Bear Safety 101: Essential Tips to Avoid Attacks While Hiking This Summer

The summer hiking season has brought an unwelcome string of encounters between people and bears across the West's most visited parks. A hiker was killed in Glacier National Park—the first fatal attack there in nearly three decades. Weeks later, another hiker survived a mauling on the Grinnell Glacier Trail. Yellowstone saw its own incident when visitors stumbled into a protective mother bear with cubs near Old Faithful. The headlines have been alarming enough to make some people reconsider their plans to venture into the backcountry altogether.

But the reality is less dire than the headlines suggest. Millions of people hike and camp in bear country every year without incident. Most bears actively avoid humans. The attacks that do happen typically share common threads: someone surprised a bear, food was stored carelessly, or a hiker wandered in unprepared. The good news is that most of these scenarios are preventable with knowledge and basic precautions.

The foundation of bear safety is simple noise. Most dangerous encounters happen because neither party knows the other is coming until it's too late. Bear bells, despite their popularity, don't work well—they're simply not loud enough to alert a bear at a safe distance. Instead, use your voice. Call out "Hey bear!" periodically. Talk to your hiking partner. Complain about the hill. The goal is to give any bear in the area plenty of warning to move away before you arrive. This matters especially near rushing water, around blind corners, and in thick vegetation where sound travels poorly and visibility is limited. Daniel Crago's grizzly attack in Glacier happened partly because environmental conditions made it hard for either party to hear the other approaching.

Traveling with others amplifies this effect. A group of three or more hikers is bigger, louder, and more intimidating than a solo walker. Bears prefer easy problems and low-risk situations. A group is neither. Food storage is equally critical. Bears have extraordinary noses. They're not just smelling your sandwich—they're smelling the toothpaste, deodorant, sunscreen, forgotten beef jerky wrapper, and the shirt you wore while cooking bacon. In camp, keep sleeping, cooking, and food storage areas separate. Use bear-resistant canisters or bear boxes when available. Hang food if you can. And never, under any circumstances, store food in your tent. A clean campsite reinforces this: wash dishes promptly, dispose of trash properly, don't leave scraps sitting around. Some experts in serious grizzly country even recommend changing clothes after cooking before bed.

Bear spray is your last line of defense, but only if you can actually reach it. If it's buried under layers of gear and zippers, it's useless. Keep it in a chest holster or hip holster where you can access it instantly. Practice removing the safety clip before your trip so you're not fumbling with instructions during a crisis. Bear spray isn't for every bear sighting—if a bear is calmly minding its business a hundred yards away, leave it alone and create distance. It's for aggressive approaches or charges. When that happens, remove the safety clip, grip the can with both hands, and spray when the bear is roughly thirty to forty feet away, aiming slightly downward to create a barrier rather than trying to hit the animal like a water gun.

If you encounter a bear, your instinct to run will be wrong. Bears can sprint thirty-five miles per hour. You cannot outrun one. If the bear hasn't noticed you, back away quietly and give it space. If it sees you, stay calm, stand your ground, speak in a firm voice, and make yourself appear larger by raising your arms. Most bears will leave if given the chance. Keep dogs leashed—an off-leash dog running toward a bear, annoying it, and then sprinting back to you with an angry predator in pursuit is a common way encounters escalate. And if you see cubs, you're almost certainly much closer to their mother than you want to be. Never approach them, never position yourself between mother and cubs, never stop for a photo. A protective mother bear will attack if she perceives a threat to her young.

Not all bears behave the same way. Black bears are often more timid and more likely to retreat if you stand your ground, make yourself look large, and fight back if attacked. Grizzlies tend to attack defensively, especially when surprised or protecting cubs. In those situations, if physical contact occurs and bear spray fails, playing dead may be your best option—lie flat on your stomach, hands clasped behind your neck, legs spread to make it harder for the bear to flip you. It sounds terrifying because it is. But the goal is never to reach that point. Making noise, storing food properly, carrying accessible bear spray, and understanding the bear species in your area remain your best defenses. When we enter the wilderness, we're guests in someone else's home. Bears don't understand we mean no harm. They're simply being bears. Most of the time, that's not a problem. But preparation and respect for wildlife can mean the difference between a great story and a tragedy.