cub to check me out. I was a bit alarmed but just kept on walking at the same pace, for some silly reason I’d decided that momma probably wouldn’t want to cross the stream! My lasting impression was these were incredibly beautiful animals
Brian
I live in Alaska and the bears can be deadly. All my encounters have been good but you have to be careful.The pycho locals are more dangerous in the bush though !
yappy
On an AT thru I was looking forward to seeing bears, and from Springer to Waynesboro, Va. saw lots of sign, but no bears. Then over the next five days in the Shennies, nine bear sightings. Way cool. Also ran up to one on trail in N.Y. as I was attempting to beat a thunderstorm to the shelter. At that moment, I forgot about the lightning, went “Whoa! Bear!” We looked at each other for perhaps ten seconds, then went our separate ways. Also had numerous black lab sightings, just as cool.
fishngame
I’m hoping the Bears can kick some A** tomorrow night against the Packers!
They need this win to stay in the Playoff picture. Also, I had plenty of Beer last night. I started off with two black and tans but they tasted like garbage. Not sure if it was the “pour” or my pallet but I switched to the ever dependable Budwieser to get me through a long night of rambling and pizza. Oh yeah, I too ran into harmless Black Bears in the Shennies… Gotta love them.
Happy Holidays Everyone!!!
Bubble boy
lol bubble… I am a Steelers fan and was very disappointed yesterday. daggone it ! I am already sick about the playoffs. I can’t sit still when they play. Go Steelers…:cheers
yappy
Well, I posted this topic 8 months ago, and I have FINALLY seen my first black bear! I was hiking in the north Georgia mountains around Vogel State Park. I was surprised at how non scary it was. Now that I have seen one I won’t be scared any more!
Andy