The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 562: A Wyoming Grizzly Attack

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Shayne Burke, Chloe Burke, Janis Putelis, Ryan Callaghan,  Brody Henderson, and Randall Williams.  Topics discussed: When your wife is an EMT and is there to help when you get mauled by a grizzly; when you go from catching and selling pigeons to raising baby pigeon chick pets; shed hunting and getting a stick in your eye; brain surgery; a honeymoon in WY; a momma bear with cubs; biting down on bear spray; a confiscated can; getting saved off the mountain; and more.  Connect with Steve, MeatEater, and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.

Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E dot com. apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. Joined today by Shane Burke, fresh off of Grizzly Bear Mauling. Hey, Steve, thanks for having me. I'm joking.

I'm not joking. He is. Shane Burke is here, fresh off of Grizzly Bear Mauling down in Wyoming, joined by his wife, Chloe. Hello. Thanks for having me. You're an EMT. Yes. Where do you EMT at, Chloe?

Well, so I'm currently non-affiliated. Oh. Does that mean you're job hunting? Dude, if you're job hunting, I would pitch now hard. Right now, I'm currently working as a licensed EMT, working as a medical assistant, but I used to work in Springfield, Massachusetts. Okay. So you're not job hunting right now? Not currently.

She's in nursing school right now. Oh. So you're going to move out of the EMT business. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. But you were helpful in this whole mauling situation, I'm sure. We'll get into the details, but if I was going to get mauled by a grizzly bear, I'd want an EMT nearby.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. It's kind of funny because I'm always joking with friends and stuff because people are like, oh, don't worry. Chloe's an EMT. I'm like, no, I really can't do that much like don't make me work while i'm on vacation like i can offer you an ice pack or you know shane was uh shane was attacked by a bear in may and we're gonna we're gonna go through that whole harrowing story but um first i gotta uh tell these guys about something real quick we have you know my kids been selling pigeons do you know how your kid's been spelling pigeon yeah he spells it wrong

how'd you know he spells it wrong with the j i always do that text i got that text you know it's it's like the hawaiian language pigeon oh yeah. Like P-I-D-G-I-N-G. Yeah, he spells it wrong. He's a bright kid. He is. I mean, he is. No, I'm just... One day he was... For some reason or another, I think I talked about this.

He started to spell America wrong. And I'm like, you better stop. How many M's is he using? You better stop and come back to me and spell your country properly. You know? Yeah. Yeah. There's no K in there.

I know. I thought. Was it really? Oh, no. Yeah, he spells pigeon wrong. But, so they get a nice little, we did a night raid on, what the hell day is it right now? We did a night raid on What the hell day is it right now? We did a night raid on Saturday night And

They wound up with 300 and some dollars worth of pigeons Cool Sold them all the next morning And then they kept Now we have baby pets Oh no So has he come to the logical conclusion

Of like Why burn the gas trap in these things? I'll just raise them at home. Pets, dude. The neighbor girl kept one and my kids kept two. And now they got these pigeons that you got to hand feed them. Yesterday we took sunflower seed and a couple Cheerios and ran it through a coffee mill. And mixed water in it to make a paste and all kinds of other little things.

And they've been, they're feeding them with, uh, eyedroppers. Careful. This is how Mike Tyson got started. Well, I know.

And yeah, does your HOA, my wife, my wife is so unhappy. Does your HOA allow livestock operations? My wife got to unhappy. Does your HOA allow livestock operations? My wife's got to read about, like, she's reading something that, your, your, your boy and his crews, uh, um, oh gosh, their money make inside those articles on racing pigeons, the value that racing pigeons bring in. And then he can start training them to race. And if he comes up with a winner, that'll be more money than his pigeon trapping business has ever brought in

hands down yeah you could train them to be like judith pigeons just bring them to you yeah when i've raised i don't want to spend too much time on this when i've raised pigeons in the past here's a weird thing that would happen you eventually lose them because they move in with regular pigeons right like i had a cage or like a little roost like basically a chicken coop yeah for the pigeons and you'd start to see regular pigeons hanging around being like what's gotten into you guys you know i mean like they'll hang around like and then pretty soon the your pigeons will move in with the regular pigeons yep and the town where i was doing this didn't have a didn't have a lot of regular pigeon hangouts and i put red zip ties on mine

and you could go down there now and then you'd see one of your old pigeons hanging out with the town pigeons they hang out with the town it's gotta be tough found a bad crew they've fallen with the downtownies. That's got to be tough. Well, found a bad crew. They've fallen with the downtown crowd. Smoking cigarettes, hanging out late. That's pretty cool, though, that they go feral so quick, you know? Yeah. Even though they were kind of dependent on you for a long time. Well, they need to because they were reading about how they can live 17 years in the wild.

