Hiking in bear country

My knee is responding nicely to physical therapy, so I have high hopes of being fully mobile toward late spring/early summer. With my upcoming caribou hunt this fall, I’ll be needing to get back into some semblance of shape to participate in what will probably be a fly-in/ backpack hunt. That means, in addition to some weight training and cardiovascular exercises, I’ll be getting out and hiking to regain my stride.

Hiking in Alaska in the spring, summer, and fall means being in bear country. Folks in the know carry at least a canister of bear spray. I have no real-life experience in dealing with bears with bear spray and, while I’m sure it would work well under the right circumstances, I don’t trust it to be the best solution. Most people carry a firearm of some sort and that’s where I’m going with this column.

The universal thought is that a large caliber handgun, usually a 44 Magnum revolver, will be good protection in the event you encounter a bear while hiking. The next most commonly carried firearm is a short-barreled shotgun, usually, in 12 gauge, loaded with either OO buckshot or rifled slugs. Some folks opt to carry a large caliber rifle, maybe their moose hunting rifle.

Some problems with any of these tools become apparent with a little thought about the situation. If the wind is blowing in the wrong direction when you trigger the bear spray, you could end up worse off than the bear. And the bear needs to be close for the spray to be effective.

While most people feel quite comfortable carrying a large handgun, the reality is that most folks don’t practice enough to be proficient in placing a lethal shot under the high stress situation of an actual bear encounter. A rifle is easier to learn to shoot accurately, but it’s not as convenient to carry and oftentimes ends up leaning against a tree out of reach when the bear shows up. An advantage to carrying any firearm is that simply firing a shot will often scare the bear off: no harm – no foul.

Okay, those are some general thoughts about bear protection when hiking in bear country. So, what do I carry? It depends!

If I’m riding my bike on the bike paths around Big Lake, I’ll usually only carry bear spray since the area is developed and bears don’t normally wander through. I would expect to use the bear spray on an uncontrolled and nipping dog before a bear.

When I’m out in the pucker-brush, I’ll be carrying a firearm. Most of the time, unless I’ve got a bunch of other stuff to carry, like fishing gear, I’ll carry both a handgun and a shotgun. I have both and carrying the extra weight aids in physical conditioning and, if I do lean the long gun up to take a break, I still have the handgun on my person if needed.

Occasionally, I’ll take a rifle instead of the shotgun along on the hike. Unless I’m specifically hunting for a critter, I prefer to carry a shorter and lighter rifle chambered in a caliber that, while maybe not the best bear stopper available, is still adequate if push comes to shove.

I have an older Marlin model 94 chambered in 44 Magnum that makes a small, neat package to carry. I also have a Puma model 92 chambered in 480 Ruger which is equally as handy to carry. Both firearms are lever-actions and can carry 8-10 rounds in their magazines. The chamberings are for handgun rounds, but both are quite capable of killing anything in Alaska within 50 yards if necessary. Shooting these two calibers out of 20-inch carbine barrels instead of 6-inch revolver barrels boosts their respective velocities and kinetic energies by as much as 40 % over the ballistics out of a handgun.

I also have a small, bolt-action carbine I expect will work in this same capacity. The gun is a CZ model 527 carbine chambered in 7.62 x 39 mm Russian caliber. This cartridge has served as the intermediate round in the Russian military weapons systems. Its ballistics are comparable to the American 30-30 cartridge.

Most people nowadays scoff at the thought of a 30-30 being used for bear protection and it would not be my first choice if I were hunting bears. However, the cartridge has killed untold numbers of black bears and you’ll find it in use in rural Alaska for hunting everything.