0:00

Hello beings, Welcome

0:05

back to this show. What is this? Our feels

0:08

like? Our ninetieth episode

0:15

Little podcast Humor Podcasts.

0:23

I have drastically

0:27

improved my appearance for this episode

0:31

blow drying my hair for a podcast

0:34

pretty much almost nothing as futile

0:36

as doing

0:39

full makeup for a short snippet

0:42

that's going to go online.

0:46

But here we are twenty twenty

0:48

four. I'm still putting twenty twenty three

0:50

on things just to get people on their

0:53

road. I

0:57

made a song about Hondas that I sent

0:59

a Kojak. I'm hoping he'll

1:01

turn it around and it will be at the end of this

1:03

episode, So stay tuned for that.

1:06

Honda Sanda, Sanda, Why

1:08

do they speed so fast? Why

1:11

is it just ubiquitous Hondas

1:14

blowing past you on the road. If

1:17

you drive a Honda, call in, I

1:19

want to talk to you. That's going to be one of the open

1:21

topics for any episode. What's

1:24

your psychology? What

1:27

drew you to the Honda?

1:31

Are you aware of the whole

1:35

attitude of the Honda driver? The psychology?

1:37

Is this something that you were

1:40

consciously buying into when you got a

1:42

Honda or is

1:44

it something you realized once you bought

1:46

one. Hey. I like to speed, I like to cut

1:48

people off, I like to

1:51

pass people. I

1:53

want to learn more about the alchemy

1:57

of Honda drivers. What happens

2:00

transform when you get behind the wheel,

2:03

and I really do I stand by It's

2:06

it's Hondas and Mercedes. Both

2:09

driver bases drive

2:12

like bats out of hell? Where

2:14

are you going? What you're running from? So

2:19

today, speaking of running from things,

2:22

we have a very special guest. If

2:26

I had money, I would play

2:28

a Beyonce song called Survivor right

2:30

now, but instead, let's

2:32

see what I can play.

2:38

Of looking for someone

2:41

like you and you've been

2:43

looking for somebody to.

2:51

Whoo. So this

2:57

this gentleman, Alex Messenger

3:00

kind of crazy that his initials and his

3:02

name kind of conjure Aim Messenger.

3:05

What if his name was Aim? His parents

3:07

kind of missed an opportunity there in my

3:10

humble opinion, anyway,

3:18

he is standing me up right

3:20

now, but I'm looking. I

3:23

believe in him. It's

3:25

like he escaped a bear but is delivered

3:28

directly into the claws and pause

3:30

of O Chelkey Pirelli

3:34

waiting for him, salivating much

3:36

like a bear. Give me a bear

3:39

story, give it over,

3:42

give it to me. Kind

3:51

of sounded like a bird call. That's another thing

3:53

I'd like to get into bird calls. The

3:56

lines are open if you know how to

3:58

do bird calls. Give us a ring, or give

4:00

us a tweet, tweet a leap deep. My

4:07

whole wheelhouse is being ironically

4:09

annoying, and every so often

4:12

I go, is this just really annoying? I

4:14

think he's really annoying. Okay,

4:16

I think he's here, just in the nick of time,

4:18

saved by the bell, saved

4:21

by the bear attack survivor. Dare

4:24

I say? And I'm

4:26

gonna admit him to the

4:29

cauldrons of hell.

4:32

Alex Well, Hello, Chelsea,

4:35

Oh hi.

4:38

I'm several coffees deep, several

4:41

coffees deep, Alex, I do apologize,

4:44

and it is whoop, it's getting hot. I'm gonna take

4:46

off my coat. Let's

4:48

get comfortable. How are you. Let's start

4:50

with the now, right now?

4:52

Yeah, doing well. We finally

4:54

have snow in Duluth, which is great.

4:57

You know, living in the North Country

4:59

without snow is it's pretty

5:01

sad. So we had rain through Christmas,

5:03

which is just so out of the ordinary. So

5:06

we've got nice snowstorms today. So I'm pretty excited

5:08

about that. But in

5:10

my office slash front room

5:12

here, which is wait, I haveling.

5:15

So okay, I'm writing down Duluth. And

5:17

you said that's called the North Country.

5:20

It's yeah.

5:21

I mean you could describe it as being in

5:23

the North Country. You know, up

5:25

north would be something that like the Twin

5:27

Cities folks would say.

5:29

But we're right at the tip of Lake Superior.

5:30

It's pretty Yeah.

5:35

Listen, I have to tell you

5:37

North Country sounds very Game of Thrones.

5:39

I don't know much geography. I think

5:41

I was a little checked out in elementary

5:44

school. But I've

5:46

noticed that you have. Now

5:49

I'll see if my producer agrees with me. You kind

5:51

of have a whistlings.

5:53

I am hearing that a little bit, but I

5:55

don't usually have a whistling ass.

5:57

I apparently have my mic too

5:59

hot. Oh okay,

6:01

and I can.

6:02

Change the levels on that if it's coming through too.

6:04

Wait, you've heard that much. Have you

6:06

been doing a lot of podcasts?

6:08

Yeah?

6:08

I mean I did a lot when the book first

6:10

came out, and then okay, I

6:12

did quite a few.

6:13

Over the summer.

6:14

And when did your book come out?

6:15

November of twenty nineteen.

6:17

Okay, So, because

6:20

let's back up because the callers don't know a damn

6:22

thing. So you wrote

6:25

a book about this bear attack.

6:27

Is it about other stuff as well or just the

6:29

bear attack?

6:30

It's about other stuff as well, but it definitely

6:33

centers around the bear attack and the trip

6:35

that I was on when the attack happened.

6:38

You know.

6:38

It's a little bit of my background

6:40

and such as well to give some context,

6:42

but it's really centered around that trip. It's

6:45

kind of like a little time capsule that

6:47

starts at the beginning

6:49

of the trip ends, you know, as

6:51

I'm leaving.

6:52

So okay, first of all, I asked

6:54

Laura to ask you, but I wanted to just double check she

6:57

relayed your message a little bit about what you're

6:59

attitude is, because I don't

7:01

want to ever put someone in an uncomfortable

7:04

position. And I will say also, we can

7:06

cut anything if you walk away from it,

7:08

like this part I didn't like or whatever. I

7:11

mean, don't get crazy. You send me a list

7:13

of fifty moments you hated. You

7:18

know, like often I play sound

7:20

effects like tell me would that bother

7:22

you? For example, there's a sound effect

7:24

of a bear roaring. Would that throw

7:27

you into? Like a flashback to Vietnam?

7:30

Kind of thing, or is that like, are

7:32

you good with all that kind of tone?

7:35

That should be fine.

7:37

I was trying to think before this if there are any

7:39

like specific audio triggers

7:41

for me. Sorry, that's right,

7:44

and I don't think there really are.

7:47

You know, if we got if you could

7:49

do smell a vision, that would that would bring you.

7:51

Back smell avision. Oh my gosh, that's

7:53

right. Okay, So I read this article about

7:56

your encounter, which I want you to walk through,

7:58

but now that you mentioned smell vision, I

8:00

have to say. One thing that stuck out is you said

8:02

that bears smell

8:05

like a dog that's never been washed.

8:07

Yep.

8:09

I mean it's crazy because when you're

8:11

thinking about being attacked by a bear,

8:13

I feel like smell is like the last thing,

8:15

as an outsider that you'd be thinking

8:17

about. But of course that

8:20

adds to the terrifying beast

8:23

energy that this thing smells

8:26

like probably I'm guessing, kind of rotting

8:28

flesh.

8:29

Or whatever they

8:31

eat less rotting flesh and just like you

8:33

know, it's this musty animal

8:36

that's got lots of fur and just like

8:38

rubs in all kinds of stuff, and it's

8:40

just you know, an amalgamation of their

8:43

entire life. They don't really, you know, take

8:45

a shower with soap.

8:46

Amalgamation. Great

8:51

word, first

9:00

big word out of the stable, amalgamation twenty

9:04

five points.

9:06

Yes.

9:06

Okay, so you were seventeen

9:10

at the time of this attack. Can

9:12

you just walk me through the story. I'm sure

9:14

you've done it at bazillion times. I'll try

9:16

to like inject some color

9:19

and moments where you're getting bored of your story.

9:22

Do you ever just tell it and you're like in your head

9:24

thinking about like your to do list

9:27

or is it.

9:28

I don't usually digress that much. I mean,

9:30

you know, first, when I was telling it, it was

9:33

very real and very vivid, and it took a

9:35

while to kind of desensitize

9:37

myself to revisiting

9:39

it, and so now a lot of times when I

9:41

tell it, it's a bit of a replay.

9:43

That's how I feel about talking about my period.

9:47

I had to like break it down

9:49

in my mind so that I don't care about the

9:51

horrors anymore.

9:54

Yeah, we all have different things that really impact

9:56

us.

9:57

So we all have our achilles heel.

9:59

Was your achilles heel injured?

10:01

My achilles heel was totally fine.

10:03

That's good. That one supposedly really

10:05

hurts, you know. Yeah,

10:09

I know. I keep telling you to tell your story, and

10:11

then I start talking and talking and

10:13

talking, and I promise, I'm going

10:15

to break that chain. I'm going to buck

10:17

that trend right now. Okay,

10:20

so you're seventeen, You're with a

10:22

group of friends, and tell me what were

10:24

you going out to do and where?

10:26

Yeah?

