Uphill Ursus: A Bear Hunting Journey

Written by: John Kesler, Fall Obsession Western Regional Coordinator

Growing up running around the mountains of Colorado one would think that black bears are a creature I would be fairly familiar with. You would be wrong. In 33 years of hunting, fishing, and of course guiding I could count on one hand the number of bears I had seen, and most were fleeting glimpses from a distance. My earliest memory of a bear encounter took place at Chambers lake west of Fort Collins. I never actually saw the bear during this entire escapade but as soon as we pulled into the campground the host mentioned there was a bear doing its usual in the area. Being Coloradoans in the mountains we pretty well blew off the warning. The first night the bear came through camp and poked around leaving only a large pile of droppings near our tent. We fished and explored all day with our friends and never saw the bear. The second night was completely uneventful as was day two. The third night is when things would get off the rails. 

Twas the wee hours of the morning when a vehicle horn started blaring. Not the rhythmic cadence of an alarm, a much more random assortment of honks. My father immediately grabbed his flashlight and crawled out of the tent to investigate. His version of the story goes that our friends had apparently left their truck windows down while still dutifully storing their cooler and booze in the truck away from the bear. When my dad shined his light on the truck cab, the bear, whose rear end was randomly mashing the horn while rifling through the cooler in the back seat, popped his head up in surprise. Thoroughly startled, the bear biffed the full cooler out an open window along with a six pack and a handle of vodka. Performing a somersault out the window the bear then grabbed everything and ran into the woods. Booze under one arm, cooler in the other. I was in the tent and only heard lots of honking, crashing and shouting but I have no reason to doubt my fathers anecdotal accuracy. Our friends then got in their recently robbed truck and peeled off into the night only returning the next morning. We all looked for the stuff the bear had nicked and about 150 yards away and found the mangled cooler, three leaves of lettuce, two beer cans with holes punched in the top and an empty vodka bottle. Somewhere not far away was a very hungover and full bear. It would be 15 years before another notable experience with a bear was when I almost sacrificed the family dog to a sow with cubs while on a hike near Horsetooth reservoir with a friend. In the following decade I only had another three very brief looks at bears. This was the sum total of my experience with Ursus americanus or in the common tongue black bear.

May of 2026 the Colorado big game draw results dropped. I wasn't surprised to see the bear tag as I had plenty of points but I was stoked. My hunting companion Connor also drew a bear tag for the same units. There was very little planning done until only a day before the season as neither of us had a great idea of how to hunt bears. Plan A was to rip around on Connors 4wheeler looking for bears in an area that a mutual acquaintance had seen a few bears in during a trail run the week before. After getting off work on opening day I met up with Connor at a forest service campground and loaded up on his 4wheeler. Eight miles of bone jarring roads, five deer, four mountain goats, one moose, one beaver and approximately 1000 moo cows later we had not seen a bear and the sun was setting. We made plans to rally at the City Market gas station at 5:15 the next morning before heading to a spot that our friend Lewie had mentioned might be good. 

It was 5:20 by the time I had gassed up the truck and gotten half way through my tea when I started wondering where Connor was. I shot him a message that I was headed for the road junction we planned to start hunting at and that he could meet me there. I was a few miles north of Gunnison when Connor called saying he had somehow muted his alarm but was up and leaving the house. It wasn't long after I hit the dirt road that nature called and I stopped at the first trailhead with a suitable dunny, giving Connor time to catch up. I continued down the dirt road when a pair of vehicle lights could be seen in my rear view mirror. The first one was riding my tail pretty hard so I pulled over to let them pass. In the second vehicle I could make out a 4wheeler in the bed. To my amazement Connor had managed to catch up with me before daylight, I didn't question how. We followed the dirt road for several miles stopping to glass open hill faces as it got light. Before long we reached the Y in the road we had talked about the evening before. After a brief discussion that culminated in me saying “I've been to the left before but not the right” and him saying the exact opposite, I made the executive decision to go left. Dumb luck or providence, it would prove to be the right call. 

