The Bear Bell Boys

From our blog:

So there we were, resting below a pass over 9,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada,and a strange tinkling noise came to our ears. I looked at my wife in confusion. A bear bell? In the Sierra? (We've seen one bear in the last three years and three hundred miles of backpacking--and it ran away when it saw us.)

For those who don't know: bear bells are used by some hikers in Grizzly country to give an audible warning. Grizzlies hear a lot better than they see, and the goal of the bear bell is to let Ursus Horribilus know you are coming. In Glacier National Park the old joke is that you can always tell the difference between Black Bear and Grizzly Bear scat, because the Grizzly Bear scat always has little bells in it!

But the last Grizzly Bear in California was shot in 1922, and there have been only 12 Black Bear attacks in the state since 1980--that's thirty years-- and none of them were fatal. (To put this in perspective, over 4,000 people die every year in motor vehicle accidents in the state.) So wearing a bear bell in the Sierra is a bit over the top---particularly if you drove your car to the trailhead!

When the group of middle-aged men passed us, I couldn't help asking: Is that a bear bell your wearing?

Yep, it was. "I really, really don't want to see any bears on this trip!"

Nor any other wildlife, it would appear.

After they passed us by, we waited a bit longer on the trail--we could hear that bell dingling down along the trail for quite a few minutes after they passed. We shared chuckle at their expense, and then finally took up our packs and followed them down the trail in peace ad quiet.

Which would have been an amusing end to the story, but it wasn't. The next day, as we rested in our campsite, we heard a familiar tinkling coming down the trail. Yep--they were hiking the same route, and set up their camp across the lake from us. No harm done, and we shared another smile.

The next morning, as we started out, we found our same group of just leaving their camp. I invited them to go first (since they had passed us the first time, I assumed they were the faster hikers.) I figured that they would be out of earshot within a few minutes, especially if we walked a slower pace behind them.

Not so. It turned out that they were quicker to descend a trail, but slower going uphill. Within five minutes we found them sprawled along the trail resting. "We take a lot of rests, so we are probably going to be passing each other all day long," explained one of the men.

Oh joy. "I hope not," I replied. "You should just pick a livable pace and hold it." I replied. I was not in the mood to hike to the sounds of little bells in the wilderness all day long.

To their credit. they did just that. And it turned out that their pace up over the next 10,000 foot pass was slower than ours. We had a lovely day hiking in sweet solitude, the only sounds we heard being the wind in the trees, the burbling of the streams, and the singing of the birds.

It was only much later that afternoon, after we had set up camp, that I heard the bell again. I was fishing the nearby creek when I heard its now familiar tinkle as the men walked by up the canyon.

We never saw or heard the again. No did we see any bears.

But if you find some bear scat high in the Sierra with a litte bell in it, you'll know what happened!

Since Pooch passed away, I've only seen one bear bping and it was at the TH by Mammoth. All others that Pooch and I came across took off, whether a single bear or sow with cubs. They may not be able to pick you out at a short distance, but if you move they can zero in on you, found that out on a overnighter close to home in the Buck's Lake Wilderness along the PCT. Mom chased the cubs up a tree and was looking for the sound of us, as soon as I moved she looked right at us and all I did was shift my weight from one foot to the other.

Those of us in Grizzly country know they don't work worth a darn anyway. Your voice carries a lot further than the stupid little annoying bell - and every packhorse in the country has a bell on it so the packers can find the darn thing when it wanders off. So I am completely convinced they are only a dinner bell.

I make sure I talk in a group, and when solo give a little yip or yodel every couple hundred meters so I don't surprise one.

We mostly use bear bells to identify tourists. Wait till you've been on a dayhiking trail with the german hiker lady who as attached two of them to the backs of both of her trailrunners, and two to the top of each trekking pole - then you discover the real reason why firearms are not allowed in canadian national parks. I swear any judge in the province would have deemed it a justifiable homicide.

I usu. talk really loud when walking through areas where I might surprise a bear - though one person (maybe on this site) suggested NOT saying the word bear (I say here Mooseeey Moosey - I'm more afraid of Moose than bear anyways) - so that if you suddenly start yelling "BEAR" co-hikers will take it more seriously...

Heather

Not a word of a lie.. I swear to god this story is true.

A number of years ago a party of us were moose hunting in northern alberta with a newbie tyro who went with us - the newbie had been drawn for cow moose where we were hunting.

Unfortunately the newbie did not believe their compass, with predictable results. As 4 of us were filing off of a seismic line to spread through the likely area to find him, two of us (myself and one other) jokingly yelled out at the top of our lungs "HERE MOOOSEY MOOSEY MOOOSEY" - immediately noise ensued to the front of us and running right toward us, then standing and looking at us about 20 yards away was a cow moose. We sat there bitterly contemplating how it would look if we had to call the RCMP to find our tyro "So he could tag the moose he shot before he got lost" - and of course didn't shoot it.

I swear to it on a stack of bibles - I have honestly called a moose to me with "HERE MOOSEY MOOSEY MOOSEY".

I agree, I am more afraid of a Moose than bear also. In fact...my first and only moose encounter to date was a false charge! Thank God!

My college has hiking trails behind it, and old logging trails ...and a few of my friends went hiking there and said they saw a moose. (A year before there was a moose on our campus and the campus had warning fliers up everywhere saying stay away, must have been the same moose.) They knew I recently moved up there from the cities of New Jersey and I couldn't wait to see a moose. So they said lets go, I said, YES! Lets GO!

It was early spring, the snow was starting to melt and refreeze, so there were ice patches still on the ground. Some small snow piles but nothing too difficult that would warrant snowshoes. We hiked out there and came up to the area where they said they saw the moose last. We crept, staying quiet trying to find any signs of moose, noise, scat, whatever. All of a sudden, this behemoth of a creature came prancing out of thick brush and turned towards us! He had a decent trot going, when all of a sudden he slipped on ICE!!!!! I was in the "OH S.* mode! I didn't know what to do and in the midst of my panic I thought of hiding behind a tree, but before I could even put my thoughts to actions, the moose had picked himself back up, turned around, and started running the opposite way with his head tilted awkwardly looking back at us, and the trail ahead of him. He may have been embarrassed haha. I laugh now... What an awkward, clumsy looking creature. He jumped in to the thick brush and disappeared. (How can such a huge creature disappear and be silent in dense forest? Its amazing)

In comparison to a bear, I will be brief. I went by myself to one of our car camping spots along the coast that me and my friends go to a lot. I went to just clear my head and enjoy the outdoors. I was smoking a cigg on a log placed around our fire ring, had a couple puffs, and I look up and there's a black bear walking away from me at about 15-20 yards ahead. How close he was to begin with, I have no clue...which is kind of scary. But needless to say Mr. Bear walked away and I stuck around smoking my cancer stick.

I always get amused when I see bear bells... as was said, best way to spot a tourist.

Common sense, a good voice and some bear spray as a nearly last resort will suffice.

Had a couple grizzly encounters this spring... a bell would have been useless.

A Lakota Indian friend of mine used to joke that he never understood bear bells, in his experience he could never get the bear to stand still long enough to put one around his neck.