10:26

So when I was seventeen, I had the opportunity

10:29

to go on this Pinnacle trip that was

10:31

the culmination of several years

10:33

of going to this camp. It's the longest

10:35

trip that was offered, and

10:37

you really have to work your way up to it. So I

10:40

had a lot of experience going into this, and then everybody

10:43

else had gotten on a similar track.

10:45

So it's this forty two day

10:47

whitewater canoe trip in very

10:50

remote northern Canada and the Northwest

10:52

territories and in of It Province. So forty

10:55

two days of paddling and carrying

10:57

your gear and kind of being self

10:59

suffer. Wow, there were no resupplies

11:02

or anything. It was just just us and

11:04

and all of our stuff and yeah, now.

11:06

What are you eating on a trip like that?

11:08

Well, I mean, you know, when a lot of people

11:10

think of going camping. They think of like freeze

11:12

dried meals and stuff like that. Uh,

11:15

for a group like this, we were cooking

11:17

a lot of our stuff from scratch. You know, there's pastas,

11:20

there's salami

11:22

and other like processed foods

11:25

that are gonna last that long, but a lot of

11:27

it's just scratch cooking. You know. We had like a

11:29

ten gallon bucket full of onions

11:32

that we cut up throughout the trip,

11:34

and we like grew our own sprouts. And one

11:36

of our guys, the guide, was really good

11:38

at baking, so he'd bake bread from scratch.

11:41

We ate really well. Wow, you don't think about that in

11:43

the back country, but we ate really well.

11:45

Wow, barrel of onions and some

11:47

guy who bakes bread, did he ever make onion for coca?

11:50

I love that.

11:52

That would have been awesome. We didn't have enough olive

11:54

oil to doca justice.

11:56

So yeah, so you're low.

11:58

Yeah o baked goods.

12:01

What oils and fats do you bring on a camping

12:03

trip of forty two days?

12:07

Well, most of our fats

12:09

were from like butter. We did

12:11

have oil with us, but we had like jars

12:14

of butter. He just like unscrewed

12:16

him and just start shoving the sticks in until it's

12:18

full. So you've earned a lot

12:20

of calories, so you're not necessarily going.

12:22

For a low calorie diet.

12:23

You actually want a calorie dense diet, so

12:26

fats are important. We'd also get natural fats

12:28

from eating the fish that we'd catch

12:30

up there, which you know, great

12:32

source.

12:34

Of good fats was that salmon.

12:36

It was lake trout, primarily yup.

12:40

So I remember camping with my dad and

12:42

we got these trouts and he made

12:44

like a garlic pasta with trout.

12:47

I hope you brought garlic. That seems

12:49

pretty portable.

12:51

Yeah, we had garlic. I can't remember. I'm

12:53

sure we brought bulbs of garlic.

12:56

I just thought I'm laughing because

12:58

I've gotten so sidetracked on food

13:01

and I literally forget that I have a

13:03

bear attack survivor in my clutches.

13:07

But yeah, that was one of my most memorable meals,

13:09

you know, growing up, was catching a bunch

13:12

of trout with my dad. This was in the Sierras

13:15

and making this garlicky pasta and eating

13:17

it with trout, and it was

13:19

amazing.

13:20

That sounds delicious.

13:21

Yeah, okay, so here

13:23

you are. You've got your barrel of onions. You're out

13:25

in the wild for forty two days, you're with one

13:28

guide.

13:30

Yep, one guide, and then a bunch of experienced

13:32

campers like myself.

13:33

Right, you're really emphasizing the experience.

13:35

I like that. I think that's going to come into play

13:37

later. It feels

13:40

like foreshadowing. Okay,

13:43

So here you go, you're heading out. What

13:45

day did the bear attack happen? Of the

13:47

forty two days?

13:49

So the bear attack happened on day

13:52

twenty nine, which is what inspired

13:54

the title of my book, the twenty ninth day.

13:56

Oh my god, what an idiot. I didn't

13:59

research at all. Kill me. Okay.

14:01

The twenty ninth.

14:03

Day, which you know, I mean, if you think about it

14:05

like that, is probably longer

14:07

than most camping trips

14:09

are, just in general.

14:11

And that's when this thing happened. And then you

14:13

know, and period time before I got

14:15

out.

14:15

Not to steer it back to periods, but a lot of

14:17

people are on the twenty eight day cycle.

14:19

Coincidence, probably not.

14:23

It's a cycle. It's going to be familiar to many.

14:26

Yes, yes, many listeners, but roughly

14:28

half a little less than half, okay,

14:31

So, and that's always what I'm going

14:33

for. Okay, So the twenty ninth day, so

14:35

you had twenty eight days of

14:38

absolute bliss

14:40

out in the wilderness, and had

14:42

you had any bear encounters prior to

14:44

that?

14:44

We had seen a couple of bears

14:46

prior to that. We were in an area

14:49

where they're very dispersed. We weren't even

14:51

in Grizzly Country until almost

14:53

three weeks into the trip, but we'd

14:56

seen some really far off

14:59

This is north of the tree line, so you can see

15:01

just for miles. And we've

15:04

been told that you couldn't you

15:06

were lucky if you saw a grizzly bear. So we

15:08

were counting ourselves lucky. We'd taken the opportunity

15:11

to review what you're supposed to do if you see

15:13

a grizzly bear and all that stuff. That's

15:15

so funny that you're super lucky.

15:17

Yeah, exactly. You're like, you see a few bears

15:20

on the You're like, wow, we are

15:22

lucky. Wait, so, so Grizzly

15:24

Bear Country, did you ever joke

15:26

amongst your friends like, whoa, what if we got attacked

15:29

by grizzly bear? Like was it a fear

15:31

at all?

15:32

Yeah, it was a fear. I mean, we didn't joke about it.

15:34

I had these like daydreams of you know,

15:36

how you'd handle something. I mean, I feel

15:38

like it's not uncommon to be like, oh, if

15:40

the situation happened, I'd suddenly become a ninja

15:43

or a do these you know, amazing

15:45

moves. And I've got this filet knife that I would

15:47

that it would bite on and whatever, and and

15:50

but like a knife actually happened.

15:52

It's way different, of course.

15:54

It has to be. And like I'm just thinking,

15:56

like, you know, I was hiking with some

15:59

friends the other day, and you

16:01

know, I'm obsessed with bear attacks, God knows

16:03

why. And we the

16:05

first thing I see at the trailhead is a sign

16:07

that says Bart You're in Bart Country.

16:10

And I'm like, I can't believe here I am someone

16:12

who's so afraid of bears. We have no protection

16:15

whatsoever. And again, the person I'm hiking

16:17

with, she's like, you never see a bear. You're not

16:19

going to see a bear here, you know. And

16:21

then she's like, we have these hiking sticks,

16:24

so we could use that. And I'm like, you realize

16:26

that to a bear, that's like a toothpick.

16:29

Like if you like weave your little

16:31

hiking stick, it's like you

16:34

know, it's nothing, So yeah, it's.

16:36

Gonna roll that sleeves up and stay all right.

16:39

Yeah great, let me use that as just

16:41

to pick my teeth after I eat you anyway.

16:43

But I was just like, yeah, there's just this feeling

16:45

when you really think about it, it's like it feels

16:47

like there's nothing you can do. The

16:50

only ones that seem to be effective

16:52

and correct me if I'm wrong is someone who's

16:54

literally holding bear spray at

16:56

the ready their entire hut.

16:58

Yeah kind of.

16:59

I mean there's a couple of different things you

17:01

can do, you know, if you do end up with a close

17:03

encounter, having bear spray

17:06

or another deterrent is really important. But you

17:08

have to have it accessible, like you're saying, I mean,

17:10

it doesn't have to be in your hand, yeah, but it has to be

17:12

something you can grab immediately, something

17:15

you've practiced drawing.

17:17

And do you ever now, like I know, you

17:19

go out into wilderness again and you're very

17:21

like, you know, brave.

17:24

Maybe you've had therapy. I'm guessing we can

17:26

get into that, but do you now

17:29

practice quick draws a bear spray like it's

17:31

in your pocket and you practice quick draws like

17:33

one hundred a morning.

17:35

Yeah, I mean it's not like part of my daily

17:37

routine. I'm not in grizzly country very often.

17:40

But when I traveled to like Glacier,

17:42

Yeah, for instance, you know, I made sure

17:45

we were conducting ourselves in a bear

17:47

were a bear safe way, and practiced

17:50

drawing it and practice you know, taking the safety

17:52

off and stuff. And that's something that we did

17:55

on for this trip. We just we

17:57

it wasn't our practice to have it on our person

17:59

all the time.

18:00

Yeah.

18:00

Yeah, that's how they get you. That's

18:03

how they get you. They kind of peer around

18:05

and look for those canisters as they're barreling

18:07

forty miles an hour. Now grizzlies are

18:10

also forty miles an hour is their general

18:12

speed.

18:13

Yeah, just try that as kind of their top speed,

18:16

so significantly faster than you or I could

18:18

run.

18:19

Not to judge your running.

18:20

Speed, but no, no, please do listen.

18:22

Who am I Kat Williams. I

18:25

don't know if you've been following his tiraids,

18:27

but he's a very fast runner. Apparently

18:30

I have not, so Okay,

18:33

so there you are twenty.