Or 17 years and not in the wild. In captivity? Yeah, and this is not a, yeah. It's not a 17-year plan. It's not a long plan. I'm not in the wild. In captivity? Yeah, and this is not a... It's not a 17 year plan. It's not your retirement program. Is it indoor or outdoor at your house? They're not allowed in the house. They live in the garage. Seems reasonable.

There's a space heater on them. So I actually banned Peregrine Falcons. Oh, you did? Every year. This is the first year i'll miss because of the bear attack but uh lots and lots of bands like pigeon bands on oh in towns oh yeah yeah yeah where were you banned in peregrines um so i'm it's actually interesting because i was listening to an episode of reganus up rock climbers. So we're rock climbers.

And you had mentioned how the impact that we have on- Resting sites. Yeah. No, that was Cal. Cal was talking. Okay. Well, I'll point out, in Cal's defense, he was making a- Oh, I know.

Okay. At first, I was like, oh, this is- He was making like a for instance. Yes, yes. And no, we do- But also, I have lots of buddies. I have lots of buddies who are rock climbers, so I've gotten really good at making fun of rock climbers

and the rock climbing lifestyle. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we need to go down that tangent. You freeloaders eating people's food off their plates and shit like that. Yeah. But yeah, I did see Red for a heartbeat. I was like, oh, man, like, but really he's knocking down on the rock climbers?

And then I saw that you flipped it and it was a hypothetical. We do have an impact, like as any outdoor sport has an impact in wildlife. So I actually manage. That's very adult of you to recognize. Yeah. I manage the falcon closures at our local crags. I help mass wildlife. Oh, really?

Yep. So we closed down entire sections for two months. So you're like the bad guy now and then. Somewhat. Yeah, I'm the guy that will show up and be like, dude, get the hell away from the fucking birds. Leave them alone. But yeah, we banned them.

I've been doing it for four or five years now. No kidding. Yep. That's sweet. That's great great we just released uh an episode with rfk jr who was involved in peregrine restoration when they realized that you you know that he used the term double clutching oh yeah when they were trying to like repopulate peregrines you know like you you hear about if whatever any kind of bird

will lose its first clutch like a turkey it'll lose its clutch if it's early in the spring it'll just they'll get a second chance possibly a third chance so when they're trying to propagate peregrines the bird would drop a clutch and they'd just kidnap the clutch and then she'd drop another clutch and they'd kidnap that and then incubate all those and she would keep thinking she was losing her offspring and she would double clutch or triple clutch which sounds like an automotive term but yeah yeah they're not uh the best nest builders they don't build any nests they just drop the eggs plop it down yeah so sometimes they'll steal nests from like ravens and stuff yeah but. But they're not very good at that part.

You know what a pigeon uses for a nest? Like a stick. It uses its own. I've never read this. This is my observation. They build a nest of their own excrement. Oh, yeah. And then they wonder why they get the reputation.

How did you wind up in the military, man? Always wanted to. So since you wind up in the military, man? I always wanted to. So since you were growing up? Yeah. Yeah. My dad served, my uncle served. 9-11 happened. I was young, but I always wanted to do my part. I wanted to do more. I was going to go infantry and do XYZ, but my dad had a really real conversation with me and kind of talked to me out of infantry. Um, the stars just kind of aligned the way they did. When I got out of basic training in tech school, my unit was deploying to Iraq. So I was like, you know, I'll go to Iraq, see how it goes.

And then I'll see where my military career can go after that. Um, got back from Iraq, had a little, had a little trouble readjusting, wanted to go back really badly, never happened. Um, but you know, I met some of the best people in my life because of that deployment and I'll never regret that. So, but I got, I got lost there. You wanted to go infantry. Correct. But still wound up in, I don't understand what were you doing? Uh, so I'm a mechanic. You wanted to go infantry. Correct. But still wound up in a row. I don't understand. What were you doing? So I'm a mechanic. Okay. Yeah.

And my overall specialty is what we call Hotel 8, which is recovery of vehicles. So if they get blown up, broken down, I'm basically a fancy tow truck driver that drives a really badass truck called a Hemet Wrecker. Okay. So. And then you spent how much time there? I was in country for 11 months and then. You didn't like coming home? No, coming home sucked.

