Latest / Off You Pop! / AI Versus the Bear - Planning for a Trip to Grizzly Country

Transcript

AI Versus the Bear - Planning for a Trip to Grizzly Country · Off You Pop!

0:14
SPEAKER_01: This is Off You Pop, the podcast for hikers and adventurers who want to be epic in just one day.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: Before we jump into today's episode, I need to clear something up.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: I've spent the last week arguing with AI.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: Not about politics, not about philosophy, but about whether I'm going to get eaten by a grizzly on my upcoming trip to Penguin Peak in Alaska.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: A snow squall is coming in on the weekend when I plan to hike, dumping 15 inches of snow on the ridge, and I wanted to do some more research on the route, confirm the weather predictions, and review the risk factors.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: After working through the AI conversation about the low probability of avalanche, the nature of the wet snow, gear requirements, with some recommendations for places I could buy some polarized sunglasses, I made some tactical decisions to change my hiking itinerary.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: I asked it to give me a technical expert summary of the plan.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: And after a list of statistics, root walkthroughs and timings, it spat out a list of restaurants in Anchorage I might consider eating at after the hike.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: And then came this hard wildlife facts, turn again corridor.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: This is where I picked up a new conversation thread, and I'm going to read through it word for word in this podcast because I think it's critical for all those hikers using AI to plan their adventures to understand how AI logic works.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: We've already heard this year about hikers blaming AI for getting lost on Shasta.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: I want you to listen carefully to this AI conversation.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: It's important because you need to understand that AI is a very powerful planning tool, but it will give you exactly what you ask for.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: And you really need to be digging more deeply into the facts to get to the layer of truth.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: Even after you feel you've reached a place of comfort with the results, I would still highly recommend you go out and do your own non-AI research to verify the facts.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: This is AI versus the bear, and this is off you pop.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's pick this up from the top.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to walk through the actual conversation that I had with the AI, talking about the bear.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's going to be really interesting when you see how the logic works.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: And so, where I pick up the conversation is a wonderful restaurant called the 49th State Brewing Company in downtown Anchorage.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: It's got 4.6 stars.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: And they recommended I ordered the King Krabby Grilled Cheese or the famous Yak burger.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: And then came the heading that led me down a different path.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: Hard wildlife facts, turn again arm corridor.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: I didn't ask for this.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: All I was asking for was a summary of the hike that I was about to do and an assessment of the risks.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: So it says since you're driving the Seward Highway between your two peak targets, you'll pass the Alaska Wildlife Conversation Centre.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: Since you're driving the Seward Highway between your two peak targets, you will pass the Alaska Wildlife Conversation Centre at Mile Post 79.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: The reality, if you want guaranteed up close observation of massive interior grizzlies, would buy some timber wolves, some boom ball moose without spending days tracking them in the backcountry.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: This 200-acre sanctuary is completely worth the 45-minute stop.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: You can loop the entire property in your vehicle or on foot.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: Now I hadn't asked or said that I was going to hunt down grizzlies to go look at them.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: I actually said it would be nice to see a moose.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: So, backcountry encounter probabilities in late September.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: Moose, extreme.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: September is the peak of the autumn rut.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: Large boars are highly aggressive, territorial, and actively moving through the willow bogs of Bird Creek, which is where Penguin Peak is, and Potter Marsh.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: Give them a minimum 50-foot buffer.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: Brown bears, grizzlies, high salmon runs are tapering off, forcing bears to shift from river floors to lower alpine valleys to feast on high-density berry patches, like cranberries and crowberries, before winter torpor.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: They are highly defensive of food sources right now.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: Then it says, Do you want me to look up the active dinner reservation slots for Glacier Brew House on Sunday or Monday night to secure a spot right when you get back from the pigs?
4:37
SPEAKER_01: Not anymore, I don't.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: I want to know more about the high probability of bumping into a grizzly on my hike, which we hadn't talked about before.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: So I said, Let's get deeper into the penguin grizzly factor.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: I was hoping that they would be pushed more into the backcountry and away from the brutal gusts of the weather at the coast, chasing the last of the salmon upstream.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: AI says this your hypothesis about coastal gusts pushing bears inland is incorrect.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: In late September, coastal wind speeds do not dictate brown bear movement in the turn-again arm.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: Caloric availability during hypophagia does.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: The hard biological data on the Bird Creek, penguin creek drainage contradicts the assumption that grizzlies will be high or far away.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: The reality puts them directly in your path on Monday morning.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now you've got my attention.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: Directly in my path on Monday morning.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: And then it shares this with me.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: The post-salmon ghost town fallacy.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: While you're correct that the primary silver salmon runs are tapering off in the lower, fast-flowing mainstream of Bird Creek right now, the fish are not gone.
5:59
SPEAKER_01: They have moved into the slow-moving, shallow spawning tributaries to die.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: The concentration zone, Penguin Creek, is a designated anadromous salmon stream that cuts directly across the lower trail corridor.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: The salmon consolidate in the lower poles right along the 1.4 mile forested section where you launch your hike.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: The caloric pivot.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Because the salmon are weak, dying, and heavily concentrated in shallow waters, they become effortless targets for brown bear.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: Bears do not chase the salmon far up the precipitous backcountry rock walls.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: They linger on the shallow valley floor streams to systematically strip the high-fat brains, skin, and eggs from carcasses to lock in the final winter fat reserves.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm paying attention, AI.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: It's got more fat swarming.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: The core fret, that wasn't even the big problem, according to AI.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: The core fret, the 1800-foot tree line transition, the highest concentration of grizzly activity on Monday morning will not be at the summit or on the open shoulder.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: It will be inside the narrow, winding order choke between mile 0.5 and mile 1.4.
7:19
SPEAKER_01: The bedding ground.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: Bears do not spend 24 hours a day standing in freezing water.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: Once they feed on the Penguin Creek salmon, they move 50 to 200 yards into the ultra-thick order and willow brush along the steep lower flanks of Penguin Peak to bed down and digest.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: Alright.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: The sight line crux.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: The lower single-track trail cuts directly through these dense bedding corridors.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: Because the orders are tightly enclosed and winding, your visual field drops to under 15 feet in multiple sections.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now I'm listening.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: So when I go hiking for at least one of the sections, the salmon will be full of fish and they will be sleeping just off the trail where I'll be walking, according to the AI.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: Historical precedent and tactical execution here had not had not finished scaring me about the bear.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: The risk here is a sudden close quarters defensive charge by a sow with cubs or a dominant bear protecting a cash carcass.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: This is not theoretical.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: The narrow winding order zone of the Penguin Creek Trail has a documented history of sudden, severe, grisly maulings under these exact structural trail conditions.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: Since you're a solo fast packer, I've been lying to the AI just a little bit, moving at a silent, efficient 2.5 miles an hour, hopefully, you present a high risk of startling a bear.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: It gives me some recommendations.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: One, ditch the silence.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: Your fast pacing means you will close distant gaps rapidly.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: You must actively break your rhythm inside the lower 1.4 miles of forest.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: Call out loudly, hey bear, before clearing every blind winding switchback to give them reaction time to clear the trail.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: Good advice.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: Number two, harness deployment.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: Keep your deterrent unholsted and strapped directly to the front of your chest harness of your 32-litre pack.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I told it what pack I had.
9:23
SPEAKER_01: If a defensive charge triggers inside a 15-foot sightline, you have less than 1.5 seconds to deploy, you will not have time to reach around to a side pocket or open a zipper.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: So the AI has basically said, in my logic, there are some places on this trail where you will only be able to see 15 feet.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: And what it did is it calculated how fast a charging bear runs, assuming I see it, it immediately charges at me.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: It says I got 1.5 seconds to deploy the bear spray.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: So, yes, I'm a little bit concerned.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: If I see a bear, I've got 1.5 seconds to just deploy that spray according to that, according to the logic of how the AI has taken all the facts it knows about the trail and the sight lines and where I'll be.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: And it goes on.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: The bears are exactly where the calories are on the valley floor.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: On the valley floor, right along stream crossings at the base of your peak.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: Do you want the exact stream crossing coordinates for Penguin Creek to log into your Garmin?