18:36

This is the thing that sucks also about bears

18:38

is like they're always in the most beautiful places

18:40

like Montana. I've always wanted

18:42

to go. That's bear country. I mean,

18:45

you know, I just went on Wikipedia. Actually,

18:47

like this is actually insulting because I don't know

18:50

the name of your book, but I did read

18:52

every bear attack in history

18:56

on Wikipedia. But you know, it

18:58

is considerably few because

19:00

it's every known bear

19:02

attack. I was just looking

19:05

at California, though, so

19:07

that's why it's so limited. But still

19:09

it's relatively rare. Do

19:12

you ever like wonder? Well, let me not

19:14

get ahead. I'm too excited for exit

19:17

this whole thing. So okay, So

19:19

here you are, you're eating

19:22

good, you're hiking with your friends, you've got a

19:24

guide, and

19:27

okay, what happens?

19:29

So yeah, twenty nine days in, we're

19:31

on a layover the day, which means we're not traveling anywhere.

19:33

We're just kind of hanging out during the day. And

19:36

part way through the day, the rest of my

19:38

group decided to go to the top of this ridge behind

19:40

our site and see what was up there. And I

19:42

decided that I was too tuckered out and

19:45

needed to take a nap, so I

19:47

was going to meet them at the top when I was done. I

19:49

woke up part way through that

19:51

nap just like suddenly feeling like I had

19:54

to go, I had to get out of the tent, and I was

19:56

late, which doesn't make any sense in a place where

19:58

we don't use.

19:58

A clock at all.

20:00

And I got out of the tent and everybody

20:02

else was down except for our guy Dan, and

20:05

I, you know, went over to this ridge

20:08

and climbed up and talked.

20:09

To him on the way up and.

20:11

Got to the top and it was just this

20:14

open expanse of

20:16

land that just you could see everywhere.

20:19

And so I was in the place where the rest

20:21

of my group had been just minutes prior,

20:23

and you can see, you know, fifty miles in

20:25

every direction, and there's no trees

20:28

or anything, and you know, the idea of something

20:31

hiding around the corner just was like still for

20:33

it right and hard to imagine. You know, it hadn't

20:35

crossed their minds, and it hadn't crossed

20:37

mind But you.

20:38

Know, there's something also about men

20:40

like men love views. You

20:43

know, I think it's like kind of like

20:45

a Napoleon thing or something. It's like there's

20:47

probably would you say, there's no other

20:50

greater piece for you than standing on a ridge

20:52

looking at a big view like, I think

20:54

every guy that I know loves a big view,

20:57

so, you know I and part

20:59

of it has to be that sense of nothing

21:01

can get me here or something, you know.

21:03

I imagine if you have that much spaciousness

21:06

in the view, you're thinking, I'm

21:09

on top of the world one and

21:11

I'm safe.

21:12

Yeah, I mean, I don't know about the safety

21:15

aspect, but I mean it does kind of speak

21:17

to the scope

21:19

of the.

21:20

World in front of you. I mean, most of the time.

21:22

We are in these little, these

21:25

little spaces with walls around us and

21:27

with you know, you can't see very far. And then

21:29

when you get to a point where you can just see

21:31

forever, I mean, it kind of opens up

21:33

the world to you in a way that that is

21:36

pretty unique.

21:37

Right.

21:37

Yeah, but yeah,

21:39

you know, the idea of a grizzly bear

21:42

looking around the corner wasn't wasn't at the

21:44

forefront of my mind.

21:45

And little did I know that I was walking.

21:46

As I was walking up one ridge, there is this six

21:49

hundred pound bearing ground grizzly bear

21:51

walking in.

21:52

At the other.

21:52

Okay, what is bearing ground?

21:54

Straight for each other? What is bearing ground?

21:56

Is the country that we were in.

21:58

Oh so the barons there

22:00

no trees were north of the tree

22:02

line, and bear and ground grizzlies are like a

22:05

like essentially a subspecies that

22:08

you know, they're not like the coastal grizzlies that are

22:10

sitting there picking salmon out of the

22:12

the river and getting fat and winning

22:14

those fattest bear contests. These are like

22:16

very lean animals that have a huge

22:18

home range.

22:20

What is their normal food?

22:25

You know, they're usually grazing on a bunch

22:27

of different things, and they'll do like

22:30

opportunistic meals with bigger like

22:33

caribou and such that they come across. I'm

22:36

not a biologist that

22:38

studies bears, so I won't pretend

22:40

to be, but I probably should study

22:42

up on that.

22:43

Yeah, I mean, listen, you wrote a book.

22:45

I was like, he's probably looked this up.

22:48

Yeah, yeah,

22:50

I need to look up the specifics. But yeah, they're

22:52

they're grazing a lot, you know, they eat a lot of berries

22:55

and then and then they

22:58

are people get bigger

23:00

animals sometimes too.

23:03

Okay, so how do you

23:05

first see the bear?

23:06

Well, the first sight that I got out of the bear

23:08

was just this tough

23:11

to fur that kind of appeared over

23:14

the ridge in front of me and it was thirty

23:16

feet away. I'd been kind of like daydreaming

23:18

and thinking about whatever, and I saw this what

23:20

was clearly an animal, but I didn't know what it was,

23:23

and I just my body had this immediate

23:26

reaction, this immediate response

23:29

that was launching me into a fight or flight.

23:31

And I thought back to the

23:33

muskox and that we'd seen earlier,

23:37

and they're really persnickety and they'll charge

23:39

at you and fight off figures the bear, and that was a really

23:41

bad situation.

23:42

And then as.

23:43

Wait a minute, hold on, hold on.

23:47

First of all, one thing is is the guide

23:49

gone? Now?

23:51

Yeah, I'm by myself at this point.

23:53

So he was like, see you later, yeah,

23:56

and he left. Now, isn't there something in

23:58

nature where you shouldn't be alone? Never?

24:01

That sounds really I mean, you know, that's that's

24:03

a takeaway.

24:04

There's there's a few different things that are pretty easy

24:06

to do in practice that would have changed this

24:09

story significantly. And

24:11

having a having a buddy helps a lot. Statistically,

24:14

the likelihood of an attack drops the lot

24:16

once there's three or more people, two

24:19

people, it might still attack.

24:20

Yeah, interesting, So always travel

24:23

in threes in bear cuntry.

24:24

Yeah, that's the way

24:26

I do it.

24:27

I mean, you know, like you guys buy yourself.

24:29

The risk is just so much higher if I go with.

24:31

Two friends to Montana, I'm like, can you

24:34

walk with me to the bathroom? Both

24:36

of you? Okay?

24:38

So and okay, and then

24:40

tell me about the muskos because I don't

24:43

know about this previous sighting of muskock.

24:46

Was it injured, was it something where

24:48

you're like, oh, that's bear prey or what

24:50

was the significance?

24:51

Well, muskos and you can kind of think of as

24:53

a cross between like a bison and

24:55

a yak, and they're just like straight

24:58

out of the ice age, that this huge animal with

25:00

a big like plate on the top of their

25:02

head and these horns that loop around the outside,

25:04

so they kind of look like they're you know, Viking

25:07

warriors with big buzzy

25:09

fur coats. And I don't think

25:11

of them as being super intelligent, but they're

25:13

really strong. They're really they can be really fast.

25:15

They you know, usually are in herds and they're very

25:17

defensive.

25:18

And they'll charge at random.

25:20

So we knew that they were on the island,

25:23

So that's kind of where my brain went first. And

25:26

there's something that we didn't want to get too close to so,

25:29

but grizzly bear is much

25:32

more of a worst case scenario.

25:33

Yeah, yeah, I just looked it up. They look

25:35

massive and they have they're really big

25:38

horns, curly horns.

25:40

Curly horns, and they'll look like flying

25:43

into each other and you know, show their

25:45

dominance and whatever. But yeah, they're

25:47

not necessarily something you want to mess with.

25:49

Okay, but this, if you had to

25:51

choose, you would choose to fight one of

25:54

them versus a grizzly bear.

25:56

I choose, Yeah, okay, exactly.

26:00

So you thought it was one of those and then you register

26:04

you see the face I'm assuming, and you're like, oh

26:06

my god.

26:08

Yeah, I mean all this was kind of running through my subconscious

26:10

and my body's still moving towards this.

26:13

This what ended up being a grizzly bear, and

26:15

the bear and I both are kind of like on the same track,

26:17

like what am I looking at?

26:18

We both just walked into our full field of

26:20

view.

26:21

We lock eyes, and

26:23

that's when I realized that this is just the

26:26

worst case scenario. And then

26:28

I'm alone and that I'm standing

26:31

thirty feet away from this grizzly

26:34

bear, and it was just kind of like looking

26:36

at me trying to figure it out too.

26:38

Right, You're both a little like uh

26:41

huh okay, and you

26:43

do you is your voice gone or do you

26:45

find some sort of yell? Like do you think

26:48

yelling works in any way with bears,

26:50

particularly grizzly bears?

26:54

You know, I think, well, I didn't yell

26:56

at this point. I was still just processing what was

26:58

going on. Came

27:00

to me shortly thereafter. You

27:03

know, I think when you've got enough

27:07

on your side, whether it's like multiple

27:09

people or you know, defensive

27:12

materials like a firearm that you've trained on

27:14

or bear spray what have you, you know, you can

27:16

be like, hey, get out of here. But

27:19

you know, what we were trained to do, and what I flashed

27:21

back to next was that process of

27:23

what you're supposed to do. Part of that

27:25

for us was to if if

27:27

it's you know, if you're not with the big group, talk

27:30

to the bear, try to convince it that you're not a

27:32

threat. Back away slowly a virtual

27:34

eyes. So like I had people's voices in

27:36

my head playing saying hey bear, well bear, it's

27:39

okay bear. But I also like

27:42

I had this just very

27:44

distinct vision of pulling out the

27:46

bear spray, of taking off the safety of

27:48

pointing it at the bear and of spraying

27:50

it, and that like that whole thing played

27:52

out in my mind. It was what we practiced, and I

27:54

just, you know, I couldn't do that because the bear spray

27:57

was in the tent.

