Grizzly Bear Assaults on Hikers within the U.S. Only a Matter of Time, How one can Keep Protected (Unique)

• A brand new e-book by Lamar Underwood chronicles greater than a dozen worst-case situations when people crossed paths with grizzlies and different bears
• “The one factor victims have in frequent is being within the improper place on the improper time,” the longtime wilderness author says
• Among the many tales in Unbelievable Bear Assaults is what occurred to Swiss vacationer Brigitta Fredenhagen

After spending many years writing in regards to the open air, 88-year-old Lamar Underwood, former editor in chief of Sports activities Afield and Outside Life magazines, predicts that it’s only a matter of time — days or even weeks — till one other hiker someplace within the U.S. is attacked by a grizzly bear.

“Simply wait,” says Underwood, “it received’t be lengthy now.”

“That is once they start popping out of hibernation, attempting to get some meals,” he explains, “and anyone touring in grizzly nation — possibly in Glacier Nationwide Park, Yellowstone or someplace in Alaska — goes to stroll into bother.”

Underwood just lately launched his newest e-book, Unbelievable Bear Assaults: Terrifying Tales of Savage Encounters between Bears and Individuals, which chronicles greater than a dozen earlier worst-case situations when people crossed paths with grizzlies, black bears, brown bears and Kodiak bears within the wilderness.

“Every thing you hear about grizzly bears is true,” says Underwood, who has authored almost 20 books on the outside.

“They’re probably the most harmful animals on the planet, the final word predator,” he says, “weighing as much as 800 kilos, standing six and a half toes tall and extremely robust.”

Every year, starting in spring when grizzlies awake from months spent hibernating, between 30 to 40 individuals — in Alaska, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, a small portion of Washington and British Columbia — are attacked, and two to a few persons are killed, after coming into contact with these animals.

Nevertheless, nearly all of bear encounters move with out incident — and most assaults happen when these within the backcountry bump into a grizzly by chance.

“The one factor victims have in frequent is being within the improper place on the improper time,” Underwood says. “One of many keys to staying protected is to make loads of noise and by no means journey by way of grizzly nation alone. Ninety-nine instances out of 100, the bear will run away as quick as it could go.”

“However,” he provides, “when it doesn’t run away that’s when bother occurs.”

One of many “worst assaults” that Underwood has come throughout in his many years spent overlaying the outside — and included in his new e-book — includes an incident in July 1984 when a 25-year-old Swiss vacationer named Brigitta Fredenhagen traveled to Yellowstone Nationwide Park to hike and camp within the pristine wilderness.

“She solely made one mistake,” Underwood says. “She went alone.”

Fredenhagen was an skilled hiker. Hours earlier than she died, she retired to her tent after cooking dinner, eradicating all her meals from her campsite and hoisting it up in a tree.

After she was reported lacking the following day, rangers arrived at her camp to find items of her physique scattered in regards to the space close to the place a grizzly had apparently pulled her out of what remained of her tent.

“It was ugly,” says Underwood. “Bears kill by way of a mix of bodily blows with their claws and chomping at you with their tooth. They may completely rip you aside.”

A seasoned outdoorsman himself, Underwood confesses that the one time he ever felt in “grave hazard” throughout all of his wilderness adventures got here throughout a fishing journey on an Alaskan river within the Nineteen Eighties.

Moments after arriving at their designated spot close to a bend within the river, each his information and fishing associate wandered upstream, leaving Underwood momentarily alone.

“They had been solely out of sight for only a minute or two after I started listening to sounds coming from the alder bushes alongside the river,” remembers Underwood, who instinctively took off working to hitch his shotgun-toting information.

“I knew precisely what it was and it was so shut that I may scent the scent of moist, moist fur … That might have been my very own tragic bear story — however I suppose it wasn’t my time.”