We drove across the creek and followed the road up into an alpine basin. Stopping every so often to glass hillsides as we went. On our third or fourth stop Connor pointed to a steep slope and shouted “bear”! I had just enough time to see a solid black bear moving through a gap in the bushes before Connor was peeling out. Jumping back into my truck I followed him another quarter mile down the road to another small pulloff. We both piled out and started glassing to find the bear again. Within a minute we had counted five bears total on the hillside, all big and lacking cubs. Legal bears. We grabbed our packs and rifles and skedaddled down the road. As we got close to the bottom of the slope with the bears on it we realized there was a pair of deer hunters behind us glassing the same face. I whistled to let them know we were there and made the claw shaped hand signal to indicate we were hunting bears. One of the hunters ran down to us to see what our plan was and wished us luck. The solid black bear that Connor had first spotted was only a couple hundred yards up the hill from us at that point, well within range. As Connor had spotted the bear initially I gestured for him to go after it. I followed a little ways behind as we crossed a small ravine and climbed up on the face to get a better shot. Connor dropped his pack and laid his rifle across the top getting settled. The bear meanwhile slowly fed across the open slope perfectly broadside at 170 yards. I was filming waiting for Connor to shoot when “bang” his gun went off and the bear lurched hard before spinning around and disappearing into a bush. The deer hunters behind us had a better view of the bear and indicated he had stopped and laid down. We high fived and I told Connor I was going to continue off to the right after one of the other bears while he gave his a little time to expire. 

I started up the very steep shale slope, quickly realizing that stealth and speed were not an option. It was slow going and now being on the slope as opposed to looking at it, knowing where I was in relation to the bears was a challenge. Thankfully the deer hunters were trying to point me in the right direction with hand signals. While trying to decipher their gesticulations I decided one day I was going to make a standard set of hand signals for hunters. A quick pass with my binoculars I could see the top of a bear's head and ears sticking up over a patch of bushes probably 70 yards away. I took two more steps and cleared a willow patch on my left while keeping my eyes on the bear. Motion to my left caught my attention and I quickly realized there was a bear standing up and walking out of a bush no more than 15 yards away. I had no way of knowing if it was Connors bear so I whipped up my rifle and set the front sight behind the shoulder and pulled the trigger. The bear did a front flip down the slope and disappeared into a big patch of bushes. I was thinking to myself that Connor and I had doubled up on bears inside of 20 minutes when the realization that it might have been his bear hit me. 

As I stood there evaluating the situation, the bear I had been stalking waddled out on the slope 85 yards above me and stood broadside for about 10 seconds. Had I been sure I hadn't already just filled my bear tag it would have been an easy shot. Connor at this point had talked to the deer hunters who watched me finish off his bear and was working up the hill to me. We both closed in on the bushes the bear had disappeared into, rifles at the ready. When we could see the bear Connor tossed a rock at it and determined it to in fact be dead. Another round of hugging and highfives was had as we organized gear and dragged the bear out into the open. Now was a hunting moment that I had never faced before. Two friends had both put lethal shots on the same animal. Whose was it? We discussed it for a few minutes and concluded that Connor had both initially spotted the bear giving him a claim of first shot and lethally hit the bear first giving him the best claim to the animal. And so we stood there trying to not slide down the slope celebrating. Connor filled out his tag while I wedged my backpack in a bush and headed off up the hill continuing my hunt. I wasn't planning to go very far before returning to help Connor gut his bear. That was a pipe dream as I spent the next hour covered up in bears at the direction of the deer hunters and trying to not fall off the steep slope. At one point I had a bear within ten yards but couldn't see it through the dense bushes. Not long after I had another bear broadside at 117 yards but didn't shoot due to the ethical limits I had imposed on myself using an iron sight 1903a3 Springfield from 1943 and that I was WAY up the hill at this point. Plus we already had one bear to get off the mountain. With my legs shaking from exertion and dripping sweat I began the perilous track of riding miniature landslides back down the mountain to Connor. 

Surviving the descent back to Connor who had already gutted his bear we snapped a few photos before pushing, pulling and dragging his bear down the hill. We were gassed by the time we got to the bottom so we took a quick break and got some water and a snack. While we took a short break the deer hunters told us about their view of the bear hunting comedy show we put on. Once we had recovered a little we manhandled the bear into Connor's truck. It was starting to get hot and Connor needed to get his bear skinned and cooled ASAP so he headed out fast while I walked back to my truck. Before I got in I glassed the hill one more time and counted three bears still munching on berries. Connor and I would be back the next morning. 

