| 1 | The adventures of Kit Carson |
Born in 1809, Kit Carson was one of America’s most legendary mountain men, one time duelling a Frenchman for the rights to marry a Native American, and barely surviving when a bullet grazed the top of his head. In 1834, Carson followed a set of tracks through the Colorado Rockies, where he found and shot a gigantic elk. But almost immediately afterwards, 2 gigantic grizzlies came charging from nowhere.
Carson’s rifle was out of bullets. A tree was his only hope, and with immense agility, Carson sprang upwards and swung himself onto a lower branch. He only just pulled his ankle from the giant bear’s closing paws, and now (probably with a quick nod to each other), the two grizzlies prepared to climb.
Quick as a flash, Carson pulled out his knife and cut a lower branch free. He knew that a grizzly bear’s nose was its tenderest, most vulnerable point, and the second the largest grizzly came into reach, jaws snapping, he stabbed the branch downwards in a multitude of crashing blows. The grizzly howled and retreated, and the second one suffered the same fate. Carson attacked the nose as though his life depended on it, which it did.
The howls of the grizzlies echoed throughout the forest, but they weren’t willing to give up their prey yet. They circled the tree for hours, while Carson simply waited and prayed. Finally, the grizzlies left, “of which I was heartily pleased, never having been so scared in my life“, Carson said. When Carson finally abandoned the tree just before midnight, he noticed that his elk carcass had been completely consumed. Carson made rapid progress to his camp, where his worried companions greeted him with joy.
| 2 | Ridiculous 2013 video |
The greatest internet video of 2013 begins in what appears to be a rural workshop, with multiple TVs filling shelves on the wall. The cameraman strays outside to an area with multiple cars and tools strewn around, before zooming in to reveal a man being chased by a brown bear up a tree. It’s a very thin tree, and the bear seems to be wrestling with the decision of whether to climb any higher. The tree looks like it could snap at any moment. The man is safely out of reach, but shouts at the bear repeatedly to scare it away, a plan which fails. Both man and bear stay in the same position for the entire 30 seconds the camera is on them, with a background of grassy meadows and forested hillsides.
But the craziest thing is how nobody rushes to help the man. The man is fighting for his life, but if anything, people are disinterested, and letting them get on with it. Halfway through, the cameraman lets out a deep sigh as though to say “why am I still living in Russia”.
Then he loses interest totally, and swivels the camera around to an adorable white and fluffy rabbit, before showing viewers his collection of classic cars. The fate of the man, the bear, and the delicate-looking tree is never revealed.
This video raises more questions than it answers. One possibility is that another bear was operating the camera.
| 3 | A 1960s Denali escape |
Our next lucky escape took place on Igloo mountain, a small 1413 metre peak in Denali National Park in Alaska. At 3:50pm on August 4th 1961, a young ecologist named Napier Shelton was analysing a willow tree on the slopes close to the tree line, when he heard an ominous growling from close behind him.
Shelter was under no illusions, and as expected, his first glance revealed a charging grizzly approximately 10 metres away. Shelton dashed up the tree instantly, and he was lucky that its branches were horizontally angled and extended almost to the ground, making it like a ladder. Unfortunately, the bear had this advantage too.
Napier ascended several metres, but massive bear claws closed around his ankle. Seconds later, massive bear teeth were sinking into his calf. Napier kicked with all his might using his other foot, and the bear slipped down – was it a lucky strike on the nose? But Napier was pulled down in the bear’s grasp, and now the bear had his thigh. Napier refused to give up; he kept up a relentless onslaught of kicking with his free leg, like a pneumatic drill.
Finally, the bear let go, and Napier scrambled upwards. The impatient bear circled around the willow two or three times, before deciding that this meal was too much hassle, and wandering off relatively quickly. Napier stayed up the tree for half an hour, before starting down the slope and bumping into esteemed naturalist Adolph Murie.
A week after the savage assault, a smiling Napier Shelton returned to the tree to pose for pictures, which were later included in Murie’s book “The Grizzlies Of Mount McKinley”.
| 4 | A Siberian tree escape |
One day in 2017, 43 year old Andrey Ilyushits was walking his dog in the grassy, rolling south Siberian region of Kemerovo, when he stumbled into a gigantic brown bear.