10:25
SPEAKER_01: I told it I had a Garmin.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: So you know the precise zones to maximize your noise footprints.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna tell me on the trail where I should be haybearing and being loud.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: So I tell the AI, I'm not loving this.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: That's all I said.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm not loving it.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: So AI says, I don't blame you.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: No one loves hiking in high probability grizzly factories with 15 feet of visibility.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: High probability grizzly factor with 15 feet of visibility.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: Hearing that a trail has a documented history of maulings right where you plan to launch your Monday morning peak is an immediate red flag.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: Acknowledging that gut check is the hallmark of a wildlife first aid certified operator.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why, somewhere in this conversation earlier, I felt compelled to tell the AI that I was wilderness first aid certified.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: And it remembered that, so it was acknowledging that.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Completely irrelevant.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: But there you go.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: There is a massive structural difference between a hard vertical challenge and an unmitigated wildlife hazard inside a blind brush choke.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm freaking out.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: Who wouldn't be?
11:36
SPEAKER_01: An unmitigated wildlife hazard inside a blind brush choke.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: Since you're not loving this setup, you have two clean immediate options to handle Monday morning without sacrificing your stats or your standards.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: Option one, keep Penguin Peak, but change the protocol.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: If you still want the iconic name of the Peak and the Ridge Views for your itinerary, you simply do not solo the lower forest.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: Shift your start time from a solo early morning launch to 11 a.m.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: Why?
12:09
SPEAKER_01: By late morning, local hikers and groups will have already pushed through the lower 1.5 miles of the forest.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: Their noise and footprints will effectively clear the immediate trail corridor of bedding bears, shifting them back towards the creek beds and away from you the single trap.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: You let others clear the blind zones, then use your 2.5 mile an hour pacing to hammer past them once you hit the open ridge.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: The AI says, let other people be the be bear bait.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm down.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: Option two, execute the hard switch to Bird Ridge.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Bird Ridge is a different ridge.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: Also on Bird Creek, but also in uh in the same zone.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: But the AI says if you want to completely eliminate the high stress bear trap while keeping a brutal high status vertical workout right on the turn again, pivot to Bird Ridge.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: So why?
13:05
SPEAKER_00: Why the bear risk drops to near zero?
13:08
SPEAKER_01: Bird Ridge does not sit in the salmon valley drainage.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: It's a straight linear open mountain spine that steps out of the trees almost immediately.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: You get maximum sight lines, hundreds of yards of visibility within the first 15 minutes of climbing.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: The tactical advantage no blind order chokes, no salmon stream crossings, and zero knife edges, it delivers an identical physical sub-fest metric to the penguin peak and puts you in total control of your visual field.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: So it's saying instead of taking Penguin Peak, which is to the east of Burda Creek, to Birdridge to the west of Bird Creek.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: And it gives me the option, are we adjusting the timeline to let the other hikers clear the trail out?
13:54
SPEAKER_01: Are we gonna swap our coordinates to this other trail that has secure 100% open sight lines?
14:00
SPEAKER_01: It's fixating on the issue of the sight lines.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: In the AI's logic, it says you have low visibility.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: That could cause a bear moulin.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: And that's not untrue, right?
14:13
SPEAKER_01: A lot of these attacks with bears are happening because we've startled a bear in some way.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: We've come across the bear in some sort of blind situation.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: It says, go over to Bird Ridge.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: It's wide open.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: So I asked the AI this.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm going on a I'm gonna go on on a Monday, and that's a work week day.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: So I saw AI.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: What's the likelihood of hikers going on Monday with the weather the way it is?
14:46
SPEAKER_01: This is the AI's response.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: Very clever AI.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: The likelihood of encountering other hikers on Monday morning is near zero.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: A late September Monday combined with a fresh dumping of 1.25 feet of snowpack creates a total bottleneck for local recreational traffic.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: You will have zero footprint trail corridor.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: So effectively, what the AI has told me is go a little bit later, other hikers will go out there, they'll scare the bears.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: And when I asked, well, what about the weather?
15:22
SPEAKER_01: AI wasn't thinking about the weather.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: It said, Oh yeah, nobody's gonna be there on a Monday morning after it just dumped 1.25 feet of snow.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: And it goes on.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: The foot traffic data breakdown.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: The day of the week factor.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: Local traffic along the Turnagain arm cuts by 85 to 90% on Monday mornings compared to weekdays.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: The weather filter.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: The local hiking demographic stays off the hiking ridges immediately following a massive early season winter storm, even the partly sunny skies breaking by mid-morning on Monday.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: The presence of wet slush and a foot of fresh snow means casual hikers will stay completely on the valley floor trails, like the Bird to Gerd Path.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: Penguin Peak vs.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: Birdridge Peak.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: Penguin Peak, this is already a less frequented backcountry single track during prime summer months.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: On a snow-covered Monday morning, you should assume absolute solitude.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: You'll be the first person breaking trail through the lower forest and up the avalanche chute.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: Expect zero helpers to clear out bedding bears or provide boots on the ground visual navigation.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: Bird Ridge.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: As one of the most famous and highly accessible aerobic hill climbs in the state park, Bird Ridge has a baseline popularity that never completely zeros out.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: Even on a snowy Monday, there's a minor possibility that a local ultrarunner or high status peat bagger might launch a late morning fitness push.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: The execution reality.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: Since you can't rely on a human buffer to sweep the lower forest corridor of Penguin Peak on Monday morning, you are strictly on solo wildlife protocol.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: If you choose to execute Penguin, your voice is your only clearing mechanism until you hit the wide sightlines above the 1800-foot tree line.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: Even the guaranteed zero footprint solitude on Monday, do you want to finalise the Bird Creek Trailhead grid coordinates for Penguin Peak or shift direct directly over to Bird Ridge?
17:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it told me, go a little bit later, the other hikers will clear it out, and now it's backtracking, oh maybe not.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: So so naturally I said, So that was bad advice.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: And the AI counted, you are entirely correct.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: I take ownership of that error.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: Saying that the bearish drops to near zero on Bird Ridge was flawed advice that completely ignored the historical record of that specific peak.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: While Bird Ridge lacks the immediate Salmon Creek crossing found at Penguin Peak, it has a documented history of severe and fatal predatory bear activity.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: In June 2017, a 16-year-old mountain runner was killed by a black bear on Bird Ridge during a structured high traffic race.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the lower wooded switchbacks of Bird Ridge are just as enclosed as the approach on Penguin Peak.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: The hard fact is that any lower elevation forest or thick order corridor along the Turnagan arm holds an inherently elevated risk of sudden bear encounters in late September.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: If you choose to run either of these icons on Monday, you're dealing with an identical wildlife safety profile.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: There's no safe lower brush bypass.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Your Wilderness First Aid background, okay, I don't know why it's bringing that into this, and your unholstered bear spray are your primary lines of defense until you reach open sight lines above 1800 feet.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: We are back on strict data rules.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: Do you want the exact parking coordinates for your chosen launch points?
18:43
SPEAKER_01: Or do you have everything you need to lock in the routes?
18:47
SPEAKER_01: I just want to clarify here.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: I didn't say or question whether BirdRidge was a problem.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: I didn't bring it up.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: I didn't say that was bad advice.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: I did just say that was bad advice.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: I really meant about starting a little bit later because other hikers will be there.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: And then it picked up and said, Oh, hold on a minute.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: I just realized Birdridge is also awful and has the same problem.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: So you see, even the AI, when questioned, is now going back and fact-checking itself and finding new data.
19:20
SPEAKER_01: And when it went back and fact-checked Birdridge, it found this mauling and went, Oh, I'm sorry, I was wrong.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: So very interesting the way that the AI is reacting to my questions.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm not necessarily questioning the facts, but when it goes back and it pours in more data from across the web, it's obviously changing its mind as we work its way through the conversation.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: So now I now I don't know what to think, right?
19:46
SPEAKER_01: It's telling me there's bears, it's thick order, it's high risk, there's no people.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: So I ask it this.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: I want to mitigate the bear issue.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: Do you have any stats on bear attacks in this precise area?