5:15 the next morning Connor was stuffing his pack and a big fabric cargo carrying sling into the back seat of my truck. We got to where we had parked the day before a few minutes after legal shooting light and quickly spotted four bears up on the hill. I got ready and again opted to leave my backpack with Connor as it's already perilous on the steep slope and the little bit of extra weight would have made a big difference. This time however I threw my scoped Remington 700 in .270 Winchester across my back and still carried the 1903a3 in my hands. I really enjoy hunting with antique rifles but the .270 was my first rifle and the one I had taken all my other firsts of big game with so felt that it was worthy of a chance at bear. Legs already fried from the day before I started trudging up the steep slope. Over the next hour and a half I made three good stalks on bears that never presented an opportunity. After the third bear decided I was a problem and moved off Connor gave me the signal to abort mission. At this point I was dang near the top of the hill and on a really good game trail for a lateral traverse. To my knowledge there was still one unspooked bear approximately 300 yards to the south of me. I indicated to Connor I was going to head that way and started walking. Connor couldn’t really see the area I was going to so my plan was to more or less trip on a bear and hope for a shot. 

Over the next hour I worked across the steep slope trusting my life to more than one willow or berry bush branch on my way. I finally crested out near a big pine and lost sight of Connor as I headed over the hill and began working down to the trail. Not a bear to be seen. By the time I got down to the trail my legs were fully cooked and shaking from the steep descent. The trail was a wonderful relief and I steamed along back towards Connor. I’d been walking for only five or so minutes when I popped out of some dark timber and could see Connor frantically indicating there was a bear somewhere above me on the steep slope I had just traversed. I slowly walked and glassed while Connor made hand signals. Apparently he got frustrated with my inability to spot the bear from where I was because he came hauling out of the ravine a few minutes later, sucking wind and pointing up the hill. After catching his breath Connor pointed to a berry patch and I finally caught the motion of a bear chowing on berries. From where I was on the trail it was a 170 yard uphill shot. Two problems immediately presented themselves. One was the bear didn’t present anything close to a good shot in the bushes and I couldn’t find a reasonable rest for my .270. After leaning on a few small pines and debating stacking our bino harnesses and laying prone I finally found a perfect dead aspen sapling with a fork in it. Wrenching it out of the ground and snapping off a few small branches I took a seat and posted up waiting for the bear to make a mistake. For several minutes I watched the bear through my scope waiting for a shot. Finally the bear stood up and stepped out broadside. In the time it took to flick my safety off he had turned completely around and was quartering to the left up the hill. I set the crosshairs on where I thought the back of the ribs were and squeezed the trigger. The bear disappeared back into the bushes as I worked the bolt. Thankfully Connor was filming and was able to watch the bear take a few steps before falling over and rolling down the hill disappearing into some aspens. I was too busy trying to get my legs to work and stand up to see what was happening. 

We watched the patch of bushes the bear had rolled into for 10 minutes seeing no movement before deciding to go grab some necessities from the truck. I tossed a knife and some rubber gloves into a pocket and locked the Springfield into its case before chugging some water. Knowing I was in for a third jaunt up the gnarly slope my legs were less than pleased but there was a bear to retrieve and the clock was ticking. Our plan was to gut it and get it down the hill whole and this time Connor had brought along this big fabric sling with lots of carry handles. After trudging back up the slope and finding the bear wrapped on an aspen I filled out my tag and we got the big boar moved for a few photos. I performed a quick gut job and then we loaded the bear into the sling. Connor, whose legs were less cooked than mine, took the front of the bear and I acted as an anchor at the back and we pretty much rode a controlled landslide of shale to the bottom. We then dragged or lifted the bruin in ten yard increments all the way back to the creek crossing. It was exhausting. I've since told a few people I'd rather quarter an elk in a blizzard which seems extreme but the more I think about it getting the bears off that mountain was worse. I'd do it again tomorrow.

When we got back to town I stopped at Connors place so he could grab his bear and we headed to the CPW office so they could check and seal our bears. With that out of the way I set up a table in the garage to do my skinning and quartering. Point of advice, skinning a bear for a rug or mount is way easier if you don't let it rigor mortis in awkward positions. My amazing wife kept me fed and hydrated as I spent about four hours skinning and getting the meat sorted. By the end of the day my legs were done, back fried and was supremely exhausted but easily the happiest I had been in a very long time. My first experience hunting Ursus americanus or black bear was one very steep learning curve….and hill.