Immediately, his loyal dog started to bark in the bear’s face. Bears have a strange fear of the much smaller dog, and this bought Ilyushits just enough time to take the only option available to him: climbing a nearby tree.
From a high branch, Ilyushits watched with horror as his beloved pet dog was killed, but fortunately, he had managed to climb high enough to be safe. He stayed in the tree for “many hours” before the bear gave up and he dared to climb down. Worse though, Ilyushits had been lost to start with. He had lost his way after leaving the small village of Alekseyevka.
Ilyushits sent a text message to his brother requesting a rescue, but he knew that movement was essential. He travelled 40km on foot through the wild Siberian taiga, praying that he wouldn’t meet another bear. Rescuers arrived and discovered a makeshift shelter and smouldering fireplace, plus a note explaining his intended route, but soon after, the trail of clues fizzled out.
The next day, an aircraft from a nearby town called Rosgvardiya flew over the wilderness, but failed to spot him. Finally, on day 5 of the intensive search, they found the starving Ilyushits. He had barely eaten a morsel of food for 7 days, but thanks to the tree and some rusty but functional climbing skills, he was still alive.
| 5 | Hunter ignores a wise Native American |
One morning in 1876, a man called Mr Townsend but more commonly known as “Dad” decided to set out into the Eagle prairies (as reported by the Humbolt Times). He had heard rumours of plentiful deer in the area, and accompanying him was a very cunning and experienced Native American hunter.
Two miles in, the Native suddenly warned Mr Townsend that bears were close by, but “Dad” was a man who never left a job he had started unfinished. He pressed ahead, and at the foot of a small hill, he sure enough discovered 3 fully grown grizzly bears feasting on a tender deer carcass.
The wise Native American had now disappeared. At first, Townsend fled with all the speed he could muster, but the growls were getting louder – the hungry bears were moving too quickly. So Townsend took the only escape route available to him – a medium-sized tree. He managed to reach the upper branches just before the hungry bears bit his heels, but in the melee, he had dropped his rifle. Instead, Townsend pulled out a Smith and Wesson handgun and fired insistently at the snapping bears below. One bear died, but the others refused to weaken.
Meanwhile, the old Native American had reached the cabin of two fellow hunters called Mr Painter and Lew McDaniels. They sprang to action, and when they reached the tree, Townsend was still alive. The duo shot the bears with rifles, and Townsend was saved from his tree refuge, after nearly 1 hour of panic.
| 6 | Gold hunt goes horribly wrong |
The 1850s were the era of the Californian gold rush. Americans from all over wanted a piece of the profitable pie and in January 1858, miner George Favier and his merry band of 4 friends set out to the woods of Mariposa, California. One night, Favier was gathering brush for their campfire, when he heard a terrifying roar.
Turning around, he witnessed two gigantic grizzly bears gallop into camp and knock his friends to the floor. Favier immediately dropped his firewood, and dashed for the best-looking tree he could identify in the split second he had to think. Favier struck an approaching bear in the face with a pickaxe, and despite feeling razor-sharp claws nipping at his feet, he made it to safety with a final burst of strength.
From the highest branches, the bleeding young man watched on in horror as the bears devoured the bodies of his friends and ransacked their food supplies. “The young man remained in the treetop two days and two nights, nearly perishing with thirst” reported the Sacramento Age at the time.
Favier waited in the tree for a full two days before daring to descend. He staggered northwards for a further three days, until the miraculous sight of a cabin came into view, where he was nursed back to health. Without a tree, he too would have become bear food.
| 7 | The downfall of Grizzly Adams |
Few people have ever had more bear stories to share than Grizzly Adams, and one of the classics revolved around a tree. In spring 1855, Adams was following a knee-thick trail in the Sierra Nevada mountains with his pet dog Rambler and beloved bear Ben Franklin, when a mother bear’s head suddenly popped up.
The mother bear jumped, and with a single paw, she swatted the rifle out of Adams’ hand before he had time to fire it. With the other paw, she swatted his head and ripped open his scalp, leaving it hanging over his eyes.
Fortunately, Adams had one piece of luck: this was an elderly bear with blunt claws and ground down teeth. Adams started to sing “old sgt”, and his beloved bear Ben Franklin appeared, unleashing a flurry of blows on the rival grizzly’s back and giving Adams the breather he needed. He scooped up his rifle, and climbed into the sanctuary of a small tree.