20:01
SPEAKER_01: What's the risk ratio?
20:04
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm not sure that there is such a thing as a risk ratio.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: That's just what came out of my rapid typing and like, what am I going to do about all these bears that are hiding in the bushes to attack me?
20:13
SPEAKER_01: So it pulled out some data, and it the data it poured out was very interesting.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: So the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, it's quoting a reference, which is great.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: Tracks historical data within the Chugak State Park.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: Looking specifically at the Turnagain arm, where Penguin Peak and Birdridge reside, here is the raw mathematical risk ratio data.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: The macro math.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: Chugak State Park spans roughly 495,000 acres, directly adjacent to Anchorage.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: The baseline population.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: The park supports a stable resident population of approximately 350 black bears and 65 brown bears.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: The visit to attack ratio.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: That's what it decided to make the ratio about.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: That's called the visit to attack ratio.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: The park sees roughly 1.5 million human visits per year.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: Over the last 30 years, physical maulings within the park boundaries average 0.5 incidents per year.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: So one attack every two years.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: So the baseline odds, your raw statistical risk of an encounter resulting in a physical mauling while standing inside Chugak State Park, one in three million.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: Great.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: Much better.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm feeling a lot better.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: And then it gives me the micro meth.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: It's decided here's the big picture.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: One in three million.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: You're good to go.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: The micro math.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: The Turnigan arm hotspot.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: While the park wide odds are extremely low, bearing counters are not evenly distributed.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: They cluster violently around salmon drainages and coastal brush choke points.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: The Bird Creek Penguin Peak Corridor represents one of the highest concentration zones in the subarctic.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Historical incident reports for this precise corridor highlight several major events.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: In 1995, in the McHugh Creek Turnagain arm, that's not this mountain, that's a little bit further away.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: It's in the area, but it's not this particular creek.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: Double fatality brown bear mauling.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: Defensive attack over a cached moose carcass.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: 2012, seven years later, Penguin Peak route.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: Now this is the route.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: A solo hiker was mauled by a brown bear during the ascent.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: 2014, Bird Valley Trail.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not doing the Bird Valley Trail, but it's in the area.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: A female solo runner was severely mauled by a brown bear sow with cubs.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: 2017, Bird Ridge Trail.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: A predatory fatal black bear mauling of a solo mountain runner.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: Bird Ridge.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: You know the safe one?
22:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: So recently, 2026 has recorded an active spike in brown bear defensive charges in adjacent valleys, including severe maulings on the Wolverine Bowl Trail and Bear Valley.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: That was in August 26 and in July 26.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: So that's a little bit worrying.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: This is more recent, but it's not this area.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: It's probably uh 30, 40 miles away.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, it's in the park.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: So now it's now it's doing some math on my behalf.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: So calculating your specific risk ratio matrix.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: Because your operational profile involves solo fast packing at 2.5 miles an hour.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: I like to think so.
23:31
SPEAKER_01: During late September, hyphagia on a Monday morning with zero trail traffic.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: Your personal risk ratio escalates past the baseline via three compounding factors.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: So there's your total risk factor.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: Number one, the seasonal modifier, hyperphagia and salmon smalling spawning.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: Hy caloric competition pushes bears down to the valley floors.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: This compresses the physical distance between human transit routes and active feeding zones, multiplying the chance of a close quarter surprise encounter by roughly five times.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: I have no idea where it got that math from, but it's using five times the traffic modifier.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: So the zero footprint Monday.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: On weekends, human noises act as a natural deterrent, pushing bears off an immediate trail corridor.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: On a zero traffic Monday morning following a snowstorm, bears reclaim the trail corridor for bedding and foraging.
24:28
SPEAKER_01: This multiplies surprising counter probability by three times.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: Number three, the speed modifier.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is my 2.5 miles an hour fast packing.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: By that, by the way, that's a slower walk, my 2.5 miles an hour fast packing.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: Moving fast, just hiking, and silently closes the distance gaps before a bear can scent or hear an approach.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: In a 15-foot sightline order choke, this reduces the bear's flight or fight decision window down to a sub two seconds, doubling the likelihood of an immediate defensive charge.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: So as I'm walking along at my fast-packing two and a half mile an hour pace, I've I've basically doubled.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: It says two times, I've doubled my risk factor.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: So here I am, I've made it five times worse and three times worse and two times worse.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: So I wonder what's that?
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Five, is it five times three times two?
25:23
SPEAKER_01: Maybe fifty, like thirty times worse?
25:25
SPEAKER_01: Could be.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: Mitigation profile.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: So the math confirms it that while a failure or severe attack is still statistically rare in absolute terms, your specific Sunday-Munday operational window presents the highest potential for a sudden defense close quarter charge that you can encounter on an Alaskan trail.
25:43
SPEAKER_01: It's brought me right back to scary.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: Like, what what what?
25:45
SPEAKER_01: Well, it was one in three million, and now highest potential for a sudden defensive close quarter charge that you can encounter on an Alaskan trail.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty intense.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: If you run Penguin Peak, you must actively degrade your 2.5 mile an hour silent efficiency inside the lower 1.4 miles.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: Yell every 30 seconds, break your cadence, force the environment to know that you're coming before you enter the blind zone.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: That's great advice.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: But now I'm petrified with my highest potential for a sudden defensive close quarter charger you can encounter on an Alaskan trail.
26:23
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, then it asks me, do you want to know the exact metrics where the 2012 Penguin Pete mauling or the 2014 Bird Valley mauling occurred?
26:33
SPEAKER_01: So I can pin them as hazards on my flags.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: No, I really, I really don't.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: But thank you.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: So I say yes.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: But also, the time of day would also be useful, is what is what I tell them.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: So so what it does effectively, it says the target micro coordinates and attack profiles.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: It gives me the exact coordinates, it gives me the time of day.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not going to read through it all again, but the 2012 attack on Penguin Peak, 11:30 a.m.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: Remember it told me to start at 11 a.m.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: And now it's saying 11.30 was when that attack occurred.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, AI.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: The 2014 Bird Valley, 2.15 early afternoon.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: So that's probably when I'm coming back down the mountain, which is which is great.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: The 2017 Bird Ridge, fatal mauling, 1245, midday.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: Also, I will be on the mountain.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: I won't be on that lower part, but I will be on the mountain.
27:29
SPEAKER_01: So then it gives me a time of day risk analysis.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: So the data highlights a critical behaviour pattern that directly impacts your 9 a.m.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: start.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: I didn't tell at what time I was starting.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: It's decided for me that 9 a.m.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: would be a good starting time.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: The midday fallacy.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: While macrobiological data shows that bears actively peak at dawn and dusk, human bear attack data in the state park heavily spikes between 10 a.m.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: and 3 p.m.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: So it said, you know what, bud, why don't you start at 9 a.m.?
27:58
SPEAKER_01: So while you're on the trail between 10 a.m.
28:00
SPEAKER_01: and 3 p.m., maximum attack time.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: Why the math shifts?
28:05
SPEAKER_01: So what what they say is bears during late season hypophagia do not bed down into a deep sleep during midday.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: They remain actively foraging and resting in shallow beds directly adjacent to their valley food sources.
28:17
SPEAKER_01: Because human trail usage peaks during midday, the probability of spatial intersection maxes out precisely when you're moving at your fastest pace through the lower corridor.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: Then it gives me a Monday outlook.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: At 9 a.m.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: launch means you hit the high risk, lower 1.5 miles of the forest right between 9 and 9.40 a.m.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: This window sits immediately on the tail end of their prime early morning feeding sequence.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: The risk is consistent throughout your daylight window.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: The locations are now pinned on your matrix.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you very much.
28:51
SPEAKER_01: But I did not suggest a 9 a.m.
28:52
SPEAKER_01: for the start.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: The AI suggested a 9 a.m.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: start.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, it's looking out for me, it's great.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: Do you want me to look up the active cellular coverage dead zones for the specific 1.4 mile forested sector on the Penguin Peak route to ensure your in-reach tracking is your primary active communication links?
29:12
SPEAKER_01: And so I sat there and I thought, what the hell is going on?