What didn't you like? Tell me about that. It's like, you know, one of my mentors always told me the army is the easiest job you'll ever quit. And it's just, it's so simple there. You just got to survive um you're told when where to be and when to be there what to wear it's just very regimented lifestyle um coming home and just trying to navigate you know post-traumatic stress um drinking friendships relationships it was

it was a lot i came home with more money in my bank account than I ever had. And should have bought a house at the right time. I didn't. But, you know, instead I bought a sports car and was an idiot for a little while. How old are you? I am 35 now. How long have you two been married? Going on two years in September.

So you didn't know each other prior to service? No. Came home and bought a sports car? Yeah, I bought a Mustang, as most idiots do when they come home from a tour. They give you little discount codes when you're getting off the airplane? Yeah. I actually bought it when I was in country still, directly from the factory. So I put like $16,000 down.

My payment was like a hundred dollars a month. I was just like, you know, it was too easy. Um, yeah. So you went a little crazy, went a little crazy. Yeah. I think, um, it's a very, uh, standard, like I'd say more than 50% of the people that come back there, they deal with these adjustment issues. And at the time, the VA was not very helpful. And I was trying to get counseling and trying to get out of these bad habits that I had developed. Eventually, I got in trouble and had to smarten up. Oh.

Yeah. And then you had a mega health scare. We're going to get to getting mauled by a grizzly bear. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so. But first, you had to survive a tumor to get mauled by a grizzly bear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so. But first you had to survive like a tumor to get mauled by a bear. So here's the thing. It almost sounds made up.

Yeah, my life story really almost sounds made up. I've had a lot of loss and health issues in the last four years. Can we pause this for a minute? Sure. Because I forgot to mention something. Yeah.

You and I had, I didn't realize this, we had like sort of interacted right yep because you had sent in pictures just tell the yeah like you know brain tumor you know all that but let's just talk about this dead deer for a minute yeah yeah so let's talk about the dead deer so the deer was still alive when i found it oh it was it was yeah and that's why it was so controversial and i didn't even remember this till like this morning yeah shane came in we're getting ready to court shane because we you know you we interacted like you posted a picture of mine and then he showed me and it was this he'll tell you what it was yeah so i was uh scouting for a secondary spot my first year of hunting by myself so i used to hunt with my father when i was a kid um through some loss my dad stopped hunting we lost my brother in 2012 um so that really set him back

how old was your brother 27. oh no motorcycle accident yep so my dad pretty much stopped everything anything that brought him joy um so anyway, in 2020, when my dad passed away, I took all his hunting gear and I was like, I'm going to try to reconnect my father the best way I can. So I started hunting. That year, that fall, I got a beautiful hen turkey. We had that for Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, really? Yep. It was amazing. a that fall I got a beautiful hen turkey we had that for Thanksgiving dinner no really yep there's amazing first time cooking wild turkey and just came out amazing cool so then I did deer season shotgun because I wasn't didn't have my

dad's bow ready in time and I haven't shot a bow at this point for probably a decade so I did shotgun season and I was scouting. I had my tree stand set up. I had special access to, I don't want to say it because I don't want people to blow the spot up, but it's So I probably gave it away anyway, but so. We can take that out.

It's all good, it's all good. Take it out, Phil. Phil do a big old like So I set up my dad's tree stand i wore all my dad's clothes um i had my dad's ashes in my pocket and i was looking for a secondary spot because i don't want to sit in the tree stand you know too much during the two-week shotgun season i gotta know the detail though how do you carry uh your dad's ashes i've got a little canister um from my dad had a big mustache and so he asked me to buy him some mustache wax one time so i bought him some mustache wax and

so i have just a small sample of him in there i got my grandma's uh ashes my allotment of them in a ziploc bag that i just chucked into my work backpack here. And I actually went to Mexico with them and back. Nice. And totally forgot they were in there. So, you know, this baggie full of powder. Sus. Got a little dusty in that bag. No, I mean, nobody said anything about it,

but I've yet had a good enough walleye day to dump her in the lake. Which I think she'd enjoy. Yeah. So I was just scouting for a secondary spot and, um, it was really windy the last couple of days. On a Sunday. On a Sunday. Yeah.

