If you hike the Continental Divide Trail you are going to have to deal with the fact that the trail meanders through a thousand miles of grizzly habitat in the U.S. Another thousand if you want to follow the Divide North of the border into the beautiful Canadian Rockies. It is estimated 600 to 800 bears inhabiting mountains along the Continental Divide north of Missoula, Montana. Many more, perhaps as many reside south of there into the Winds.
A sow with two cubs mauled a hiker two weeks after my 1999 CDT hike through Yellowstones Heart Lake Geyser Basin section. Resently a photographer was attacked in Yellowstones Hayden Valley—one of the most populated grizzly areas in the Lower 48. If you stay on the official CDT route you will not be near Hayden Valley. But that does not give you a free "Get Out of Jail Card."
May 24, 2007YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - A park visitor was attacked by a grizzly bear in May and hiked miles to safety with severe facial injuries, park officials said.The man, in his late 50s, was taking photographs of bears when he was attacked, according to a statement from the park. He told rangers he had been attacked by a sow with a cub.After the attack, he hiked two to three miles and was discovered by other park visitors around 1 p.mGrizzly bears and black bears, including sows with cubs, are active in the spring, Park Service officials said. Park visitors are encouraged to travel in groups, make noise and carry pepper spray.No human injuries from bears were reported in Yellowstone last year, and only eight minor injuries have been reported since 2000, the Park Service reports. The last bear-caused human fatality in the park was in 1986.
The wildlife photographer/hiker who was mauled will survive after undergoing seven hours of emergency surgery to repair his severely clawed face.Jim Cole, 57, of Bozeman, underwent surgery and recovered at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls.Berman said Cole was unable to speak and was breathing through a ventilator and being fed through a tube.Park officials said Cole was photographing bears in the Hayden Valley’s Trout Creek drainage, which is prime grizzly habitat. He was hiking alone, off trail, about two or three miles from the road when a female with a single cub attacked.Berman said the bear hit Cole twice on the head and face with its claws. It was the second time Cole was mauled by a grizzly.In 1993, he was hiking with a friend in Montana’s Glacier National Park when he surprised a young grizzly. The bear tore a hole in his scalp and broke his wrist before the friend used pepper spray and the bear left.Cole mentioned the experience in his 2004 book, "Lives of Grizzlies: Montana and Wyoming."He had no time to use pepper spray against the animal. Jim Cole does remember trying to grab his bear spray. He said that that he assumed that he startled the bear and the bear startled him.Park officials said Cole, 57, of Bozeman, Mont., was photographing bears in prime grizzly habitat within Yellowstone’s Hayden Valley. He was hiking alone, off a trail, and was two or three miles from a road when the female bear with a single cub attacked. He does remember topping a ridge in Hayden Valley, near the Trout Creek area,and reported that the bear "came out of nowhere." The bear struck Cole in the face and besides knocking out the left eye, the animal seriously damaged facial bones and skin. "His recollection was that the bear hit him like putty," he said. "I figured this was as traumatic an experience for the young bruin as it was for me," he wrote. Cole has written and taken photos for two books about grizzly bears. In his writing, he has advocated photographing Yellowstone bears from the safety of a road, but also said he had hiked thousands of miles in grizzly country. "I want to document natural grizzly behavior, not bears reacting to humans," Cole wrote in 2004. "All the same, as careful as I try to be, I certainly have made my share of mistakes."
Bear spray is an insurance, but often you will never find your policy in time.
Dick Mallery Hiked the CDT and GDT in ’99 & 01. You can read his story in "Crossing the Divide, A Family Adventure Along the Continental Divide
A sow with two cubs mauled a hiker two weeks after my 1999 CDT hike through Yellowstones Heart Lake Geyser Basin section. Resently a photographer was attacked in Yellowstones Hayden Valley—one of the most populated grizzly areas in the Lower 48. If you stay on the official CDT route you will not be near Hayden Valley. But that does not give you a free "Get Out of Jail Card."
May 24, 2007YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - A park visitor was attacked by a grizzly bear in May and hiked miles to safety with severe facial injuries, park officials said.The man, in his late 50s, was taking photographs of bears when he was attacked, according to a statement from the park. He told rangers he had been attacked by a sow with a cub.After the attack, he hiked two to three miles and was discovered by other park visitors around 1 p.mGrizzly bears and black bears, including sows with cubs, are active in the spring, Park Service officials said. Park visitors are encouraged to travel in groups, make noise and carry pepper spray.No human injuries from bears were reported in Yellowstone last year, and only eight minor injuries have been reported since 2000, the Park Service reports. The last bear-caused human fatality in the park was in 1986.
The wildlife photographer/hiker who was mauled will survive after undergoing seven hours of emergency surgery to repair his severely clawed face.Jim Cole, 57, of Bozeman, underwent surgery and recovered at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls.Berman said Cole was unable to speak and was breathing through a ventilator and being fed through a tube.Park officials said Cole was photographing bears in the Hayden Valley’s Trout Creek drainage, which is prime grizzly habitat. He was hiking alone, off trail, about two or three miles from the road when a female with a single cub attacked.Berman said the bear hit Cole twice on the head and face with its claws. It was the second time Cole was mauled by a grizzly.In 1993, he was hiking with a friend in Montana’s Glacier National Park when he surprised a young grizzly. The bear tore a hole in his scalp and broke his wrist before the friend used pepper spray and the bear left.Cole mentioned the experience in his 2004 book, "Lives of Grizzlies: Montana and Wyoming."He had no time to use pepper spray against the animal. Jim Cole does remember trying to grab his bear spray. He said that that he assumed that he startled the bear and the bear startled him.Park officials said Cole, 57, of Bozeman, Mont., was photographing bears in prime grizzly habitat within Yellowstone’s Hayden Valley. He was hiking alone, off a trail, and was two or three miles from a road when the female bear with a single cub attacked. He does remember topping a ridge in Hayden Valley, near the Trout Creek area,and reported that the bear "came out of nowhere." The bear struck Cole in the face and besides knocking out the left eye, the animal seriously damaged facial bones and skin. "His recollection was that the bear hit him like putty," he said. "I figured this was as traumatic an experience for the young bruin as it was for me," he wrote. Cole has written and taken photos for two books about grizzly bears. In his writing, he has advocated photographing Yellowstone bears from the safety of a road, but also said he had hiked thousands of miles in grizzly country. "I want to document natural grizzly behavior, not bears reacting to humans," Cole wrote in 2004. "All the same, as careful as I try to be, I certainly have made my share of mistakes."
Bear spray is an insurance, but often you will never find your policy in time.
Dick Mallery Hiked the CDT and GDT in ’99 & 01. You can read his story in "Crossing the Divide, A Family Adventure Along the Continental Divide
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