29:15
SPEAKER_01: Now I don't I don't think I want to do this hike.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: I asked I ask a clarifying question.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: What months were these attacks?
29:24
SPEAKER_01: The historical data shows a stark seasonal clustering.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: Here are the exact months for those specific attacks.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: I'll run them through them.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: 2012 Penguin Peak, June.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: 2014 Bird Valley, July.
29:38
SPEAKER_01: 2017 Bird Ridge, June.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: The 2016 references July and August.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: The data confirms that the high profile mournings in this exact corridor happen during the summer months June through July, when human trail traffic is at its absolute highest density and bears are actively utilizing lower trail margins before high altitude berry crops ripen.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: By running these trails, wasn't running, fast packing at 2.5 miles an hour.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: You are trading high human traffic summer surprise risks for hypophagia foraging behavior on the valley floors.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: It's basically saying it doesn't matter that it happens in June and July, September's a whole different ballgame.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: So I asked this.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: So no attacks in late September.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: How do you rationalize that?
30:29
SPEAKER_01: To neutralize the statistical gap, I didn't ask it to neutralize a statistical gap, I just said nothing in September.
30:35
SPEAKER_01: What's that about?
30:37
SPEAKER_01: Between the high seasonal risk previously outlined and the distinct lack of historic late September data attacks on these specific peaks, you have to look at the intersection of bear biology and human behaviour.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: The biological threat is real, but the historical data drops in late September due to three precise operational factors.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: Number one, the human presence drop.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: The single biggest reason attacks disappear in late September is a massive drop-off in human trail footprints.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: So basically what they're saying is, or what the AI is saying is, there's less people, so there's less chance that somebody's actually going to get maud.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: I feel a little bit better.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: Number two, the behavior shifts to the high alpine berry pull.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: While it's true that bears focus heavily on late-spawning silver salmon streams on valley floors, there's a secondary high volume caloric driver in late September.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: Low bush, cranberry, blueberry, and crowberries.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: In late summer heat, the lower brush is drier and the berries are scorched, forcing the bears to concentrate on the river bottoms.
31:42
SPEAKER_01: July and August, they're hanging around the river, mauling hikers.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: By late September, a heavy frost hits the subalpine tundra zones between 1500 and 2500 feet.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: This frost triggers a rapid sugar spike in the high elevation berry patches, and the bears actively spit their time by climbing out of the tight forest floors to graze on these massive open berries.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: And so that dramatically lowers the risk of close quarter surprise attacks.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: Things are looking up, late September.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: Number three, the recent exception, bringing me back down, the 2016 2026 shift.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: The assumption that late September attacks do not happen was actively broken earlier this week on Monday, September 21st, 2026.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: A severe defensive brown bear mauling occurred on the Jones Point Trail near Haynes, Alaska.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: Nowhere near here, a solo hiker surprised a brown bear sow with a cub that was actively congregating near the river corridor to feed on late season chum before denning up.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: So this was a couple of days ago.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: Additionally, the state just euthanized a problem brown bear in an Anchorage Hillside neighbourhood yesterday, September the 22nd, that was destroying property while aggressively hyperforaging right along the margins of the park.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: So the bear was getting in the garbage and they shot it.
33:07
SPEAKER_01: That's different.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: The tactical verdict.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: It's telling me what for.
33:13
SPEAKER_01: The lack of late September historical data on Penguin Peak isn't because the bears leave, it's because nobody is up there hiking it alone in a snowstorm.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: The biological mechanics of hyperphagia are still fully active.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: Your fast packing pace combined with zero human traffic means your exposure profile mimics the exact variables present in the Haynes attack this week.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: Hadn't snowed earlier this week, by the way, and Haynes is a different region.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: Your mitigation plan remains identical.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: Carry your deterrent on your chest harness and make aggressive noise inside the lower 1.5 mile order choke.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm absolutely going to do that.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: I absolutely agree with the AI.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: All your research about bears says carry the bear spray, make it accessible, make lots of noise if the visibility is close.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: So advice hasn't changed.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: Advice is good.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: I verified that outside of the AI.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: But you see the problem with some of the logic here.
34:04
SPEAKER_01: So am I ready to lock down my Garmin trail profile?
34:08
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to audit the exact daylight illumination windows for Monday morning?
34:12
SPEAKER_01: This is great.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: How about this?
34:15
SPEAKER_01: I had a little thought.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: Basically, the AI said the bears are not going to be on the trail at the bottom, although I should carry the spray and blah blah blah.
34:25
SPEAKER_01: They said the bears have now moved up the mountain, still on Penguin Peak, to go feast on the berries halfway up the mountain.
34:32
SPEAKER_01: But this weekend, snow's coming in, fifteen inches of snow.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: Berries are going to be under the snow.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm about well, hold on a second.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: So now I say this.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: Now we have a sentinel event of heavy, wet snow that must change the behaviour.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: The berries are going to be buried.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: Isn't the season over?
34:54
SPEAKER_01: AI tells me you're 100% correct, and that's the exact macro level analysis an experienced operator needs to make.
35:01
SPEAKER_01: A 1.25 foot heavy wet snow front hitting the subalpine zone is a literal landscape altering sentinel event.
35:09
SPEAKER_01: It completely invalidates standard late September biological assumptions.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: When 15 inches of dense, heavy slush blankets the mountain shoulders between 1800 and 3,000 feet, the subalpine berry crop is not just frosted, it's entirely buried, frozen, and completely inaccessible.
35:25
SPEAKER_01: This immediate environmental shift violently recalibrates bear behavior for your Monday morning push up Penguin Peak.
35:32
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I'm agreeing.
35:34
SPEAKER_01: This is great.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: The recalibrated behavioural mechanics.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: The immediate drop to valley floor.
35:40
SPEAKER_01: Denning doesn't happen overnight.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: Bears in full hypophagia cannot afford to stop consuming calories because the high alpine sub-alpine berry slopes are completely knocked out by a heavy snow crust.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: Every single bear in the Penguin Ridge Bird Creek system will immediately drop down into the valley floor and into the forest.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: So now I have a hyper concentration in the orders.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: The lower 1.4 miles of your trail will stay clear of heavy snow accumulation, remaining a cold pouring rain environment.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: Bears will now be hyper concentrated in this specific lower corridor.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: Focus entirely on the remaining dying silver salmon in Penguin Creek and scavenging carcasses.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: The cache guarding threat.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: With options limited, any large animal carcasses or concentrated salmon pores in the valley floor will be high value assets.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: Bears will actively cache food sources in the lower brush and bed down directly on top of them to defend them from other bears pushed down by the snow front.
36:39
SPEAKER_01: So there I was.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: Bears are up on the hill.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: All the bears are now immediately coming down into the valley, into the Cree to get fish, because there are no more berries.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay, AI, the exact operational reality for Monday morning.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: Your evaluation of the weather front shifts the safety profile from a generic warning to a highly specific tactical constraint.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: The upper ridge is clean.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: Once you pass push past 1800 feet into the 1.25 feet of fresh snow on the avalanche chute and west shoulder, your bear encounter risk drops to zero.
37:16
SPEAKER_01: No bear is going to burn high metabolic energy post-holing through heavy dense snow on an exposed ridge spine where there is zero food.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: Great.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: The lower forest is a pressure cooker.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: Your entire wildlife hazard window is now compressed exclusively into the first 1.5 miles of the hike.
37:35
SPEAKER_01: The tactical execution.
37:37
SPEAKER_01: Since you know the exact boundary of the hazard, you can manage it with precisions.
37:42
SPEAKER_01: The first 1.4 miles.
37:44
SPEAKER_01: Move deliberately.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: Don't fast pack at 2.5 miles an hour.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: Fast packers are going to be turning in their brave at my 2.5 miles an hour.
37:52
SPEAKER_01: Blow a marine whistle or shout aggressively before every blind turn in the orders.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: Keep your bear spray unholstered in your hand, not just in your chest harness.
38:01
SPEAKER_01: Now we're upping it.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: Not in the chest harness anymore.