So, um, I had my Glock on me. That was it. And I found this cliff that had a, like a little meadow below it. And I've always seen deer there I see deer sign there all the time that looks like a pretty good advantage point just as a secondary spot so I walked left down the cliff band and all of a sudden I just see this massive rack sticking out of the cliff and I was like the hell and I'm a big shed hunter so I can notice antlers pretty easily and so i actually

facetimed chloe and i'm like hey you'll never guess what i found like a dead deer in this cliff i start walking up to it and it lifts its head up and i'm like oh no i was like i gotta make some calls so i uh i ended up calling my friend jesse um who is the guy who introduced me into the wildlife in the um falcon banding and yeah this buck has sunk into a crack right like his feet how can you think like who's good have you seen the pictures i haven't i can i'll pull them i'll do my there's like uh they need to put it up on the screen yeah you can do that um i can send them to one of you guys if you want he's in a crack like so yeah he falls into this crack

You gotta see it A picture's worth a thousand words I don't know where any of your ass is I'm sorry He's stuck in a crack There's like a little cliff band And where the cliff band At the bottom of the cliff band

There's a big boulder But there's a crack He's wedged Between the face of the cliff band there's a big boulder but there's a crack he's wedged into he's wedged between the the face of the cliff and the boulder as it curves inward towards the cliff yeah four legs are poking down through there and it is and you can get under them and look up and you can get above them and look down an impressive deer yeah, and I asked him if that's a nice buck around that area. An exceptional deer. I think unofficially scored like 153. Wow.

Let's see, Randall. Yeah. Nice buck. I'm just looking at the picture now. There's a picture from underneath. Yeah. And it looks like he's Santa Claus trying to come down the chimney. Yeah.

Just like the lights were hanging down. If Santa was a deer. Yeah, if Santa was a deer. Okay. Still alive. Yeah, if Santa was a deer. Okay. Still alive. Yeah, so he's still alive. And so my friend Jesse came out and... You could have tagged it.

So I got a salvage tag. Oh, goodness. Yeah, because at first Jesse was like, hey, you're going to have to use a tag for this. And I was like, I mean, I guess so. Like it's Massachusetts deer harder to come by, especially Western Mass. So I was like, yeah, whatever I guess so. Like, it's Massachusetts, dear harder to come by, especially Western Mass. So I was like, yeah, whatever.

It's not a big deal. Eventually, so we contacted EPO. Did you euthanize it? Yep. Yeah. So EPO told us to euthanize it. Okay. So we did.

And they let you make the call? Yeah. We tried pulling him out. If you see the fluid in his legs, it's all built up. I was more afraid that he would run still on fight or flight. However, be dead very quickly by the coyotes and stuff. So we made the choice to definitely put him down. He's been there for a while.

Yeah, he don't look like he's getting better. No, no, he's pretty messed up. So we field dressed him there a biologist came out he kept making the joke um he's like man this is if i didn't know better this would be an elk dude it's the biggest deer you've ever seen yeah it was a big boy we never weighed him but at least 200 pounds what do you think he was doing do you think he slipped off that i do so actually when i emailed you he actually had a cataract in his right eye. So I suspect he was walking the cliff band with that cliff on his right.

So he's blind in his right eye. And you said he was really old. Really old, yeah. I think the biologist that came out estimated him at eight and a half, close to nine years old. Me and my wife filled out our uh end of life stuff yesterday did you describe this as the way i want to go no i would put myself in the unit i basically would have said in that situation i'd be in the euthanized bucket yeah yeah yeah yeah well kind of like a uh what's that guy aaron ralston the 127 hours yeah Right, right, yeah. Yeah, he's just wedged between a rock and a hard place.

Yeah, you can see where that poor sucker was raking the dirt above him, too. Trying to make his one last rope. And then someone sent you a picture of an elk carcass, it looks like, that the same exact thing happened to. So I was getting a lot of flack for this.

