Backpacking in Alaska: carry choice?

[wombat12]

In the back of my mind, I seem to remember a joke about bear scat with tiny bells and smelling of pepper spray. Just sayin.

[tenthumbs]

In the back of my mind, I seem to remember a joke about bear scat with tiny bells and smelling of pepper spray. Just sayin.

I've been expecting this. Here's the sign.

[Jeep olllllo]

Nothing less than a 10 MM with 200+ grain Hardcase for a sidearm. Most the guides carry a 12 ga. Slug gun, I know one that carries a 375 H +H. An adult can weight up to 1300 lbs. As far as chances of seeing them, if you are around spawning Salmon you WILL see them. In the National Parks they seem to be pretty educated, plus they have plenty of food (Salmon) so I'm not sure they see you as food. IF you wear bells, talk loudly, travel in groups of 4 or more, and don't cuddle with cubs your chances of being attacked are fairly slim.

I've done a few weeks of fishing around them in Katmai, they will make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, and you will get closer (by accident) then you want too. I'm more fearful of grizz in Montana becuase they have to hunt for different meal every day and most flyfisherman or backpackers are easier to run down than a Bison or Elk. But AK residents or state hunters have to kill 500 nuscence bears a year.

This is not entirely true. Little known fact: The mom bear likes you to interact with the Cubs. This way she feels good knowing that if she dies, her young will be accepted by humans. Just about all mother animals feel this way.

[Cocowheats]

What's all this brown bear and grizzly talk? When I was up in Denali, they told us black bears were the ones to worry about! Supposedly a lot more aggressive and prone to attack. Brown/Grizzly are usually easier to scare off.

I'd go the bear spray and semi auto 10mm route myself.

[Warhorse]

If I were going there to hike, I would be carrying my S&W 329PD in a Kenai chest rig.

https://gunfightersinc.com/products/...chest-holster/

[3SHOOTINGKIDS]

Well I was going to say a .25 or .32 then you just shoot your buddy in the leg and make your escape. I went back and reread that it was your wife your going with. Now I have no advice. Sorry.

[dirtmcgirt76239]

What's all this brown bear and grizzly talk? When I was up in Denali, they told us black bears were the ones to worry about! Supposedly a lot more aggressive and prone to attack. Brown/Grizzly are usually easier to scare off.

I'd go the bear spray and semi auto 10mm route myself.

there are black bear where i hunt, they never mess with people, i can go many trips with out seeing one.

Maybe I am over confident, not scared of a small black bear, I am pretty terrified of a grizzly. Right up there with a crock, tiger, panther.

[pscipio03]

Bears have a very low heart rate in the summer. As hibernation time rolls around, they drop to a beat every 4 seconds or longer. Meaning, you fill it with 17 holes it isn't going to bleed out. Gives it plenty of time to kill you before it starts even getting woozy.
Had a co-worker that was in sales in Alaska. Her husband is/was a State Trooper and avid hunter. He refused to leave without a 454 on him as a backup, and a Glock 20 loaded hot. He never had a run in, but got called out for aftermaths of hikers and bikers having run ins that didn't go so well.
On a side note, while i've never had it, I've heard that black bear tastes great, but grizzly not so much.
Anyway, personally, I'd have a .460 and some bear spray. And, I'd bring along a buddy with a gimp leg. Cuz, I ain't gotta outrun the bear, just the other guy.

[tenthumbs]

Carry a steak knife in your pocket.

A hunter who was mutilated by a grizzly bear in a gruesome battle which resembled scenes from film The Revenant has had his face rebuilt over the last year thanks to pioneering surgeons.

Lee Brooke, 60, was approaching an elk he had shot last year while hunting in the mountains of Wyoming when a 420lbs female bear attacked him from behind, ripping off half his face and knocking him unconscious.

He woke to feel her sniffing at his cheek. 'I could feel the whiskers,' he told Fox News.

Blinded by blood soaking his eyes, Lee managed to grab a steak knife from his pocket and stab the bear in the head, just inches from her deadly jaws.

Badly mutilated and bleeding heavily, he screamed into the woods for help.

He said that he did not know if he would survive the attack, but was determined to live to see his wife Martha again.

He had been separated from his hunting party, but hearing his cries, his brother-in-law George Neal found him.

He also retrieved his severed nose and upper lip before helping him down the mountain where they could find phone reception and called for help.

He was rushed to hospital where he was put in a medically induced coma for one month at the Swedish Burn and Reconstructive Unit in Colorado.

Pretty gruesome injury.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz4yo58ffbc
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[Outdoorman]

Anything more than a Buck 110 knife is overkill!



It was November 1, 1999. Gene was hunting deer in the wilderness near Kodiak, Alaska. He’d been out all day, and it was almost dark when he finally got lucky. But what he didn’t know was that there was another hunter stalking the woods nearby, and Gene was its prey.

http://www1.cbn.com/700club/downing-...huntsmans-tale