27:57

Because that's where we thought we'd get surprised.

28:00

Uh So, God,

28:03

that was a rough pit of the stomach moment.

28:07

I want to make another period analogy, but

28:09

I'm not going to do it. This is very unlike me.

28:11

I do not talk about my period, Okay,

28:14

for whatever reason, it seems funny

28:16

to do that in the light of this horrific

28:18

story.

28:20

Interesting.

28:21

Yeah, I don't know. I I'll

28:23

unpack it later. I don't need you to be involved

28:25

in the unpacking of that, Okay.

28:28

So you.

28:30

That that is really the ultimate fucking

28:33

like you don't? I mean, so, did

28:35

you then have nightmares about this

28:37

over and over where you're like, not, I don't have

28:39

my bears, right, I feel like I would have that.

28:42

Kind of I mean, my nightmares are

28:44

are interesting. They're not like re replays of what happened.

28:46

They're like fantastical things where the bears

28:48

are talking, or there's like families of them

28:50

or herds of them, like all these things that just don't

28:53

make sense with what bears would actually do. But

28:55

yeah, I often don't have the tools

28:58

that I need. But you know, after

29:00

the fact, like that's a that's a great thing

29:02

that I have control over. In real life.

29:05

I can bring these things with me. I can

29:07

work to avoid situations we're going to surprise

29:10

a bear because you know, in this case, I didn't have the

29:12

tools with me.

29:13

I was alone.

29:14

I surprised the bear like up

29:16

close, and then you

29:18

know, no options. I

29:20

was wearing sandals, I mean best.

29:22

God, sandals

29:25

so vulnerable. Sandals

29:27

are vulnerable even just like walking down

29:30

a street for a man in sandals, you're

29:32

like mandals vulnerable. I

29:34

see toes, I see hairy toes. It's

29:36

like a lot. But when a bear is

29:39

in play, Oh my god, that's that's

29:41

vulnerable times a thousand. No toe

29:43

protection, no toe helmets,

29:46

you normally wear toe helmets.

29:47

I'm assuming just kidding,

29:50

not specifically.

29:51

Not funny. I take it back. Okay,

29:54

so you and the bear

29:56

are now facing off, and

29:59

what's the first thing that the that

30:02

you were the bear does in this encounter.

30:06

Well, we're kind of staring at each other in that first moment,

30:08

just figuring out what we're looking at

30:11

and what we're going to do next. And

30:14

I started to avert

30:16

my eyes, to lower my body

30:19

to make myself smaller and kind

30:21

of back away slowly and sort of try

30:23

to convince the bear that I'm not a threat,

30:25

that it can just go about its business,

30:28

that it doesn't need to come over and and do anything

30:30

else. And I started

30:32

saying that, hey bear, woe bear, It's

30:35

okay bear, which I

30:37

wasn't really convincing myself.

30:39

Yeah, but be either.

30:41

It's soothing to like comfort the bear

30:44

instead of you're like you're okay,

30:46

You're okay, Oh my gosh,

30:49

exactly.

30:49

I mean if you think about like a dog, if you're aggressive

30:51

to a dog, they're going to respond in kind.

30:54

So it's it's kind of analogous to that.

30:57

And so I'm, you know, baack in aways

31:00

slowly trying to trying to convince it

31:02

that it doesn't need to do anything else, and it basically

31:05

it starts to testimate launch. It launches

31:08

into this, uh, the stationary

31:10

bluff charge, and

31:13

it's just like trying to psych me out, and it launched

31:15

onto its front's pause, and it.

31:16

Was like, oh my god wait

31:18

should.

31:19

Oh yeah, you can got a sound effect. So it's like this,

31:25

yeah, kind of like that, but more grunty.

31:27

You're saying, it wasn't as dramatic.

31:29

It was more like, well, I wouldn't

31:31

say it's less dramatic.

31:32

It was just more of like a grunt that's like

31:35

a prolonged like this

31:37

was like like as it launched on launched

31:40

onto its pause, and it basically

31:42

like crescendoed all the things that it was doing.

31:44

Hold on, now, charge,

31:48

your vocabulary is

31:50

through the roof. But

31:52

I guess all that incredible vocabulary

31:55

was no help with this situation.

31:58

Okay, so don't

32:00

work. Yeah, words don't work. Okay,

32:04

So he's grunting, he's

32:07

like you're saying, he's kind of lunging

32:09

at you, like with his paws in the dirt,

32:11

but his face near you. How

32:13

far away is he at that point, Well.

32:15

It hasn't really started to close the distance

32:18

yet. Like that first time, it just

32:20

it's just in one spot and it just lands on its

32:23

front paws.

32:24

Like thirty feet away.

32:25

Still yep, And it

32:27

basically faded from that stationary

32:30

bluff charge to a full speed charge.

32:32

We talked earlier about how bears can run, you

32:34

know, thirty six forty miles

32:36

an hour, So it closed that.

32:38

I feel like distance.

32:40

I like how you're kind of nagging the bear.

32:42

You're like thirty six. You

32:44

know, you're not giving it the full forty that I

32:46

found online.

32:49

Okay, well, you know the number I saw

32:51

I was like thirty six points something. But you

32:54

know, fair, it's just way faster

32:56

than I was backing up slowly.

32:58

So sure, can

33:00

you run backwards max?

33:03

Yeah, I'm max out at about like four and a half

33:05

miles an hour.

33:06

Yeah, shuffling backwards in

33:08

sands exactly.

33:11

Yeah.

33:11

So it faded from you know, that stationary

33:13

bleff charge to coming at me full speed, and

33:16

I faded from hey bear Wolbart

33:18

yelling obscenities and help and

33:22

trying to get the attention of the rest of my group

33:24

because they had no idea what was going on.

33:27

You know, I was by myself. It had

33:29

only been a couple of minutes, you know, so there's no reason

33:31

for them to be like.

33:32

Hey, how's it going right?

33:33

And the wind was going the wrong direction,

33:36

and the ridge was there was this big ridge behind

33:38

me, so they just they had no idea that any of

33:40

this was transpiring, you know, even

33:42

as the despair is it's like a sound

33:45

fronting and I'm yelling Ridge.

33:47

Sound proof Ridge. So okay,

33:49

and what obscenities are you are your go tos?

33:56

I think you mother's fucking bear.

34:00

I think it was mostly like the fuck and

34:02

then no, you know, those two combined are

34:05

pretty powerful.

34:06

Fuck. No something

34:09

like that.

34:10

Okay, yeah, something like that.

34:13

So yeah, it's it's just that

34:16

that's kind of a blur. I don't really remember the

34:18

scripting of my of

34:20

sanities there.

34:21

Okay, fair enough? Do you now

34:23

also record all your hikes

34:26

like audio just in case.

34:29

I've tried to every once

34:31

in a while do like, you know, vlogging style,

34:33

and I just can't.

34:34

I can't get over it yet. I got to practice.

34:36

Okay. Had you seen Grizzly Man

34:39

prior to this?

34:40

You know, I don't know if it had come out yet. So this

34:43

was in two thousand and five. This was the year that YouTube

34:46

became a company, So you know

34:48

way back when wait.

34:50

A minute, I thought you said it was twenty nineteen.

34:52

Twenty nineteen's when the book came out. This

34:55

happened in two thousand and five, when I

34:57

was seventeen years old wow.

34:59

Okay, and Grizzly Man? What year did that

35:01

come out? I have to chick, I

35:04

don't worry about it.

35:04

I don't think it had come out yet.

35:06

I'm guessing that the incident

35:09

had happened. Where

35:11

the guy who that's about.

35:14

Two thousand and five it came out.

35:18

Yeah, what the

35:20

hell?

35:22

What month? I hadn't seen it yet. I hadn't seen

35:24

it yet.

35:24

Numbers how crazy? So meaningful?

35:27

Okay? Yeah, so it aish?

35:30

What auspishes? Come on? Now

35:33

you're just again voke

35:35

cab jackpots. Okay,

35:38

So grizzly Man came

35:40

out that same year you were attacked by

35:42

a grizzly bear. If I were you, I would have been

35:44

milking that to the high heavens amongst

35:47

my peer group.

35:51

Didn't cross my mind.

35:52

I get it.

35:54

Okay, So here you are. He closes

35:56

the gap, charging

35:58

thirty feet towards you. Does he make contact?

36:01

Yes?

36:02

Contact was made, but

36:04

when it was five or ten feet from me, I

36:07

didn't really know what to do. At that point, I

36:09

could feel the ground like shaking under its pause,

36:11

and I had my camera in a pelican

36:13

case was like a fifteen pound block of camera,

36:16

and it's the only time I'll throw my camera.

36:18

Sure, it's also the only.

36:19

Time I throw on my hit something it was supposed to because

36:21

it was a terrible shot. But I just wound

36:23

up underhand, just totally on instinct,

36:25

launched it and hit the bear

36:28

square in the nose.

36:28

Wow.

36:29

He turn its head all the way to the side.

36:33

Incredible aim. Nothing

36:35

you should warrant a jackpot more

36:38

than hitting a bear square on the nose with an

36:40

object.

