ASSINIBOINE PROVINCIAL PARK, British Columbia — A woman on a short backpacking trip said she found herself face-to-face with a grizzly bear on a trip before scaring it away with bear spray.
Shalee Super, who is originally from Mecosta County, Michigan, now lives in Cody, Wyoming, and works as a travel blogger and digital director.
The day of the encounter, she and her partner had been camping overnight at Assiniboine Lake on Aug. 21, where he set out at sunrise to climb Mount Assiniboine while she prepared to hike back 4.8 miles to the trailhead.
She shared in an Aug. 25 Facebook video post the harrowing encounter with the wild grizzly bear camping near a river.
While packing up, Super said she heard a heavy step outside her tent and soon saw the shadow of the grizzly’s claw. When she peeked out, she was nose to nose with the bear.
“In the most horror movie way, the shadow of a grizzly claw appeared on the side of the tent,” Super said.
Super said she sprayed the bear, which caused it to retreat briefly before returning with another bear nearby.
“Nose to nose with it, I pulled the trigger before I really had time to think,” she said.
She climbed shoeless across a talus field to escape while the bears tore apart her tent. She said she watched them for about an hour before returning to salvage what she could and then hiked back to the trailhead.
“Shoeless in the freezing temps, I made my way across the marsh and up the sharp talus field where I sat on a larger rock roughly 100 (meters) up and watched him tear apart the tent,” she said.
Though the encounter left her without most of her gear, Super said she walked away unharmed and expressed no anger toward the bears.
She described them as likely young siblings behaving out of curiosity rather than aggression.
“No ill will toward the bear,” she said. “I am well aware that I was the outlier in his home, the unfamiliar weed in his garden. Bear vs man debate? Still bear, every time. Although I would like to never see one even remotely close again.”
You can follow Super’s outdoor adventure via her travel blog, Shalee Wanders.