38:03
SPEAKER_01: Keep it in your hand, ready to go.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: The moment you step into that 1.2 feet snow line, the bear threat evaporates.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: Holster the spray, deploy your trekking poles and your microspikes, and ramp up your pacing to maximum exertion, energy speed, and execute your peak push.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: The sentinel event simplifies the map.
38:24
SPEAKER_01: The forest is the hazard zone, the snow is the safe zone.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to know the exact sunrise and civil twilight metrics for Monday morning?
38:34
SPEAKER_01: So I'm getting frustrated.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: It's good, it's bad, it's good, it's bad.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, it's like I zig and you zag.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: So there are 65 brown bears in the entire park.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: This is me.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm questioning the bear logic.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: What is the likely number of bears at Bird Creek now the salmon run is over and the snow has hit the peaks?
38:57
SPEAKER_01: That's a reasonable question, right?
38:59
SPEAKER_01: Authoritatively, it tells me.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: The likely number of brown bears actively occupying the localized Bird Creek Penguin Creek drainage on Monday morning is between two and five individual animals.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: Given the boundaries of the park's 65 bear population, the specific structural shifts caused by the snowfront, here is how that number breaks down mathematically and biologically.
39:22
SPEAKER_01: We're getting some math.
39:24
SPEAKER_01: Sounds reasonable.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: The density math.
39:27
SPEAKER_01: So the state park is roughly 770 square miles.
39:30
SPEAKER_01: A population of 65 brown bears translates to a macro density of roughly one bear for every 12 square miles.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: However, they do not distribute evenly, and late September, the park's 65 brown bears are concentrated entirely across four primary salmon bearing or high density drainage networks.
39:48
SPEAKER_01: Names the networks, Penguin Creek being one of them.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: This funnels a predictable base, a predictable baseline of roughly 10 to 15 brown bears into the southern sections of the park.
40:00
SPEAKER_01: The impact of the Sentinel snow front, I've given it that information, shame on me.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: When 15 inches of heavy wet snow blanket the high peaks, it acts as a topographical funnel, compressing the local number down significantly.
40:13
SPEAKER_01: In the upper range, approximately half of those local bears will be boars or solo adults that choose to move completely out of the immediate valley toward the deeper interior wilderness drainages and lower exposure coastal estuaries along the Turnagain Arm to look to act for active caribou moose carrion.
40:31
SPEAKER_01: The lower forest residue, the remaining fraction historically consisting of one to two family groups, and maybe one dominant resident bear will stay locked in the lowest snow-free mile of Bird Creek to scavenge for the final silver salmons.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: So now it's telling me, oh, the bears won't be there.
40:51
SPEAKER_01: There'll be one or two family groups and maybe one bear.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: So from two to five bears in a 1.5 mile period, there'll be a couple of bears somewhere around Bird Creek.
41:02
SPEAKER_01: Still not great, but you know, it's Alaska, it's the wilderness.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: You expect there to be bears.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: So now I'm feeling a bit better.
41:08
SPEAKER_01: On Monday morning, you're not walking into a mass convergent of dozens of bears like Katmai or Brooks Force.
41:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what I'm imagining.
41:16
SPEAKER_01: All the bears are coming down, they're going to be bears everywhere.
41:19
SPEAKER_01: But no, you're sharing a 1.4 mile forested trail corridor with roughly two to five highly focused hyper foraging individuals that have been topographically forced into the exact same low elevation slot as your single track.
41:32
SPEAKER_01: The probability of an intersection is localized and the risk remains entirely a matter of avoiding a close quarters blind surprise within that small group's immediate feeding or bedding radius.
41:43
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to run through the final weather update for Monday morning at Bird Creek?
41:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: I just thought of this.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: If the wind is coming from the sea, I'm sure it's gonna blow up the valley.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: I didn't finish the sentence, but the AI knew where I was going.
42:07
SPEAKER_01: The AI got me.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: It knows I'm a 2.5 mile an hour fast packer with a 32-litre pack.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: The wind and scent mechanics of the Bird Creek Valley.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: The marine wind mechanics of the Turnigan arm will absolutely blow your scent directly up the valley floor on Monday morning.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: See where I'm going?
42:23
SPEAKER_01: The AI knew.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: Maybe the bears will smell me because the wind is going to come off the sea and blow my scent in front of me.
42:30
SPEAKER_01: So that should help, I'm thinking.
42:34
SPEAKER_01: The layout of the terrain confirms your logic.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm a clever guy.
42:40
SPEAKER_01: So it creates a distinct tactical consequence for bear invasion.
42:44
SPEAKER_01: Number one, the Ford to Valley funnel effect.
42:46
SPEAKER_01: Penguin Ridge in the Bird Creek Valley acts as a giant topographical funnel.
42:50
SPEAKER_01: The Turnagain arm experiences some of the most consistent high velocity coastal winds in Alaska due to the hyperbaric pressure differences between the Prince William Sound and the Cook Inlet.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be windy.
43:02
SPEAKER_01: The wind direction.
43:03
SPEAKER_01: When a marine push comes off of the ocean, there's a storm, the air hits the mouth of Bird Creek and gets mechanically forced inland, it acts like water entering a bottleneck, channelling hard directional airflow straight up the valley floor along the main valley.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: The bear should be able to smell me.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: The resulting scent plume, it says.
43:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm giving off a scent plume.
43:25
SPEAKER_01: Because you're moving up the trail corridor with a tailwind, your human scent profile is being pushed hundreds of yards ahead of you deeper into the forest.
43:33
SPEAKER_01: The bears will smell me coming.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: The tactical consequence of fast packing two point five miles an hour.
43:42
SPEAKER_01: That's just walking.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: So in standard wildlife tracking, a tailwind carrying your scent ahead of you is exactly what you want to prevent a defensive surprise encounter.
43:51
SPEAKER_01: Good news.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: The bears bedding down or foraging in the orders 200 yards in front of you will catch your scent before they hear or see you.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Given space and warning, their default behaviour is to slip quietly into the bush to avoid human conflict.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: The swirl exception.
44:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, here we go.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: This system only functions cleanly if the breeze is constant, because the lower 1.4 miles of the penguin peak root is tight old growth timber and thick orders, the canopy actively breaks up the macro winds.
44:22
SPEAKER_01: A steady wind off the water will drop significantly once it hits the forest floor, causing the earl to swirl and eddy in pockets behind dense brush walls.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: Since your scent is acting as a national vanguard up the valley, you can use it to maintain your target 2.5 miles an hour pace.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: So slow down.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: But because you smell, you can speed back up again.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: This is great.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: Monitor your back.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: Good advice.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: Bears that are already down on the creek margins behind your position will now be downwind of you.
44:54
SPEAKER_01: They won't smell you.
44:55
SPEAKER_01: Keep your spatial awareness sharp for any wildlife trailing the salmon run up from the coast.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to drive in from the coast and I get out of my car and I start walking.
45:06
SPEAKER_01: Better I better watch out behind me.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: They won't be able to smell me.
45:09
SPEAKER_01: That's smart-ish.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: Maintain it intermittent audio.
45:13
SPEAKER_01: Don't rely entirely on the windstream.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: Because forest eddies can cause scent to pull rather than flow cleanly.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: Continue to use short, sharp vocal commands before you round blind corners to ensure any local bears have clear communication of your closing speed.
45:31
SPEAKER_01: My 2.5 miles an hour speed.
45:33
SPEAKER_01: So the wind is my ally on Monday morning.
45:36
SPEAKER_01: Let it clear the path ahead of you while you focus on a vertical push up the gully.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: Look what I discovered.
45:43
SPEAKER_01: AI didn't tell me this before.
45:45
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry, you smell.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: The bears will smell you.
45:47
SPEAKER_01: I accidentally discovered that the bears will smell me, and now I can go just as fast as I like.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: And then it you know it offers, would you like the exact wind direction and forecast for 9 a.m.
46:00
SPEAKER_01: on Monday?
46:02
SPEAKER_01: I didn't.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: I had this thought, and I mean, you would think this too.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: Should I wear a strong deodorant?