36:42

The only time I was been able to do it.

36:44

Phenomenal. So,

36:48

okay, the

36:50

bear is hit on the nose, and

36:53

but this doesn't work right.

36:54

Yeah, it hits the bear, and it

36:57

hits it with enough force to turn it said all the way

36:59

to the side. Camera case goes flying

37:01

and for a couple of steps that bear couldn't

37:03

see where I was. And

37:05

so, like I said, that was when it was five or ten

37:08

feet. It keeps coming and I'm able to jump

37:10

out of the way and dodge it

37:12

on this first pass like bullfighting

37:14

style. Wow, I jump out of the way

37:16

and it misses me. And as soon as it

37:19

it's like looking at me as it goes past, because it

37:21

finally got its head background and as soon as it

37:23

realized that it missed me. It

37:25

turned around and came at me again, and

37:27

I basically kept bullfighting

37:29

it like this for several passes where it

37:32

didn't bite me, It didn't hit me that hard,

37:36

but we just got closer and closer, and it started

37:38

to get me with its claws and it was snapping

37:40

at me with its jaws, and it

37:43

was just this terrible dance

37:45

that was just kind of coming

37:48

towards the two of us making

37:50

contact.

37:52

That is so terrifying.

37:55

Yeah, it was awful.

37:56

Was this the song that was kind of going through your

37:58

head? Not

38:10

exactly or you kind of knew what

38:12

the bear wanted?

38:15

I didn't quite know. Well, I knew what

38:17

the bear wanted to. It wanted to, you know, mitigate

38:20

this threat. I didn't have any music

38:22

playing through my head at this point. I

38:24

was just kind of realizing

38:28

how terribly this was escalating

38:30

and how my mortality

38:33

was approaching.

38:34

Was your life flashing? Did you like text your

38:36

mom I love you real quick?

38:40

I didn't have a texting plan on my phone that

38:42

was set home. That was back when

38:44

you had to pay for every text message, right,

38:48

but times change.

38:50

I wish I had to pay for every text message

38:53

now. It would limit me you know.

38:55

You'd have to think about it and be like shooting film,

38:57

like should I take this picture?

38:58

Yeah?

38:59

But yeah, no, I I didn't really have that sort

39:01

of life flashing before your eyes moment

39:03

while this was happening. It was just this, this

39:05

incredible mental clarity that you know has

39:08

been refined over eons as

39:10

the species of this fight or flight moment.

39:13

Right, And so we're

39:15

just this bear and I are dancing. We're getting closer

39:17

and closer, and.

39:20

The next time it came at me.

39:22

It bit at my leg and I pulled my leg

39:24

out of the way and it snapshot just inches

39:26

next to it with a big clack. It

39:29

reached up with its paw and it hit

39:32

me across the face. And I saw it when

39:34

it was just inches from my face, and I thought

39:36

to myself, oh no.

39:37

This is.

39:39

Like you saw. You saw the paw

39:42

like in slow motion like freeze right

39:44

before it hit your face and then it hit your face.

39:47

Yeah, basically this of

39:49

you know, the lifelines of

39:51

the bear and claws and for just

39:54

like right about to smack.

39:56

Me, Well that is insane.

39:59

Yeah.

40:00

Oh wait, so your face wasn't harmed though

40:02

it looks like.

40:03

Yeah, I was incredibly lucky. The

40:06

distance was just perfect, where like

40:08

the meat of the paw hit me in the face

40:11

and like the claws were kind of back by

40:13

my ear, in the back of my head.

40:15

So you've been slapped by a bear? What

40:17

did it make? Did it make

40:20

a slap? Sound, a

40:23

clack and then a slap.

40:27

A clack and a slap. It

40:29

was like a thump.

40:30

I mean, I kind of compare it to a

40:32

board wrapped in leather, Oh,

40:35

being swung by a hydraulic arm,

40:38

or you can think about yourself swatting a mosquito

40:40

out of the air. That's kind of what I was like

40:42

to the bear. Wow, it was just a huge

40:44

amount of force. My head whipped to the

40:46

side and I went flying to the side. And that's when I realized

40:49

that there was nothing physically that I could

40:51

do against this bear. It's just this incredibly

40:53

powerful apex predator six

40:55

hundred pound grizzly bear versus

40:57

one hundred and fifty pounds.

40:59

You know what's crazy?

41:00

Year old kid.

41:00

So back to this whole Wikipedia of every

41:03

bear attack in California, A

41:05

lot of the bears and the victims

41:07

were discovered both dead

41:10

where the people had fought,

41:12

they had shot the bear or stabbed the bear,

41:15

and eventually the bear succumb to the injuries,

41:18

or it would be the person was dead and the bear was

41:20

dying slowly somewhere due to being

41:23

stabbed or shot. But you know, there

41:25

was like these scenes that they were

41:27

describing in like two sentences

41:29

of finding both bear

41:31

and victim dead together

41:34

because they had had this mortal

41:37

dance.

41:38

Right.

41:39

Yeah, it's terrifying and people can get I

41:41

mean, it's it's so gruesome

41:44

what injuries people can get from a

41:46

bear attack.

41:47

Do you know that my grandmother used to say

41:49

to me, you grewesome, like

41:52

to mean like you grewsome right,

41:56

So pretty cool, weird play. You

42:00

ever played Puns of Anarchy?

42:03

No, but I do dabble

42:05

in puns.

42:06

So I feel like you would love it. I

42:09

feel like you would love it. You've got the vogueab

42:11

I played it for the first time this weekend,

42:13

and I gotta say it is

42:16

should be called Funds of Anarchy. It's

42:18

a it's a fun

42:20

gif. No

42:23

I wish I have no sponsors. Okay,

42:27

So okay, so now you've been

42:29

bitch slapped? Could I say bitch slapped?

42:32

Is that inappropriate? Okay, you've

42:34

been pounded across the face

42:36

by this bear. Also, what

42:39

was the other thing it did? Oh, it clacked. I

42:41

love the word clack so comedy wise,

42:43

sounds really make me laugh. The idea

42:46

of a bear clacking its jaw right by

42:48

your face and then slapping you. But

42:50

in my mind of imagining a crisp

42:52

slap sound, it's like Charlie,

42:55

the Charlie Chaplin of bears. You know, it's

42:57

like it's it's starting

43:00

not funny, but we know it's not going to end there.

43:02

What happens next?

43:05

So next, I'm I'm mid air being

43:08

thrown by this slap and

43:12

you know, I haven't hit the ground yet, and I

43:14

just realized that, like there's nothing physically

43:16

that I can do against this bear. And I'm

43:18

just so sure now that

43:21

I'm about to die, which is a terrible

43:23

feeling. Yeah, And it

43:25

had still had that pop up and

43:28

it kind of like hooked me around

43:30

my like mid section as I'm still

43:32

falling, threw me down to the ground hard

43:35

on my tailbone, and it had its

43:37

head right at the top of my thigh.

43:40

And it had to be around

43:42

my leg.

43:43

Oh, and just sunk

43:45

in both sides of my leg and

43:48

I watched that happen and people are like, Sylvie, adrenaline

43:51

rash, take care of the pain, Like, well, no,

43:55

I thought its teeth going both sides of my leg.

43:58

And then do you think you screamed?

44:01

I think I like, yeah,

44:04

let out some sort of guttural grunty

44:06

rower thing.

44:07

Now, I mean, you know what would be so crazy

44:11

And this probably just doesn't exist anywhere

44:13

because it's so rare, but video of

44:15

this would be I

44:18

mean, sometimes I wish I had video of

44:20

my life, and like, the good news is there

44:22

is pretty much video of everything.

44:23

We do.

44:24

Know.

44:25

There's almost no privacy in the world

44:27

except probably in Bear country where you

44:29

were. But yeah,

44:31

sometimes I'm like, if I have an argument with someone, I'm

44:34

no, you said this, I'm like, God, I wish I had

44:36

video.

44:36

Let's roll the body cam.

44:39

Yeah, but like the way you're describing

44:41

this, it feels like it would be unfathomable

44:43

to see a human being slapped

44:46

up into the air and then he catches

44:48

you midair with your legs and and

44:51

it isn't male bear you.

44:53

Know, I don't know.

44:54

And in the words of the person who was

44:56

kind of monitoring my whole medical situation,

45:00

to some experts who ask the same question. You

45:02

know, I don't think he took the time to examine

45:04

the genitalia of the by.

45:06

This encounter might spread

45:08

your legs for me for a sick.

45:11

Yeah, you give a good luck.

45:13

Well, all the ones on this Wikipedia

45:16

that's now pretty much famous, the California

45:19

bear death Wikipedia, no

45:21

boy. They many of them

45:23

said that the bear was later retrieved

45:26

and human remains were found in its body.

45:28

Like they I don't know if they still do

45:30

this, but they were euthanizing the bears

45:33

that attacked and searching the

45:35

contents of the stomach.

45:37

Yeah, I mean, it varies based on each situation.

45:41

But you know a lot of times when there

45:43

is a negative encounter like that,

45:45

there's a reason for it, like the bear is sick,

45:48

or they become habituated to humans or

45:50

see them as a food source or something, so they're not

45:53

you know, that's not their first defense necessarily.

45:55

Right in this situation, it was it

45:59

was just a bear going about its business,

46:01

you know. And it wasn't

46:03

like it wasn't seeing me as

46:06

a food source. It wasn't seeing my group as

46:08

a food source. It wasn't like dumpster diving and

46:10

such. It was just kind of this terrible

46:13

happenstance of the two of us on this ridge.