Oh, but why are people messing with you about who cares people just can't be happy for other people or just i don't want to say happy but like this was just a real experience that i had and i don't know put it on social media right yeah just say like oh my god look yeah that's weird like cool it was a cool unique experience and i took it delighted me to see that yeah so tell me about how what are the criticisms uh just like i was poaching you know and i had i did have it all down in there yeah right like a really elaborate trap yeah yeah the um and it's so so good at the bot that you dupe the biologist yeah yeah yeah totally you saw such a shrewd criminal you shot a nice buck jammed it in there got the fluid to run down its legs duped a biologist apparently and then walked away without even needing to use your tag yeah right you son of a i'm picturing you wedging that boulder out

with a stick and standing there with a string and a carrot and okay so you poached it i could see that yeah yeah so there's a stuff that's how i do it um so actually the biologist was really cool he ended up taking to his house and then a couple days later i went to his house and he showed me how to to skin it and butcher it really yeah the guy was awesome chloe i'm gonna get away with this that's all who'd have thought i'd go to the biologist yeah yeah perfect alibi and the meat was good enough to eat yeah we had the back straps pretty quick uh was it all right it was good we ran out of we ran out of propane so it was pretty rare it was probably the rarest

meat i've ever eaten so this is like a real thing about like high stress people yeah i mean even you want to talk about some high stress while that deer was there he was feeding him corn for like a week yeah just wanted to get it finished uh in your comments people were like oh i would never eat that how could you eat that it's disgusting adrenaline i'm like dude like i don't know man it tastes like deer they didn't consider that we're too high stress individuals. Yeah, right. I made a nice Asian dish last night and it was told to me that the ingredient list was a little too intense and, uh, it tasted good, but it was too intense because I used, uh, gizzard, liver, heart, turkey testicles, and then, And an old buck he found wedged into it. And then, uh, mule deer shank and stuff.

It was really, really good, but it was the knowledge of the ingredient list that I Yeah, it's up after a while. And I said, well, then don't ask. No, I think it's good to know what you're eating. And a bear's eyeball. Using it all. What were the other criticisms?

None is curious. I don't know. I mean, it was so long ago. That you were Sunday hunting. Yeah, I was Sunday hunting, pressured this deer to fall off the cliff. Chased it into the cliff. Yeah, yeah.

It's like a buffalo jump. Right, right. I was just going to say that. But there had to have been some number of people that just said, huh, that's cool. Yeah, absolutely. Totally. I mean, it got like, I haven't seen that before. It got like 400 shares in the first couple hours in the morning.

Was that buck a total mystery buck or did, did you have anyone like, I know that buck? Um, so like I said, it's like a lottery area that you gotta apply for i mean i've in this area not this specific area but i hunt the surrounding area that's legal to hunt outside of the lottery and i've got about 10 cameras up um i've never seen them i have cameras there because i shed hunt there every year uh and so, I've never seen. What part of the season was it? Like what? This was, um, the pretty close to shotgun season. So like what month? Oh, sorry. Um, shotgun usually starts December, I think.

So this was like a week before shotgun season. Oh, let's get back to the brain tumor. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but can you imagine the story some shotgun hunter would come up with if they came across that deer be like oh no no oh i shot it oh yeah yeah no yeah i would never i think a lot of people would have been what it's sunday can't hunt sunday but i know where i'm gonna be hunting monday morning

yeah and i'm to bring a come along. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join our northern brothers get irritated well if you're sick of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that

include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right, we're always talking about OnX here on the MeatEater podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it.

Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some

of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. So back to the brain tumor i uh so it's called an i can't pronounce it but

acoustic neuroma is that right okay cool i went to public school so you know as did i think everyone at this table so um yeah so i found out post deployment to pol Poland that I had this brain tumor and that it needed to come out. It was a little bit smaller than a golf ball. Couldn't keep it there, obviously. Why are they always measuring tumors by golf balls? I don't know. Randall had a face tumor too. Randall?

Yeah. This guy. That one was the tip of your thumb. They didn't do half a golf ball? No. No. Unfortunately. That'd be a ping pong ball your thumb. Oh, they didn't do half a golf ball? No, no. Unfortunately, it's a... That'd be a ping pong ball. Yeah.

Sorry, it's two golf balls. I was really shooting for a golf ball. I thought if they could get that, I'd feel like I'd have accomplished something. It made Randall smarter. Oh, nice. Mine made me a little slower, but that's all right. Randall's got a good story where when he... I think when it all came to a thing and you really hit the fan, he was in the middle of cooking from our fishing game cookbook.

That was my stroke. Oh, that was. That was my stroke. Yeah, I was making a big batch of mule deer chili when I had a stroke. And then my wife came home later after i'd been taken to the hospital and once it was clear that i was going to make it through the day she said i packed up all that chili but i haven't eaten any of it yet have you had she because we didn't know what had happened she's like do you think it's okay to eat or should I freeze it?

