Getting between a mother grizzly and her cubs is every hiker and outdoorsman’s nightmare. This man at Yoho National Park lived through that nightmare.
Keith Kerr was running the popular Rockwall Trail in the British Columbia national park when he came face-to-face with one of the most dangerous creatures on the planet: a mama grizzly. Granted, there was a bear warning issued for the park at the time of this encounter, but the Alberta man came prepared.
He was making lots of noise as he traversed the trail (which often keeps bears and other wild animals from approaching), and even packed bear spray in his back pack just in case. And he was in the clear for much of his nature run, and was pulling out his phone to text his wife when disaster struck.
Kerr told CTV News that, all of the sudden, a whole family of bears was right on top of him:
“I had surveyed the meadow for mama bear and her cubs but didn’t see anything. He saw me instantly and gave me the surprise look of a lifetime that was probably the same look I gave him. Within a second, the second cub came around the corner and was right there.”
Never, under any circumstance, do you want to put yourself between a mother bear and her cubs. Bears will often try to avoid running into humans. But if they get close to their cubs? Humans become public enemy number one.
When Keith Kerr saw the cubs, he knew he was in trouble. Sure enough, the mother grizzly wasn’t too far behind its kiddos, and the runner says he was then witness to one of the scariest noises he’s ever heard:
“And it was at that time I heard the gnarliest sound I have ever heard in my life. A low gurgling growl. She comes around the corner not really on all fours, but not on her haunches either. I knew grizzly bears were fast. I had no idea how fast they were.
I am within five or/to six feet of this grizzly bear. I don’t know if she’s 400 pounds or 500 pounds or what she is, but she’s big. And she’s pretty angry at this point. I literally thought this was going to be it for me.”
Kerr went into survival mode, and did his best to keep a level head. He started backing away slowly, so that he didn’t startle the mother bear. He remembered he had his bear spray, but it was in his back pack, and he wasn’t able to access it easily. The Alberta man also says he was downwind, and didn’t think the bear spray would be effective, so he ditched his bag altogether hoping the bear would go after it.
That didn’t work.
So kept back peddling down the mountain and yelling at the bear, all while the agitated grizzly bluff charged him four separate times. Kerr probably felt like he was at war with this mama for an eternity, but in actuality, the encounter only lasted about 75 seconds. And he didn’t blame the grizzly for coming after him:
“All she wanted was to protect her babies. You can’t blame her for that.”
The grizzly trying to protect her cubs actually worked out in Kerr’s favor. Eventually, after the chasing and bluff charges, the mother bear became separated from her little ones. So she abandoned the pursuit of the human being in front of her and went back to be with her cubs.
So miraculously, Kerr made it out of the incredibly close call without a scratch. In an interview, he said it ended up being a great learning experience for him… and that he plans to go back out to that exact same trail in no time:
“I’ll be back out on that trail next month. Rockwall is a great trail. You have to have your head up. The only bad time all day was sending that text. It was just terrible timing. And it just takes a split second.”