46:17

This is so crazy. Okay, so you black

46:19

out with your leg now

46:21

fully bitten up, like your thigh.

46:23

Yeah, right at the top of my leg, just below

46:25

the hip joint.

46:26

God, yeah,

46:29

about as high up as you can get on the leg.

46:31

Okay, So then what happens.

46:33

So the lights go out,

46:35

and I'm, you

46:38

know, assuming that I'm

46:40

dead at this point and just

46:43

full of this feeling of loss, And

46:45

the next instant I remember, I'm like

46:48

kind of tumbling, like I'm under a wave. I don't

46:50

know which di direction is up.

46:51

Oh, I can't really figure out where I am.

46:54

And I finally get my bearings and

46:56

I realized that I'm still on top of this ridge.

46:58

And then I'm like scanning

47:00

the horizon, and I realized that

47:03

the bear is still there. This

47:05

grizzly bear is running away to trot,

47:08

but it's watching me the whole time that

47:10

it's running, and so I.

47:12

Like it's it's looking over its shoulder.

47:15

Yeah, like you know, running and kind

47:17

of checking back to see if if

47:20

I was back in the fight at all, because

47:23

it wanted to eliminate this threat and then

47:25

as soon as that threat was eliminated, it wanted to get

47:27

out of dodge. And I'd

47:29

been playing dead very effectively

47:31

when I was unconscious, and now

47:33

I had to play dead consciously.

47:34

I didn't want to screw it up, right right?

47:36

Did you go like I'm dead or

47:39

anything to really sell it?

47:41

Yeah?

47:42

I figured that silence was probably

47:44

the best. Oh yeah, silence in motion.

47:46

Hey, that's a greatness song we have. It's

47:49

just the pie. Okay.

47:52

So there you are playing dead and it's running away.

47:55

So was that the end.

47:58

Well of that very

48:01

short chapter? So there's

48:03

running away.

48:04

I'm now playing dead consciously waiting

48:06

for it to go back over the ridge

48:09

so that if I, you know, stand

48:11

up completely, it's not going to see me. And I

48:14

just had to wait, which was really hard to wait,

48:17

and so I just held still. And

48:19

then once the bear was far

48:22

enough away, I was like, Okay, I need

48:24

to get back to camp because I just got mauled by a grizzly

48:26

bear. I have to get there before my adrenaline

48:28

rush wears off. Because I didn't know how long

48:30

it would last.

48:31

I knew if I was.

48:31

Really injured, and at this point

48:33

my adrenaline was was masking that, And

48:36

I was like.

48:36

I can get there. I don't know how long I'll be able

48:38

to get it.

48:39

Do you remember when if you were

48:41

your sandals still on?

48:43

My sandals were still on. I was wearing a

48:45

pair of Chaco z twos which have the toast

48:48

strap.

48:48

They're incredibly secure.

48:49

Wow is this an ad? Is this an endorsement?

48:53

They should be a sponsor.

48:54

Come on, it should be a sponsor of your

48:56

tail. And now I have to see

48:58

this. Why has it got choco? Is it maybe

49:00

the chocolate that attracted the Choco.

49:03

Z's Chocoal Canyon or something

49:05

like that.

49:06

Chaco Z's too.

49:07

So yeah, they were still on. I

49:10

still had, you know, all my stuff I had.

49:12

My Pelican case was over

49:14

there somewhere. I had my summer reading book because

49:16

I was about to become a senior in high school,

49:19

and so I had my summer reading book with me. And

49:22

for some reason I felt like it was it was prudent

49:24

to pick that up a fruit it So I got that.

49:27

Oops wrong Q frudent

49:31

sexy music? Wait,

49:36

what was the book you were reading?

49:38

That was The Liar's Club.

49:39

I took it as a sign not to finish it though, so I

49:42

don't know that one. I told my teacher that.

49:44

Oh yeah, that's a good get out of jail

49:46

for you to like a bearer ate my leg

49:49

work.

49:51

I'm not funny after my homework.

49:53

Okay, Yeah, So I

49:56

got that, I got my camera case, and I

49:58

started running back to camp, which was too undred

50:00

yards away as the crow flies and the last fifty

50:02

were one hundred vertical feet down. It's this

50:04

ridge that I climbed up. Take

50:07

it up to the top of this this hill

50:09

we were on, and it was super steep,

50:11

and it had taken me ten minutes to scramble

50:13

up, and I would have to surmount

50:15

that to get back down.

50:17

To the group.

50:19

And the whole time I'm checking to see

50:21

if the bears behind me, if it decided,

50:23

you know, to turn this into an opportunistic

50:25

meal, or that you know it hurt me screeing

50:28

or whatever. Yeah, and so just

50:31

trying to be as quiet as possible and hoping that

50:33

I was going the right direction, because you know,

50:35

i'd been I'd lost

50:37

consciousness. I wasn't sure, you know, exactly

50:40

which way to go back. There weren't exactly road signs.

50:43

Oh and so

50:45

I finally I was like, if I can get back to this ridge

50:47

and I see the guys. I'm going to see

50:49

the canoes and I'm going to see

50:51

the tents and I'm not going to be alone anymore. And

50:54

I finally got to the ridge and I looked down and

50:57

that's what I saw. And I knew then that if I yelled

50:59

to them, they know that I was there

51:02

something was wrong and that they wouldn't be

51:04

alone anymore. So checked

51:06

one more time over my shoulder to see if the bear

51:08

was coming back, and

51:10

and then yell, hey, bear,

51:13

bear, guys, bear and

51:17

they're like whatever, Alex like, no,

51:19

a bear.

51:20

They didn't.

51:20

They thought I was playing a terrible practical

51:22

joke on them.

51:23

Really, yeah they

51:25

were.

51:26

They were just not believing. It's like, no bear,

51:28

but every other word was you know, an

51:30

expletive. Again, trying

51:32

to get them to believe me.

51:34

Oh, I thought you were going to say they weren't there, But

51:36

they were there.

51:38

They were there. Okay, they were there. I said

51:40

bear and they were like whatever. Alex like,

51:42

no, a bear. You

51:45

can't joke about this. This is not something

51:47

that you could joke about. I was like, I am not

51:50

joking. This really happened.

51:52

Yeah, I mean you had to be covered in

51:54

blood, right, But were they far away? They couldn't

51:56

see you.

51:58

They were far away, you know. My feet

52:00

were covered in blood, but they couldn't see my feet

52:02

because I was still standing on.

52:03

Top of the your chocos.

52:06

Your chocho were not yet

52:08

visible. But my

52:10

my leg, where my biggest injury was,

52:12

was covered up with a bunch of layers and the blood

52:14

hadn't really gotten to the top

52:16

layer yet. So I

52:19

looked pretty okay. It was just me on the

52:21

top of a ridge, and they're like, what's Alex talking

52:23

about?

52:23

Right?

52:24

So after a couple back and forth, Mike

52:27

turned to Dan. He's like, I think he's serious,

52:29

and they exploded out of the tent and started getting

52:32

first aid kids.

52:32

And wait, so the bear was gone. That was it. That

52:35

was it for the attack.

52:36

That was it for the attack. That's all.

52:39

That's all just a mild mauling by

52:41

a grizzly bear. What's the book for? Wait?

52:44

Okay, So so it didn't

52:46

get your arms at all?

52:49

Well, it did with its claws, but

52:52

just grizzly bear claws.

52:56

So I guess I was lucky that

52:58

the claws weren't like recently sharpened

53:00

they were pretty dull. Yeah, so

53:03

they just they had a lot of force behind them. But

53:05

because I had a lot of layers on, I had

53:07

like long underwear and a shirt, heavy duty

53:09

shirt kind of like this, and then some

53:12

heavy duty jackets. So there's

53:15

some claw marks on the jacket where it

53:17

like polished the fleece that

53:19

like burned it from friction. Wow, it didn't

53:21

actually go through it. So I had like red marks

53:23

and stuff from where the closet got me all over

53:26

my back and my arms and stuff.

53:27

It did it make I don't

53:29

know what yeur came out, but did that make it

53:31

too traumatic for you to watch Edward

53:33

scissors hands scissors?

53:37

I think that came out before this. I remember

53:39

that from my childhood.

53:40

But no, I was still you know that

53:42

that's traumatizing from a different perspective.

53:44

Of course, Yes, okay,

53:47

so you're all scratched up and then okay, then

53:51

you had okay, so

53:53

at least the bear is gone. Now, huge relief.

53:55

You've survived. And

53:57

what percent of people hacked

54:00

by grizzly bears survive.

54:03

That's hard to pinpoint exactly,

54:06

but you know a lot of people survive,

54:09

a lot of people don't survive. It's

54:13

uh yeah, it's

54:15

kind of or not confusing but surprising

54:18

that like when you look at grizzly bears

54:21

and when you look at black bears, black

54:23

bears, if someone gets attacked by one, they're statistically

54:26

more likely to be killed by that black

54:28

bear than they are with the grizzly bear. People grievously

54:31

injured with a grizzly bear. But

54:33

I think in general, you know, in a black

54:35

bear attack, something is wrong with that bear,

54:38

that bear is sick and going after

54:40

people, whereas like with grizzly bears, it's more

54:42

likely, like in my case, where they're

54:45

trying to mitigate a threat and they want to incapacitate

54:47

someone, so they're not necessarily going.