He laid his flapping scalp back onto his skull, but now, the mother bear was mauling Ben Franklin. From his comfortable tree, Adams let out the mightiest screech he could muster, and when the mother bear swivelled to attention, he unloaded one shot into the bear’s heart. She fell back “like a log”, and when she appeared to recover, Adams jumped down and finished her off with a slash of his hunting knife.
Both Adams and Ben Franklin survived (as did Rambler), but died within a few years from complications.
| 8 | An Alaskan dog walker |
In our next story, Bob Hayes of Haines Junction, Yukon managed to deploy two of the classic grizzly dodging strategies. One day in August 2008, he was walking down a wilderness trail when he calmly noticed a mother grizzly charging him. He wasn’t calm for long though: he soon exclaimed “something that … probably most people would exclaim“.
He was with his beloved pet dog Charlie, and the pooch managed to bark and distract the charging bear for just long enough to allow Hayes to climb a nearby spruce tree. He kicked and used every last remnant of tree-climbing knowledge from his days as a youth, and despite the bear getting a hard bite into his ankles, Hayes reached the safety of a higher branch. Then he remembered his canister of bear spray. He whipped it out of his backpack, and from 1-2 metres away, he deployed it into the mother grizzly’s face, which had shown no signs of giving up.
For the next 10 to 15 minutes, the agonised grizzly ran in loops, with its howls audible across the entire forest. From this tree sanctuary, Hayes heard the cub lurking in the background. Soon enough, the mother disappeared, and Hayes made sure to stay deathly quiet as he descended from the tree. He only suffered superficial injuries, and the same was true for his dog.
| 9 | Night of the grizzlies |
The Night of the Grizzlies was a fateful event in American brown bear history: two girls were killed by garbage-addicted nuisance bears, and this led to bear-proof bins being installed all over US national parks, and rubbish dumps being cleaned up. But without the sanctuary of trees, it could have been much worse.
On August 13th, Michelle Koons and her 4 friends were camped by Trout Lake. At 4:20am, Denise awoke to the hot, moist breath of a huge bear. She somehow stayed calm, but then the bear strayed over to 16 year old Paul Dunn, biting his sleeping bag and swatting him hard.
Dunn jumped awake, whacking the bear by accident. The bear backed off momentarily, and then charged, before Paul scampered up a tree just in the nick of time. Meanwhile, 21 year old Ronal Noseck had woken up, and at the top of his voice, he bellowed “everyone into trees“. Denise scampered up, and Ronald threw the dog to her, before climbing up the tree himself. The last to make it to safety was Ronald’s brother Ray.
Sadly, it was too late for Michelle Koons, who was almost having a panic attack. They urged her to get to the trees, but Koons’ last words were “oh god, I’m dead“, before being dragged into the woods. Paul and friends stayed in their tree sanctuary for 2 hours before climbing down and running headlong to the rangers’ cabin. It’s likely that the tree saved them – the bear’s hunger may have been satisfied, but the next day, it was shot dead by the very same lake.
| 10 | Father saves his son’s life |
A tragic mauling had a silver lining in May 1995 when a small boy survived thanks to hiding in a tree. It happened 20 miles south of downtown Anchorage, when a grandmother, grandson and her son-in-law were walking the popular McHugh Creek trail.
14 year old Art Abel was walking with 77 year old Marcie Trent, an avid runner who had completed 70 marathons, while 45 year old Larry Waldron, a popular local saxophonist, was further ahead. The team was 1 third of the way to the lake, when Abel heard the bushes rustling. The next thing he saw was a large shape moving. His grandmother let out a piercing scream, and in panic, Abel dived into a nearby ravine.
Further ahead, Waldron noticed the terrified boy approaching. He told him to hide in a tree, before dashing back down the trail for his mother-in-law.
Some time later, a hiker heard the boy’s shouts from the tree. Marcie Trent was discovered dead, while Waldron had deep slash wounds in his stomach. He was in shock, and despite the efforts of fellow hikers, he quickly died. Abel had climbed the tree, and was airlifted away by helicopter without knowing what had happened to his relatives. He told the rescuers that the attacking animal was a moose.
Apparently, there was a half-buried moose carcass 300 feet away which the bear had been defending, and the father and grandmother had been dragged halfway off the trail. Nevertheless, Waldron’s quick thinking saved the life of his son (and the tree helped).
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