The Raging Hunter Saved my Life: Part 1

By Tana Grenda

For most of my life in Alaska, I viewed a sidearm as something optional. Useful, maybe. They are heavy, inconvenient, and uncomfortable at times, but often something people carry more for peace of mind than anything. I grew up around firearms, hunted big country, flew into the remote wilderness often, and spent countless days in bear country. Over time, though, experience started teaching me a different lesson: the gun you actually carry for quick access will save your life.

I learned that lesson slowly over years in the backcountry through close encounters and seeing how quickly things can unravel when weather, distance, exhaustion, and adrenaline collide. But one spring brown bear hunt on the Alaska Peninsula burned that lesson into me forever.

That day, a handgun didn’t just become a backup weapon. 

It became the only reason I made it home to my husband and six kids. A close brush with death was all it took for me to rethink everything.

I stared at the wounded 10-foot brown bear barreling through the deep snow toward us at full speed. I only had seconds to think, and during those seconds, I could only think of two things: my family, and my oncoming death.

My husband Adam was home with our six kids. I quietly said goodbye to them in my head, braced for impact, and waited as my brother drew the handgun for our one final chance at survival.

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I called my brother Trevor earlier in the year to plan this hunt with him. I was tagged out for another 2 years and it was his turn. Being my next-of-kin relative, I could act as his guide in the field according to Alaska regulations.

It was a late winter in Alaska and because of that, the bears were popping from hibernation late. Adam and I hopped in the Super Cub to do some early season scouting and hardly found a single bear track in the snow. We hoped that by the time bear season opened on the Alaska peninsula, that the bears would finally emerge from their long hibernation.

Trevor flew up to my house a few weeks later. We planned on doing this hunt with his bow. Since I did not have a bear tag, I knew I could not back him up so he would have a bow, a pistol on his chest, and a rifle for himself.

We flew out to our base camp along the beach. It was a new spot I had never been to before. The flight was nothing short of nasty. Adam flew us just below the deck of the low cloud layer as we weaved among the trees to drop us off into our spot a few days before season. We hoped to stay far away from people and guides.

We were weathered in for that day and the next day with pouring rain and sat in the tent, anxiously awaiting opening day. We knew killing a big boar with a bow would be difficult, but we were up for the challenge.  

Opening morning proved to be more challenging than we thought. We could see and glass for miles, but similar to our early scouting mission, there was hardly any sign of any bears, and the snowy peaks were not plastered with tracks as they normally were. This would definitely be a waiting game.

The next day, we did not see anything. After glassing from 6am-11pm every day, the eyes started to fatigue. If only we could find a sleeping bear we could sneak up on and shoot with a bow, We thought. That evening, I spotted the craziest thing when the sun hit the snowy peaks.

We saw bear tracks navigating up and down steep cliffs with what looked like a false den just above a giant cliff. Trevor followed the tracks then spotted what we wished for.  

It was a big black blob in the snow, 6 direct miles away, almost to the top of the mountain. It was tough to tell what it was with that distance, the bright snow, and the heat mirage, but certainty grew as the tracks we followed stopped at the sleeping blob.

It was very, very far away. It was so far away that we both messaged Adam on the inreach to look at maps and see if it would even be possible to hike there. We knew we could not make a trek like that in the evening so we would wait until morning to find him. After a lot of back and forth discussion, we decided that if he was still there in the morning, we could go after him.

That next morning, he was laying in the exact same spot. He had been sleeping for over 12 hours at this point which confirmed our decision to go. We knew it would be rough. We knew it would take all day and we would be spending the night on the mountain. So we brought the gear we needed, snowshoes, a dry pair of socks, puffies in a dry bag, rain gear, and a small tarp to keep us dry in a survival situation. Adam warned us a storm would be coming the next day.

We forged ahead, making our way up the 6 mile long canyon, crossing several spring run-off creeks, climbing waterfalls, traversing huge tussocks and busting through scratchy willow brush. It was a brutal hike in. We glassed him along the way to discover he was really as big as we expected him to be.

After 8 hours of hiking toward him and getting just below him on the river bed into the head end of the canyon, we still had to climb straight up 2500’ vertical feet to get to his bed.

He got out of his bed and moved up the mountain another mile, almost to the very top of the ridge. We were hesitant to turn back, but when he fell asleep again, we figured this was our chance.

We fought the worst alder brush we ever have and climbed straight up 2500’. It would be a miracle if he was still there. It was too steep for snowshoes. Trevor wore Verts, a vertical climbing snow shoe and I just stepped in his tracks. 

“This. Is. Insane. “ I thought. But we had come so far, we couldn’t turn back now.

The wind started to howl. The snow was still deep in spots.

We saw a sow just above us and a smaller boar to our right. We were surrounded by bears and climbing into their territory.

As we got into the big alpine snowy basin, we saw the big boar.

Bedded and halfway hidden in his little snow den, he was just laying there, still asleep after 24 hours. We could not wait for him to wake up or we would be spending the night up there and probably not make it through the night. The snow was tough to traverse in. It was spring snow, the kind of snow you fall through if you are near rocks, but Trevor is well versed with avalanche danger so we picked a safe line to climb.

We knew with no cover that we could not get this bear with a bow, so we opted for the rifle. We got as close as we could before we would be nose to nose with him and he would see us, so we set up at 470 yards to shoot this bear.

BOOM. One bullet hit the front shoulder. The bear stood up.

BOOM. He put another bullet through both lungs.

BOOM. He put a third bullet through its high neck and spine area.

I videoed three killer shots from a .338 ultra mag. He looked hurt and could barely walk. “Get another one in him.”

And that’s when my heart sank. The rifle bolt jammed. We had 20 more rounds but it would not close.

Trevor did everything he could. We both did. It was zero degrees wind chill. We thought it was frozen or something was stuck. Meanwhile, the bear saw us. He went down ten times over and I thought he was dying, but kept getting up and sliding down the snowy hill toward us like a giant sled, closing the distance fast, leaving a huge blood trail behind.

We had a giant, wounded, brown bear coming at us with a jammed rifle. Panic set in.

Continued in Part 2