54:49

To fill that's horrible. They can't.

54:51

That is horrible news. Because California we

54:53

have black bears, right, I'm pretty sure, and

54:55

they're always.

54:56

Less likely to attack, you're less likely to have

54:58

an interaction with them.

54:59

Right, So well, and I heard

55:01

that your message. I mean, I do want

55:03

to hear about

55:07

your journey, your harrowing journey to

55:09

get medical help, because

55:11

that was also crazy and fascinating.

55:13

But also I

55:16

do think it would be interesting because I know

55:18

that One of the things you emphasized before

55:21

we got on this chat

55:23

is that you still you

55:26

don't want it to dissuade people from going

55:28

out into nature and things like that. So how

55:30

do you how do how have you

55:32

come to terms with it in terms of still enjoying

55:35

nature and not making it like too

55:37

cautionary of a tale where people don't

55:40

go on hikes or things like that.

55:42

Yeah, I knew that was something that would be

55:45

a challenge to kind of get

55:47

to that point, because you know, it's a

55:49

serious trauma. I mean, you know, there

55:52

are acute injuries to deal with, and then there's like

55:54

the longer term impact

55:56

and anxiety and and

56:00

you know mental health challenges that come with something

56:02

like that. And so I

56:05

I sort of worked my way back to

56:07

the outdoors through like microdosing

56:10

trips into the woods in more

56:13

controlled environments and with more people, and then

56:15

like gradually working my way

56:17

to going to the Boundary Waters, which is this

56:19

amazing wilderness area we have in northern

56:21

Minnesota, and bringing

56:23

along you know, security blankets that I would

56:26

that would make me feel more comfortable. Like that first

56:28

time I went back, I was wearing like a

56:30

tactical vest and I had a MACHETI and

56:33

bare spray, and you know all the things

56:35

that are just a little I thought all over

56:37

the top.

56:37

I thought you were saying you were like surrounded by security

56:40

details. So you're like, you're

56:42

like a US president. Now when you go on the wild,

56:45

you have eight armed men surrounding you like

56:47

a militia.

56:48

Yeah.

56:49

I always hire private military contractors

56:51

for my back country.

56:52

Yeah.

56:53

Yeah, it's the best way to enjoy nature.

56:55

You know, That's what I recommend to other people.

56:57

That's great, that's a great message.

57:00

Yeah, it's very expensive.

57:03

My My whole thing is, like, you know, I've talked

57:05

about this a little bit, but there are a

57:07

lot of concrete things that you can do to

57:10

help avoid something like this happening.

57:13

You know, first of all, if you're in grizzly of the country carrying

57:15

bear spray, you know, avoiding

57:18

a surprise like around a corner

57:20

over a ridge or something so like making noise

57:23

and.

57:23

Makes you could like blast

57:26

every ridge off with dynamite before

57:28

you walk over it.

57:29

Yeah, that would be that would be an excessive intervention.

57:33

Throw a hand.

57:35

Everard just playing stuff on

57:37

a bluetooth speaker forever, you know, but

57:39

like having conversation and songs and some people

57:42

wear bear bells and whatever. But making

57:44

it so that when you get to that ridge, the bear's not

57:46

like, well where'd you come from? You know, Usually they're

57:48

going to try to avoid something. They're going to be like I

57:50

hear you know, dosser tones

57:52

of of some music and they're

57:55

going to go the other direction. Yeah, and

57:57

then like you know, being with a group of people so

58:00

that it's not just you, and then having

58:02

this plan of how you're going to conduct

58:05

your yourself in the in the back country.

58:07

So do you think that do you

58:09

think a rainstick would work for noise

58:11

making? You

58:13

carry a rainstick the first tiger

58:16

and you're just constantly on rotation duty,

58:18

flip in the rainstick, just.

58:20

Scared, which gets it gets tiring.

58:23

Yeah, it No, I

58:25

probably wouldn't recommend.

58:26

But you know what, but I bet you could make

58:28

a mechanical rainstick flipper to

58:31

keep the rotation constant.

58:35

That's something that's true.

58:36

It's probably not something that the grizzly bear would

58:38

hear and go, you know, I bet that's

58:41

people. Yeah, you're right, until it got used

58:43

to it.

58:43

It might be like I love rain This is

58:45

my favorite hunting weather, yeah,

58:48

draws.

58:52

Yeah.

58:52

So I mean there's just a lot of stuff that that you know,

58:55

we can each do to help

58:57

improve you know, our our

59:00

our fates right to help kind of

59:02

control the controllables, and then

59:05

you know, you can enjoy everything else

59:07

and recognize there's a lot that you just can't

59:09

control. So, you know, with

59:11

a high risk thing like this, like

59:14

a grizzlebear attack, like do what you need to do

59:16

to keep yourself safe and to defend yourself

59:18

if something happens, and then you

59:21

know, have fun with it because there's so much

59:23

to be learned and enjoyed

59:26

out in the wild. And I think,

59:28

you know, I've I've grown as

59:30

much as I have doing anything

59:33

by being outside. So I want other

59:35

people to do the same and to you know,

59:38

learn from this, but not feel

59:40

like they can't go out and do.

59:42

Stuff, right. I mean, listen, driving

59:44

is dangerous, flying is dangerously

59:46

We as humans, we have to walk into danger

59:48

every waking second of our lives. That's

59:51

how I look at it.

59:52

But exactly, I mean, statistically,

59:55

you know, getting on the freeway is much more

59:57

dangerous than going in a back country trip.

59:59

I know, you know, what I was telling myself yesterday,

1:00:02

I was like, actually, I should be scared

1:00:04

every time I drive, rather

1:00:06

than like using that to not be scared

1:00:08

of other things. I'm like, why am I not scared every time

1:00:10

I get in the car? Because I've started

1:00:13

getting kind of scared to fly. Anyway,

1:00:15

I don't know what the bear attack obsession

1:00:18

is, but I think it is just like I've

1:00:21

often lived in cities, and

1:00:24

I think there's people all over the world,

1:00:27

and obviously even

1:00:29

more historically when the population of grizzly

1:00:32

bears was larger, in the population of bears

1:00:34

in general, like the bear

1:00:36

attacks had to be more of a constant

1:00:39

fear, you know, and like

1:00:42

wild animals. It's like we're

1:00:44

wild animals, but we'd say, oh,

1:00:46

I'm getting too like heady right now,

1:00:49

let me calm down. Anyway, the

1:00:51

point being it is crazy, how

1:00:53

like we don't live in danger of wild animals

1:00:56

when that's probably been a huge part

1:00:58

of human existing since

1:01:01

the beginning of time.

1:01:03

Well, yeah, exactly. I mean we've evolved

1:01:05

as a species to you know, be

1:01:07

out in the wild and to be

1:01:10

aware of ourselves and to recognize

1:01:13

that danger, this very primal danger

1:01:15

of this predator seeing

1:01:17

me as prey or you know, wanting

1:01:19

to incapacitate me, and

1:01:22

so it just taps into this

1:01:24

very elemental level

1:01:26

of ourselves as humans that you

1:01:28

know. It just it brings all

1:01:31

of us back to this kind of shared

1:01:34

background of when we were not

1:01:36

in cities and not in our cars

1:01:38

and such.

1:01:39

So it's crazy.

1:01:40

I mean, it's kind of amazing shared fear.

1:01:43

It's amazing in a way that you had that experience.

1:01:45

Like, Okay, here's a question. If you could

1:01:48

undo the experience, would you.

1:01:52

You know, that's hard. I mean, it's been so formative

1:01:54

for me. If I were to go back and do it again,

1:01:57

I would do things differently so that it wouldn't

1:01:59

happen. But I also

1:02:01

recognize that I'm who I am today because of what

1:02:04

happened. So I think there's you

1:02:06

know, I don't I don't want to wish that I could

1:02:08

change the past. I want to learn from

1:02:10

it and figure out, you know how, I want to

1:02:13

carry that with me with me going

1:02:15

forward. So I

1:02:17

like to think about it that way as opposed to like making

1:02:20

that choice of like, oh I don't I'm.

1:02:22

Going to undo it. Yeah, I would do it differently

1:02:24

so it wouldn't happen.

1:02:25

Yeah, you you would take

1:02:28

more steps to be safer with

1:02:30

what you know now.

1:02:32

Yeah, okay, so learn from it.

1:02:34

Listen, I'm going to be totally honest

1:02:36

with you. I have therapy now, but.

1:02:40

It is good.

1:02:40

Yeah, therapy is great. But I

1:02:43

did want to hear because I thought it was crazy

1:02:45

that you were then a little

1:02:47

bit about how you got to medical help. So you

1:02:50

were in this canoe right with your

1:02:52

friends and then wasn't like someone like had

1:02:54

some kind of medical background that was traveling

1:02:57

with you.

1:02:58

Yeah, so we were out, you know, buy a canoe

1:03:02

by ourselves. Our guide,

1:03:04

Dan was a

1:03:06

wilderness first Responder, which is kind

1:03:08

of like an e MT, but catered

1:03:11

towards when you're two or more hours from definitive

1:03:14

cares. So this is the type of thing that you

1:03:16

trained for as a GOFER, but

1:03:19

not the type of situation you are going

1:03:21

to expect to deal with. So yeah, that going

1:03:23

into this. We had a satellite

1:03:26

phone with us, and so we were in

1:03:28

communication with camp pretty quickly after

1:03:30

this happened, and we found

1:03:33

and I was stable, Like we stabilized

1:03:35

me. My main injury, the bite one

1:03:37

of the teeth was a quarter inch from my femeral

1:03:39

artery and punctured in

1:03:42

the full depth of the tooth right there,

1:03:44

So that would have been fatal if it.