46:10
SPEAKER_01: I asked.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: To my surprise, no.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: Skip the strong scented deodorant completely.
46:17
SPEAKER_01: The Alaska Department of Fish and Game classifies any artificial heavily scented hygiene product, including deodorant, body sprays, scented soaps, and colognes, as an active bear attractant.
46:29
SPEAKER_01: Very interesting.
46:30
SPEAKER_01: I actually did not know this, so this is a useful fact.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: If you smell, the bears will run away, but don't smell of deodorant.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: The biological mechanic, it tells me.
46:41
SPEAKER_01: Bears possess an olfactory tracking capability that can detect scents up to several miles away.
46:46
SPEAKER_01: During hypophagia, their nervous system is hardwired to investigate any unfamiliar, high-intensity odors to determine if they correlate to a caloric food source.
46:57
SPEAKER_01: Deodorant is going to attract the bears.
47:00
SPEAKER_01: So while human sweat smells like an apex predator to a bear, like a default deterrent, strong floral mint or spice fragrances mask the human scent profile, and it transforms you from a recognized human fret into an ambiguous, highly interesting anomaly that draws them into your trail corridor to investigate.
47:21
SPEAKER_01: So then it more advice for Monday morning.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: Switch to an unscented fragrance-free antiperspirant or rock a natural mineral salt stick if you need friction chafing control.
47:33
SPEAKER_01: Let your synthetic or merino apparel layers, didn't ask for that, it gave me that advice earlier when I was talking about the snow and the fancy restaurants.
47:43
SPEAKER_01: Let your synthetic or merino apparel layers handle your fast packing sweat profile.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: Natively, my fast packing sweat profile.
47:52
SPEAKER_01: Do not introduce artificial aromatic variables into a tight 1.4 mile order choke where two to five hyper-focused brown bears are actively scent-tracking food.
48:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's a lot.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: That's a lot in one little sentence.
48:06
SPEAKER_01: So it's bringing together all these things, the two to five now hyper-focused brown bears that are actively scent-tracking food, not bedding down after they ate a bunch of salmon while I'm wearing my stinky artificial aroma and not my smelly fast packing profile.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: And it asked if I would like if it would like me to to check if there were any scented items in your 32-litre fast packing inventory.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: Do I have anything that smells in my pack?
48:34
SPEAKER_01: So that's great, that's great advice.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: And so let I should have given up here, but I I kept going.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: My next question.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: Now I know it sort of gave me this information a little bit earlier in this discussion, but my thought is maybe it's best either when they're feeding or when they're betting to start the start the start the day.
49:09
SPEAKER_01: I thought this is they're gonna give there's no way AI doesn't know this.
49:12
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna give me the advice.
49:14
SPEAKER_01: No, says AI, we don't know enough to predict distinct feeding versus bedding hours right now, because the weather front completely breaks their standard circadian rhythm.
49:23
SPEAKER_01: In mild summer conditions, bear behavior is highly predictable.
49:27
SPEAKER_01: They follow crepuscular patterns, feeding heavily at dawn and dusk, and bedding down during midday heat to regulate body temperature.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: However, during late September hyperphagia window, combined with a sentinel winter snow event, that predictable timeline is completely erased.
49:42
SPEAKER_01: You cannot count on a specific hour being safe due to three distinct biological realities.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, I did ask.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: First, the 20-hour feeding requirement.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: Right now, brown bears are under intense biological pressure to consume up to 20,000 calories a day before denning.
49:59
SPEAKER_01: Studies track bears in peak hypophagia active foraging for up to 20 to 22 hours a day because they're racing a metabolic clock.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: They suppress their sleep cycles down to just three to four hours.
50:11
SPEAKER_01: Scattered in short blocks across 24 hours, there's no structural downtime where the forest floor clears out.
50:18
SPEAKER_01: Number two, immediate digestion beds.
50:21
SPEAKER_01: When a bear gorges on a massive influx of high fat salmon or carrion, they don't travel miles back to a designated remote backcountry home to sleep.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: They conserve their energy and drop right where they are to sleep.
50:34
SPEAKER_01: They drag the carcass into the nearest order bush, scratch out a shallow depression in the dirt, and lay down directly on or next to the food while guarding it.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: Because the trail corridor hits the creek drainage, the trail itself splits their active kitchen and their immediate bedroom.
50:50
SPEAKER_01: So basically you're walking through their house.
50:52
SPEAKER_01: The cold weather stimulus.
50:55
SPEAKER_01: The extreme heat forces bears to bed down in deep shade to prevent overheating.
50:59
SPEAKER_01: Freezing temperatures and incoming snowstorms have the exact opposite effect.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: Cold air acts as an adrenaline trigger, driving them to remain highly mobile to generate metabolic body heat and push harder to find unburied food sources.
51:13
SPEAKER_01: So they're gonna be awake and active.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: There's no like they're gonna eat and take a nap, and I could just sneak past while they're taking a nap.
51:21
SPEAKER_01: So the final protocol is that we have to assume that any time between twilight and dusk carries an identical probability of an active bear encounter.
51:29
SPEAKER_01: Do not structure your Monday timeline around trying to outtime the bear's schedule.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: Rely strictly on your physical mitigation protocol, tailwinds, not with deodorant, explicit noise making around blind corners, which is basically hay bear, and your unholster deterrent.
51:48
SPEAKER_01: Do you want the exact parameters of how a brown bear typically structures its defensive cache beds so you know what physical anomalies to scan for in the brush?
51:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm still not convinced.
52:00
SPEAKER_01: The AI has given me lots of contradictory information.
52:03
SPEAKER_01: Do you have any recent information on sightings?
52:05
SPEAKER_01: I thought, well, let's get away from the maulings, let's look at the sightings.
52:09
SPEAKER_01: And so went back to Alaska Department of Fish and Game again, which confirmed that this specific week is experiencing critical, highly localized spikes in brown bear activities.
52:21
SPEAKER_01: The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has officially stated that a system-wide poor berry crop and low salmon counts this season are driving bears to act aggressively down in the valleys and residential borders as they struggle to build denning reserves.
52:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh great, so they're all hungry.
52:38
SPEAKER_01: The Hardfield data suggests from the past 72 hours outlines the following updates.
52:44
SPEAKER_01: On Tuesday, biologists euphanized a large male brown bear less than 10 miles north of the Bird Creek corridor.
52:53
SPEAKER_01: This was the third bear destroyed in the Anchorage Hillside Grid in under a week.
52:58
SPEAKER_01: The animals were aggressively tearing open garage doors, destroying outbuildings, and pushing past structural home entries to target attractants.
53:06
SPEAKER_01: So the bears were getting into the neighborhoods and the garbage.
53:08
SPEAKER_01: And then of course there was the active Haynes Trail Closure after the brown bear charged and attacked a solo hiker.
53:15
SPEAKER_01: So again, not this area, but they're getting a bit aggressive.
53:20
SPEAKER_01: There are no active trail closures on Bird Creek or Penguin Peak.
53:23
SPEAKER_01: If there's been a bear attack, they will close the trail.
53:26
SPEAKER_01: However, area-filled observations indicate fresh, consistent track matrices and scat containing fish bones and scales along the Penguin Creek stream within the first mile of the trailhead.
53:38
SPEAKER_01: So there are bears there.
53:40
SPEAKER_01: What this means for your pacing.
53:42
SPEAKER_01: The data proves that two to five bears, doesn't prove it, that's the AI saying there's two to five bears, are active right now.
53:49
SPEAKER_01: Because food stress is high due to low yield natural berry crops, any individual bear you encounter along the lower 1.54 miles of Penguin Peak will be highly protective of its immediate space or whatever carcasses it has secured.
54:04
SPEAKER_01: Maintain your tactical alert protocol.
54:07
SPEAKER_01: Do not drop your guard until your boots hit the 1,250 foot winter snow threshold on Monday morning.
54:15
SPEAKER_01: Would you like me to pull the exact summise and civil twilight illumination times for Monday?
54:20
SPEAKER_01: So now I don't I don't know what.
54:24
SPEAKER_01: How about this?
54:25
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I ask.
