“We were trained to get off the trail and give them the right away while making sure the bear knows we are there so we don’t startle them.”
A hiker from Breckenridge had quite a story to tell once he got back to Colorado after encountering a pair of massive grizzlies while out for a hike in Alaska’s Katmai National Park on March 10th.
Alex McGregor followed the National Park Service directions provided in a recent tweet advising “if you come across a bear, never push a slower friend down…even if you feel the friendship has run its course” and kept cool while backing away from the apex predators.
Alex and his friend Laura fortunately went to bear training school before venturing out on the path that acts as a grizzly bear highway to the fertile feeding ground of Brooks Falls and used their recently acquired to safely navigate the encounter. Wise choice.
@chasing.luminance So this was an interesting encounter. You might wonder why we didn’t just walk backwards down the trail? Why did we go into the thick forest? Every other time we saw a bear on the people trail they were just using it as a highway , cruising back and forth. So we were trained to get off the trail and give them the right away while making sure the bear knows we’re there so we don’t startle them. This bear had other ideas… we’re very grateful to the bear school training that helped us keep calm and move out of his way. #bears #brownbears #brownbear #katmai #katmainationalpark #animalencounter #absoluteunit #wildlife #wildanimals #Alaska
Alex got absolutely swamped with questions in the comment section of his viral video which has been viewed over 1.5 million times and followed up with some videos for further explanations:
DID YOU POOP YOUR PANTS?
@chasing.luminance Replying to @mrkennedy1 #bears #brownbears #brownbear #katmai #katmainationalpark #animalencounter #absoluteunit #wildlife #wildanimals #Alaska
WHY DO YOU SAY “HEY BEAR”?
@chasing.luminance Replying to @mixedbreedpuppy #bears #brownbears #brownbear #katmai #katmainationalpark #animalencounter #absoluteunit #wildlife #wildanimals #Alaska
WHY DID YOU CONTINUE TO FILM?
@chasing.luminance Replying to @jaysonklimek #bears #brownbears #brownbear #katmai #katmainationalpark #animalencounter #absoluteunit #wildlife #wildanimals #Alaska