1:03:46

Had hit that. Wow, that's what

1:03:48

I missed that, And so.

1:03:49

I had a lot of these injuries that

1:03:51

we were able to stabilize really well.

1:03:54

It would have been fatal even if there was a

1:03:56

tourniquit.

1:03:59

I don't know if we had a tournique in

1:04:01

our kit there the

1:04:03

location, basically, I probably would

1:04:06

have led out prior to getting back to camp. It takes

1:04:08

about three minutes for your phone. Oh

1:04:10

my god, in your life blood.

1:04:12

So that's that's pretty real.

1:04:14

I mean, if you've seen black hack down or something

1:04:16

like that, it's serious.

1:04:20

So yeah, I was really really lucky.

1:04:23

So we stabilized my wounds, and we when

1:04:25

we got on the phone, what we found out is that a

1:04:27

helicopter, which is the kind of go to, wasn't

1:04:30

available, So okay, what are the other

1:04:32

options? There are high risk rescues which

1:04:34

weren't really indicated because I was stable,

1:04:38

and you know, basically,

1:04:41

we ended up working our way

1:04:43

on our own towards Baker Lake,

1:04:45

which was the town at the end of our route

1:04:47

and about one hundred miles of paddling from

1:04:49

where we were, so we were making our way there

1:04:52

as quickly as we could and in communication

1:04:54

regularly with camp to like continue

1:04:56

my medical care and monitor

1:04:59

things.

1:04:59

So it ended up being about a

1:05:01

week.

1:05:02

After the hack before

1:05:04

I got fun and because

1:05:08

things didn't go quite as planned.

1:05:10

Is it so hard to sleep when you have

1:05:12

a leg? Big? Did you have painkillers?

1:05:15

We had some painkillers.

1:05:17

We had like you know, ibuprofen

1:05:20

and telling all and stuff for the

1:05:22

regular stuff, and then we had some stronger

1:05:24

pain killers for when those were needed.

1:05:27

So not when you're sleeping was

1:05:30

fun. It wasn't fun. I didn't get the best

1:05:32

sleep.

1:05:32

That's the stronger pain killer music. Yeah,

1:05:36

yeah, wait, so that is crazy

1:05:38

A full week and you just like you

1:05:40

have enough bandages for that full

1:05:42

week.

1:05:44

Well, we were being very judicious with the materials

1:05:46

that we had and it would have been

1:05:48

less time, but we ended up getting

1:05:51

caught in a storm and lost an additional

1:05:53

gear, and that's when my leg

1:05:56

took kind of a turn for the worst, which we

1:05:58

started treating with materials that we have in

1:06:00

the med kit at the direction of medical

1:06:03

Control, and then it then

1:06:05

it got worse still and it wasn't

1:06:08

responding to that and that's when things kind of

1:06:10

shifted again, and that's when a helicopter

1:06:12

was sent out to pick me up.

1:06:14

So when you're saying

1:06:16

it got worse, is it like turning green

1:06:19

or something?

1:06:19

And no, like infection

1:06:23

set in and we started treating the infection with antibiotics

1:06:25

that we had, but then it became resistant

1:06:28

to those antibiotics. Hear about all the time,

1:06:30

but you don't usually see it like that,

1:06:32

that exact progression, but it

1:06:36

became resistant to those antibiotics, and then

1:06:39

you know that that exhausted our

1:06:41

treatment options at that point. So that was when,

1:06:43

you know, despite us being quite a bit closer, we

1:06:47

you know, had to get a helicopter into to

1:06:49

get me out to get different antibiotics

1:06:51

and the treatment that would take

1:06:53

care of it.

1:06:54

And how is your leg today, It's

1:06:58

really quite good.

1:07:01

For the first like ten years after it happened,

1:07:04

it was sort of like almost every day, and then

1:07:06

just over the past couple of years, that soreness

1:07:09

is now intermittent, which is exciting. So I

1:07:11

used to say, like, oh, it hurts ever your day, but it's

1:07:13

gotten better since then, which is exciting.

1:07:15

So if I if I move too

1:07:17

much or move too little, then it hurts, But.

1:07:20

Do you do acupuncture or

1:07:22

anything.

1:07:23

I did some pt a year

1:07:25

after the attack to get my

1:07:27

range of motion back. Yeah, because I

1:07:29

had like twenty five percent loss

1:07:31

of my range of motion in that leg and

1:07:34

they basically broke up scar tissue and

1:07:36

I got my range of motion back.

1:07:37

So it's kind of wild. You can't like tell.

1:07:40

Physical therapy is amazing because I think a

1:07:42

lot of people just live with things like that,

1:07:45

not necessarily bear bites, but

1:07:48

you know and don't

1:07:50

know that there is things you can do to mitigate.

1:07:53

But my god, what a

1:07:55

legend, What an absolute legend.

1:07:58

I am so thankful. This

1:08:00

is one of the weird things about being obsessed with bear

1:08:02

attacks that I'm always like, what's

1:08:05

the sweet spot for a

1:08:07

fun bear attack story? That doesn't

1:08:09

you know people are completely like

1:08:11

disfigured by it. It feels like it

1:08:14

won't be such a fun tale, you know,

1:08:16

Like yeah, I mean, I'm sure it's not a

1:08:18

fun tale for you, but like you know,

1:08:21

for me, I like to joke about bad

1:08:24

things that happened because it helps me get

1:08:26

through it. And I'm guessing

1:08:28

you're similar if you're even on this podcast,

1:08:30

But maybe you hate me

1:08:32

now but

1:08:35

you know it's just, uh, what

1:08:38

a journey. What a journey?

1:08:40

Yeah, And I think I think you know it's

1:08:43

it is. There's a whole spectrum

1:08:45

of how you know, these encounters can go,

1:08:47

Yeah, death, disfigurement, like something

1:08:50

more in the middle like me and and you

1:08:52

know the other end of the spectrum where it

1:08:54

runs off in the other direction. You have a crazy story

1:08:57

to share it and everybody's doing

1:08:59

good aterwards, and you know, we all

1:09:02

cope different ways, and sometimes it's you

1:09:04

know, finding the brevity and the lightness

1:09:06

and what happened and laughing

1:09:09

through things. So yeah, I

1:09:12

get it.

1:09:13

Yeah, man, Well listen, I'm happy

1:09:16

were not killed that day because

1:09:18

it's given me a great podcast

1:09:20

episode. I mean, this is the culmination

1:09:23

of years of interest in the topic.

1:09:25

And you know, it is funny

1:09:28

though I truly did go on a hike in bear country

1:09:30

with the zero protection. I have

1:09:32

to learn the next time I have

1:09:35

to learn from this. Well, I didn't even know it

1:09:37

was bear country. I kind of forgot that, Like we

1:09:39

have bears here in Pasadena going to people's

1:09:41

swimming pools, Like are those

1:09:43

people always carrying bear spray to take

1:09:46

their trash out? I mean, they should be, I guess,

1:09:48

but.

1:09:49

Yeah, I don't know. I'm defer to the experts

1:09:51

for that one.

1:09:52

Yeah. Yeah, anyway,

1:09:54

Well, I just thank you

1:09:57

so much for sharing your story.

1:09:59

It is a great reminder to take all

1:10:01

the proper, the proper, proper,

1:10:05

proper cautionary

1:10:07

measures when you're going out in nature, and but

1:10:10

that it's worth it. You're

1:10:12

saying it's worth it. I can't say that for you.

1:10:15

It's worth it to get mauled by grizzly

1:10:18

to see some pretty trees and bluffs,

1:10:21

right, yeah.

1:10:23

No, it's it's you know, it's worth

1:10:26

doing what you need to do to get out there and to

1:10:28

stay safe. I think there's a lot to be gained

1:10:31

from being outside and exploring

1:10:33

our world.

1:10:35

That's right. And on top of it,

1:10:37

you have an incredible vocabulary. You

1:10:39

should be very proud of yourself. Sweet

1:10:47

So, I truly want you to play

1:10:49

Puns of Anarchy. I think you would love it.

1:10:52

I'm going to have to check that out.

1:10:53

It's really fun. All right, Well, thank

1:10:55

you so much. K I t call

1:10:57

anytime. You're a friend of the

1:11:00

show, our only friend.

1:11:02

Thanks all right, bye,

1:11:05

thank you.

1:11:10

I drave a panda, Yeah,

1:11:13

a fas travel

1:11:15

Ponda.

1:11:17

Watch, I'm going

1:11:19

past, yeah, in the Hondai.

1:11:23

I'm going person.

1:11:25

In my.

1:11:27

I'm going fasts first

1:11:30

in my.

1:11:32

Pass well, my

1:11:38

guest in my Honda stemming

1:11:42

up. I guess my Honda jollasim

1:11:52

Holly MS.

1:11:59

Give me seeing.

1:12:20

I fucking stopped you, and

1:12:22

you says he come fucking

1:12:25

stopping, and your

1:12:27

face licks have blue

1:12:29

past.

1:12:31

In my pH.

1:12:33

Right past you can

1:12:35

my p polish lone

1:12:38

pasta in my

1:12:40

heart, A long a pair

1:12:43

of flood in the.

1:12:46

No one mess's fast

1:12:48

and my under.

1:12:51

Fast has

1:12:56

My excus