Clint Adams was mountain goat looking on Alaska’s Baranof Island final month when a brown bear attacked his get together of 4. Early within the morning on Oct. 15, the primary day of their hunt, Adams was mountain climbing along with his buddy, Matt Ericksen, his girlfriend, Melody Orozco, and their information. They have been following the information up a steep, brushy ridge when Adams instantly heard him yell three phrases that no one ever desires to listen to in bear nation: “Oh, fuck. Run!”
By the time Adams realized what was occurring, his information was already working previous him and reaching for the .375 H&H bolt-action rifle that was slung over his shoulder. Adams’ personal rifle was strapped to his pack, and the one weapon at hand was the ice axe he’d been utilizing to claw his manner up the mountain. When the large boar chased after the information and handed inside arm’s attain of Adams, he took the ice axe and swung with each arms, burying the sharp finish within the bear’s cranium simply behind its ear.
“I see the bear and its eyes are completely locked on the guide, and I’m like he’s not gonna hit me, he’s going after the guide,” Adams tells Outdoor Life. “But I have this ice axe, and I instantly realize that I have one swing to try to slow this bear down. He runs right past me, probably a foot by me, so I just swung that ice axe as hard as I could, and I felt it sink in all the way to the handle.”
Adams then watched because the bear tackled the information from behind, and the 2 rolled all the way down to a flat spot under. The information was on his again making an attempt to shoulder the rifle because the eight- to nine-foot boar reared again on its hind legs. That’s when Adams noticed that the axe was nonetheless lodged within the bear’s head.
Chaos on the Mountain
Looking again, Adams knew that bringing his girlfriend on the hunt was a dangerous proposition. She had by no means been looking earlier than, and a multi-day goat hunt in southeast Alaska is about so far as it will get from newbie territory.
“This was her very first hunting trip, and both our families were like, ‘Hey, are you sure you want to dive into the deep end?’” he says. “I was concerned too.”
Adams explains that he’s hunted in Alaska earlier than, and though he’d by no means had a run-in with a bear, he knew it was at all times a danger. But he was extra involved concerning the grueling hike than he was about bears on the afternoon of Oct. 14, when the group caught a ship journey throughout the bay from Sitka. After making it to a big lake, they zipped throughout with their gear in an inflatable raft fitted with an outboard motor. They began mountain climbing up the mountain that night climbed a couple of mile and a half earlier than making camp within the rain.
The skies cleared up the subsequent morning and so they received an early begin. Working their manner up a ridge on their technique to glassing spot, Adams, Ericksen, and Orozco used their ice axes through the hike, driving them into the earth and utilizing the axes to drag themselves uphill. They have been simply getting in a rhythm and have been solely about 400 yards away from camp when their information uttered these three horrible phrases.
“After he said ‘run’ I heard the bear’s deep, bone-chilling roar. Then the guide turns and runs by me, and I look up and see the bear coming out of the brush,” says Adams, who stands 6 foot, 6 inches, and weighs 285 kilos.
When he noticed the bear charging, Adams bared down, leaned ahead along with his left shoulder, and braced for impression. But then he noticed the bear’s eyes, which have been locked onto the information. Realizing that he wasn’t a goal, he drove his axe into the bear’s cranium because it ran previous.
“I look up just in time to see the bear and the guide rolling down the hill. That bear hit the guide right in his backpack and just crumpled him. When the bear turned around, I looked and saw the ice axe was still hanging out of his head.”
The impaled bear then reared up over the information, who shouldered his rifle and fired a shot straight up into the air. Adams says he distinctly remembers seeing the muzzle blast ruffle the bear’s fur. The shot spooked the bear simply sufficient for it to step again and hesitate. At this level, Ericksen drew the .357 revolver strapped to his chest and fired three pictures on the bear by means of the comb.
The boar charged the information once more, and the information leveled his rifle and shot a second time. Ericksen fired two extra rounds from his pistol. Adams says they nonetheless don’t know if any of these pictures even hit the bear, however all of them saved screaming and ultimately the bear ran off. They by no means noticed the bear once more, and though the information reported the incident, Adams has no concept if the bear died or not. He did, nevertheless, get his ice axe again.
“After that second shot [from the guide], the bear looped down and got level with me about 30 yards away,” Adams says. “We’re making a ton of noise at that point, and it bluff charged once or twice. It took two steps forward, two steps back, and as it turned and ran the ice axe fell out of his head.”
Split-Second Decisions
Adams says he’s since heard from keyboard commandoes who’ve criticized the information for working, saying he shouldn’t have put his personal security above his purchasers’. But the best way Adams sees it, the information reacted the very best he might beneath the circumstances. The incontrovertible fact that the bear charged thrice with out anyone struggling a lot as a scratch is the one proof he wants that the information made the fitting choice.
Read Next: Charged by a Grizzly: A 10mm Glock (and Serious Practice) Saved My Life
“In that specific situation, the bear would have been on the guide before he could have done anything. [The guide] did what he did so he could get his gun off his shoulder before he got mauled,” he says. “He was fully prepared to ‘get his face peeled,’ in his own words, but he was retreating so that he could get his gun off his shoulder before the bear got on him. Which he was able to do.”
Adams additionally says the entire expertise opened his eyes to how gunshots assist cease a charging bear. He says that as a result of they have been in dense brush in tight quarters, bear spray would have been ineffective, and he thinks that the muzzle blast from the information’s rifle might need deterred the bear much more than the bullet.
“This might sound silly, but after going through that and seeing how the bear responded, I honestly would feel the most safe from a charging bear with a foghorn in my hand,” Adams says. “When I saw that .375 go off, it was not only the sound, but more so it was the air that hit the bear in the face. It was just amazing how that bear reacted when it got hit with the muzzle blast.”
Read Next: Bear Gun Shootout: 10mm vs .44 Mag.
He provides that, in his opinion, in the event you’re going to hold a pistol in bear nation—which, in fact, it is best to—your greatest can be to hold a 10mm Glock with a 19-round clip and “make as many bangs as you can.”
Reliving the Nightmare
After their run-in with the bear, Adams says the group caught their breath, decompressed, after which glassed for a short while longer. Soon sufficient they noticed one other, larger bear larger up on the mountain, which was the one signal they wanted to show round and break camp. They made it to the lake, after which boated throughout for his or her journey again to Sitka, the place they spent the night time. Orozco was (understandably) nonetheless shaken up, however when Adams and Ericksen noticed that the climate would solely maintain for one more day earlier than turning bitter once more, they determined to benefit from their hunt and headed again into the mountains with their information the next day.
After boating to a distinct mountain lake, they hiked up and camped above tree line. The two mates shared a tent, and Adams explains that Ericksen handed out round 7:30 p.m. whereas he stayed up and performed a card sport.
“I’m still wide awake, and after about thirty minutes, he sits straight up and starts screaming, ‘Ahhh!’ and he scared the absolute shit out of me,” Adams says. “And I’m like, ‘Whoa, what’s up?’ And he said, ‘It was just a nightmare. I was getting charged by a brown bear.’”