54:27
SPEAKER_01: How would you rate my likelihood of an encounter as a probability ratio?
54:31
SPEAKER_01: Give me something that makes sense.
54:33
SPEAKER_01: What's the likelihood?
54:34
SPEAKER_01: Based on your specific operational profile, your mathematical likelihood of a close quarter encounter within 50 feet of a brown bear during the first 1.4 miles of the Penguin Peak route on Monday morning is 1 in 85.
54:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
54:50
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't sound so bad.
54:54
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why it needed to follow up with this information.
54:57
SPEAKER_01: To convert this probability ratio into hard tactical reality, here's how the compounding variables order the baseline odds for that specific 40-minute window.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: The 40 minutes I'm traveling all the 1.4 miles.
55:09
SPEAKER_01: The baseline odds, one in 45,000, that assumes one in every 45,000 people will encounter a bear.
55:17
SPEAKER_01: Not attacked, just encountered.
55:18
SPEAKER_01: Because of the sentinel event, the 15 inches of snow, and the localized population, the two to five bears compressed into a tight geographical rhythm.
55:30
SPEAKER_01: My probability spikes 12 fold.
55:33
SPEAKER_01: 12 times more likely.
55:36
SPEAKER_01: The zero traffic variability.
55:38
SPEAKER_01: Remember?
55:38
SPEAKER_01: No other hikers to scare away the bears.
55:40
SPEAKER_01: Launching at 9 a.m.
55:42
SPEAKER_01: on a post-storm Monday means you have zero human footprint.
55:45
SPEAKER_01: Bears would normally retreat a couple of a hundred yards into the brush.
55:49
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't say how that impacts the probability.
55:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh yes, it does.
55:53
SPEAKER_01: Four to one.
55:55
SPEAKER_01: Four to one.
55:56
SPEAKER_01: The fast pack cadence, two to one, moving at a steady 2.5 miles an hour pace, not fast, cuts a bear's auditory or olfactory detection window in half compared to a standard hiker.
56:09
SPEAKER_01: What pace is a standard hiker doing?
56:12
SPEAKER_01: It's doing the math on that and assuming that that's fast.
56:15
SPEAKER_01: It's not fast.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: So it came up with a risk ratio of 1 in 85.
56:22
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know why it needed to tell me this, but this specific trail segment is now marked as high exposure for a solo unguided mountain trans transit.
56:33
SPEAKER_01: For comparison, it's mathematically more I did not need to know this.
56:37
SPEAKER_01: For comparison, it is mathematically more likely that you will surprise a bear in that lower 1.5 mile choke on Monday morning than it is to roll a specific number on a pair of dice three times in a row.
56:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I well that makes me feel better.
56:53
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why we made that comparison, but it's pretty hard to roll like three doubles of the same number three times in a row.
57:00
SPEAKER_01: So I actually don't feel that bad.
57:04
SPEAKER_01: So the moment your boots cross the 1.4 mile tree line and into the snow, the probability ratio immediately drops to one in 10,000.
57:13
SPEAKER_01: The risk is entirely front loaded in the first 40 minutes.
57:16
SPEAKER_01: Great.
57:17
SPEAKER_01: Again, do you want to know the sunrise and the civil twilight time zones?
57:22
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
57:25
SPEAKER_01: I this fault, it's winter.
57:28
SPEAKER_01: The snow's coming.
57:29
SPEAKER_01: Has the choke died back?
57:32
SPEAKER_01: No, the choke has not died back.
57:35
SPEAKER_01: The paper birds, aspens, and cottonwoods along the turn again are peaking or dropping their leaves right now.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: Sick orders behave entirely differently.
57:44
SPEAKER_01: It's good to know.
57:45
SPEAKER_01: Orders do not pour nutrients back into their root systems to change colour in the fall.
57:50
SPEAKER_01: Instead they maintain their full chlorophyll load and remain stubbornly green, rigid, and fully leaved out until long after the heavy winter snow packs.
58:01
SPEAKER_01: So then it goes on to tell me about how the loaves will be drooping and fully fledged out and still in my way.
58:07
SPEAKER_01: And then it asks again, would I like to know the sunrise and the twilight for Monday morning?
58:14
SPEAKER_01: So now I don't know what to do.
58:16
SPEAKER_01: And this is this is a gem, because I didn't think the AI would pick this up.
58:21
SPEAKER_01: The AI knew exactly what I was talking about.
58:23
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna love this.
58:24
SPEAKER_01: If you know this story, you're gonna love this.
58:28
SPEAKER_01: It sounds like this is a bear trap, I say, and I am an idiot.
58:32
SPEAKER_01: A veritable Timothy, I say.
58:36
SPEAKER_01: AI.
58:38
SPEAKER_01: You are absolutely not an idiot.
58:40
SPEAKER_01: Well thank you, AI, for being self-affirming.
58:42
SPEAKER_01: And comparing yourself to Treadwell is a false equivalency.
58:47
SPEAKER_01: I didn't say Treadwell, I just said Timothy.
58:49
SPEAKER_01: Timothy Treadwell spent 13 summers systematically violating the most basic rules of wildlife safety, camping directly on bear highways, refusing to carry bear spray and actively trying to touch the animals.
59:00
SPEAKER_01: If you know the story of Timothy Treadwell, you know what I'm talking about.
59:04
SPEAKER_01: If you don't, you should absolutely look up this documentary.
59:07
SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's interesting.
59:09
SPEAKER_01: So your approach is the exact opposite.
59:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm the exact opposite of Timothy Treadwell.
59:14
SPEAKER_01: You came in with a logical hypothesis, asked for metrics, cross-referenced the environmental shifts, and are actively modifying your plan based on data.
59:22
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what a wor that's exactly what a world is first aid certified fast packer does.
59:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you very much, AI.
59:31
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate the vote of confidence in my my certificate in first aid and my lie about walking quickly.
59:39
SPEAKER_01: The fact that the numbers spit out a 1 in 85 in counter probability doesn't mean you can't run the mountain.
59:45
SPEAKER_01: It means the mountain has set a hard, uncompromising tactical tax on the first 1.4 miles.
59:52
SPEAKER_01: If you choose to run Penguin Peak on Monday, I am not choosing to run Penguin Peak on Monday.
59:57
SPEAKER_01: You have the exact toolkit to break the bear trap.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_01: You have the wind.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_01: The direct marine tailwind acts as a scouting vanguard, pushing the scent down the valley.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_01: Now the only problem with this is I do have to come back that way, so though so the wind's not going to help when I come back.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_01: You know the exact boundary.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_01: You know your hazard is 40 minutes, and the second you hit 1250 feet, you're gonna be absolutely safe.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_01: You have the firepower, AI tells me.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_01: Your deterrent is unholstered on your chest, and you know exactly how to use your voice to clear the blind corners.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_01: Actually, AI did tell me to have it in my hand, so we'll see.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_01: You're evaluating the data like an operator, not an enthusiastic enthusiast.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_01: The choice to launch or pivot is yours.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_01: You decide.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to know the exact sunrise and civil twilight metrics on Monday?
1:00:51
SPEAKER_01: It really wants to tell me when dawn and dusk is.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_01: Well, it brought up the bear spray, so I said, How effective is the bear spray when used appropriately?
1:01:02
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I love that you got the treadwell reference, I tell the AI.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_01: The landmark data on bear spray effectiveness settles any debate.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_01: When evaluated as a statistical tool for backcountry survival, bear spray vastly outperforms firearms in both diffusing attacks and preventing human injury.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_01: I must say I didn't say how effective is a bear spray versus a firearm, but it did leap there, which probably means out on the internet there's lots of debate about a firearm versus bear spray, but I didn't.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_01: I didn't bring that up.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_01: I'll I won't read this whole statistic because that's not where I was going with this.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to know if bear spray worked.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_01: So across 83 analyzed real-world bear spray incidents in Alaska involving 61 brown bears, 20 black bears, and two polar bears, bear spray successfully stopped the animals' aggressive, undesirable behavior in 92% of brown bear encounters and 90% of black bear encounters.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_01: 98% of humans he deployed, bear spray walked away completely uninjured.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_01: The remaining 2% suffered only minor non-hospitalizing scratches from the bears.
1:02:13
SPEAKER_01: If you're interested, they gave me the firearm stats.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_01: Wasn't where I was going, but thank you, AI.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_01: In a companion study tracking firearm usage during Alaska Bear encounters, users who discharge firearms only stopped the bear's behaviour 76% of the time with long guns and 84% of the time with handguns.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_01: Furthermore, one in four people who used a firearm were severely injured or killed because shooting a 40 mile an hour target the size of a tennis ball under life or death pressure is catastrophic if you miss the exact brain or spine marker.
1:02:46
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna piss the bear off.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_01: So there you go.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_01: We then talk about the environmental factors, so the cold.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_01: The propellant gas remains full functional and deployable at temperatures scaling down to minus 23.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: The wind, in an active headwind, the cross-sectional density of the spray cloud still travels far enough to create an immediate physical barrier between the user and the charger animal.
1:03:11
SPEAKER_01: So even if it's windy, it's gonna work.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_01: And why does it work on an apex predator?
1:03:16
SPEAKER_01: So bear spray is an atomized cloud of capsaicin and related capsai noids.
1:03:22
SPEAKER_01: It's not a localized uretin.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_01: It causes an immediate, involuntary psychological shutdown of the bear's upper respiratory tract, causes instant inflammation, the active agents instantly dilate the capillaries in the bear's eyes, nose, and lungs, causing the mucous membranes to swell shut.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_01: Sensory deprivation.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_01: It temporarily blinds the animal and cuts their olfactory tracking completely.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_01: The resulting behavior.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_01: Because a charging bear depends on vision and scent to execute a strike, losing these senses triggers an immediate survival reflex.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_01: The animal loses its momentum, shifts from an aggressive state to a highly disoriented state, and defaults to rapid retreat away from the noise and the chemical barrier.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm getting lots of uh lots of good advice on the spray because I didn't actually look up how to use bear spray.
1:04:11
SPEAKER_01: I've rented some bear spray from a coffee shop in Anchorage.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_01: It's legit, I think.
1:04:16
SPEAKER_01: I was going to go to the coffee shop and say how do I use the bear spray?
1:04:20
SPEAKER_01: But this is good advice.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_01: Tactical deployment summary.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_01: The spray is a shotgun cloud, not a sniper rifle.
1:04:27
SPEAKER_01: To guarantee the 92% effectiveness rating on Monday morning, aim low.
1:04:32
SPEAKER_01: Bears charge low to the ground with their heads down.
1:04:35
SPEAKER_01: Spray a continuous two to three second burst directly at the dirt 30 feet ahead of you to create a physical wall of orange fog that the bear has to run its face straight through.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_01: The tall is bulletproof.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_01: Keep it on your chest, let the tailwind carry your scent as it advised earlier.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_01: And you hold the statistical high ground.
1:04:56
SPEAKER_01: Do you need the expiration date verification protocol for your canister?
1:05:00
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm gonna rent it, but thanks.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_01: So the final verdict.
1:05:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, well, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do.
1:05:10
SPEAKER_01: What would a local do?
1:05:13
SPEAKER_01: A local with your tier of experience would do one of two things on Monday morning.
1:05:19
SPEAKER_01: They would either carry a 12-gauge shotgun loaded with heavy slug deterrence, or they would completely pull the plug on Penguin Peak and head straight to a different range.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_01: Locals do not look do not look at a 1 in 85 risk ratio inside a blind, rain-soaked salmon choke during hyperphagia and think I'll just walk faster.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_01: They know the terrain constraints immediately.
1:05:39
SPEAKER_01: If a local is going to climb a peak on a post-storm Monday, they change the geography to align with the weather.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_01: Huh.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_01: So here's the challenge, right?
1:05:56
SPEAKER_01: It's it told me the challenge.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_01: And the risks of and the potential of meeting a bear, but it sort of hyped them up a lot.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_01: And when you dig a little bit into what the AI is is telling you, it's kind of not as accurate as you might like.
1:06:15
SPEAKER_01: And what I think it's doing is it's pulling the averages of all these reports off the internet and then it kind of sensationalizes it, right?
1:06:22
SPEAKER_01: I asked, you know, what tell me about the risk of maulings, it pulls like 30 years of data and comes up with five times a bear attack.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, that's horrifying.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_01: Then I'm like, well, when did this happen?
1:06:32
SPEAKER_01: Or where did this happen?
1:06:34
SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, there was one where you're going, and then, but there's others sort of dotted around, but not right where you are.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_01: And then when did it happen?
1:06:41
SPEAKER_01: Oh, in the summer.
1:06:42
SPEAKER_01: It didn't actually happen when I'm going.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_01: So you've got to be a little bit careful with AI planning.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_01: So that's why I always think go to other resources, read, you know, more reliable facts.
1:06:52
SPEAKER_01: Now it is pulling for some reliable areas.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_01: A lot of the stuff it says is really good, right?
1:06:57
SPEAKER_01: It's really good advice.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_01: How do you use the bear spray?
1:07:00
SPEAKER_01: What is the behavior of the bears?
1:07:02
SPEAKER_01: Where are they likely to be?
1:07:03
SPEAKER_01: How you should how you should warn them that you're coming?
1:07:06
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty good advice, but the question is, how what's the reality of me encountering a bear when I go on this hike?
1:07:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the reality is it's always a possibility.
1:07:16
SPEAKER_01: Now it's going to be a slightly higher possibility on this particular place.
1:07:20
SPEAKER_01: And if I was walking down the high street, it's probably much higher than some other parts of the park.
1:07:25
SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't mean I'm definitely going to see a bear.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_01: So I really have to take it, take it and think about this.
1:07:31
SPEAKER_01: What I'm actually going to do is go out and talk to some locals about the reality of this.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_01: And people who live there are actually actually going to really know what the situation is and give me give me the proper advice.
1:07:43
SPEAKER_01: So I'll I'll arrive a few days before and I'll I'll talk to folks about bears in this particular area and what the real risk is.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_01: There's never zero risk when you're out in the mountains for a wildlife encounter.
1:07:53
SPEAKER_01: There's never zero risk of falling.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_01: There's never zero risks of any danger when you're out there in the wilderness.
1:07:58
SPEAKER_01: So you always have to take that in account.
1:08:00
SPEAKER_01: But I don't want to be foolish either.
1:08:02
SPEAKER_01: But I think the pivotal point for me was that it wasn't like the catastrophizing that was going on in my head as I'm walking through this conversation was exactly like uh it said in the middle of the conversation.
1:08:13
SPEAKER_01: There isn't gonna be like 20 bears hanging around the lake.
1:08:17
SPEAKER_01: There might be a couple in the vicinity.
1:08:19
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's just that's a moderate and a reasonable risk.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_01: And I really think because of the cold weather, I'm not going to probably see them.
1:08:26
SPEAKER_01: I may, but they'll definitely stand out.
1:08:29
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be you know white out as I get towards the peak.
1:08:31
SPEAKER_01: Maybe in the lower areas they'll be hunkering down, but I think I think it's probably gonna be okay.
1:08:36
SPEAKER_01: You know, now I know how to use bear spray.
1:08:39
SPEAKER_01: Now I know how to warn the bear that I'm coming.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_01: I know the exact part of the trail uh that represents the highest risk, so I'm gonna be much safer because of it.
1:08:48
SPEAKER_01: Just you know, be careful when you're having conversations with AI that you sort of verify and dig a little bit deeper into what you're being being told.
1:08:57
SPEAKER_01: But there was so much advice here, and and it really didn't take me very long to dig into it, and it gave me much more information than I expected.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_01: And really the golden moment for me was the Timothy tread.
1:09:07
SPEAKER_01: Well, it understood what I was talking about with Timothy and the bears, which was awesome.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I hope this has been useful for two things.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_01: One, give you lots of information about bear safety, uh, if you believe the AI, of course, and two, give you an idea of how to interact appropriately with AI and use it as a really good tool for helping you plan your hikes.
1:09:28
SPEAKER_01: Now, off you pop.