And we wait till we get the full write up. But actually my tumor, when they woke up from the, when they woke me up from the surgery, Sydney handed me my phone and she said, Steve Rinella texted you. But what? I said, oh my God, you must've heard from Cal. I was like, have you seen that badger around? No, what you said, you said was, did you ever go to that spot I told you about? And if you did, did you see any bears there?

And I was like sitting there in the hospital with like blood all over me. And I texted, yeah, saw a bunch of bears, maybe six. And then immediately you responded, was it all just sows and cubs? Continue. Those are my meat-eater-related health jokes. Nice. Yeah, so I basically, when we found out about the brain tumor, I actually, ironically,

found out on my brother's death anniversary. So I was just really. So I was like, just really bizarre. I was alone, which really sucked. Um, I shouldn't have like opened my patient portal and saw the diagnosis. Oh,

yeah. So you were already getting a little deaf in your right ear. Yeah. So I already was like, what do you think that was related to? Well, I mean, I knew it was related to basically the army told me I had nerve damage and just like from gunfire and just loud noises being a mechanic.

All right, cool. Yeah, makes sense, I guess. It's not uncommon for people in the military to go deaf, especially in my shooting year, I guess, because I'm right handed. Well, I shoot rifle right-handed um so i told chloe we went to one of my best friends weddings uh and then at their wedding i kind of looked at chloe we had been engaged already and i was like why don't we just get married before the surgery so we can you know in case anything happens, you'll be, you know, $500,000 richer. That's a good move, man. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, so we decided to have a quick

backyard wedding. It really sucked because it wasn't the wedding we wanted. But, you know. But just to save you here, didn't suck. No, the wedding was lovely. Yeah, yeah. I would re-approach that.

Right. Yeah. Not fine. The wedding was not fine. i was watching her carefully she didn't react sorry see i had the best moment of my life yeah next time yeah yeah yeah it was i had a big wedding and i tell people i'm like don't do that yeah it's a waste of money. You just forget about it. It happened so fast. You're like talking to, you know, like, oh, remember me? Yeah. I was your Sunday school teacher. And all of a sudden, like the night's over.

You're like, there was a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was a very formal wedding. Us, we had Chipotle catered for our wedding. That's the way to do it. It was awesome. Perfect wedding. do it. It was awesome. Perfect wedding.

Perfect wedding. It was great. We had smoked eel. That sounds interesting. I'd take Chipotle. So yeah, we got married, and then what sucked was I really couldn't be as present as I wanted because I was prepping for a very serious surgery.

I was very drunk very fast. To be fair, I wasn't very present either. I was like, I don't know what's happening. It was like we planned it in two weeks. You're like, all I know is I might be sitting on 500 grand. Lucky you. Yeah, so we, you you know the surgery went well um there was a high risk of face paralysis um balance being really really like no balance or just having difficulty balancing and some

cognitive uh concerns i have all of the above to a degree without the the paralysis that's fine but basically the nerve is really growing wrapped up in, or I'm sorry, the tumor is growing all wrapped up in my facial nerves, my balance nerve, my taste nerve. So there's a lot of risk. But basically the VA, and I will praise the VA all day for this, they basically were like, what hospital do you want to go to? And I'm like, well, who pays for this? And they're like, we do. I hospital do you want to go to and i'm like well who pays for this and they're like we do i'm like let's go to boston and so i went to some of the best doctors in the world for this and they took really good care of me um so that happened that happened october 3rd and i was good to go in the woods shotgun hunting in December. Wow. Totally deaf in your right ear.

Totally deaf in my right ear. It's challenging. This past season, I had a doe sneak up on me when I was sitting in my saddle. And it was a really cool experience. It was my first rut hunt ever. I had my dad's bow. And so I was sitting in this, in the saddle and I heard something, but I couldn't, it's just

really hard for me to triangulate sound. That's why when one of these guys talk, I'm like this. That's what I was going to ask. I was going to say, don't you hear it in stereo? Yeah. Locating a gobbler could be brutal. Oh yeah.

I imagine. I haven't tried it yet. Yeah. Our, uh, our buddy Clay, he's deaf, mostly deaf in one ear. Okay. He can't tell where, he can't tell where they come from.

Yeah. I'd be like this. He's got to kind of like ruin, in a lot of ways it's ruined turkey hunt for him that's interesting i haven't got to have someone to like help he kind of needs someone to point like well he can hear it but he says he always points he points like 180 degrees off every time yeah um so this doe is walking behind me and i'm also like my eyes really messed up as well so i didn't have my glasses on because i shoot bow lefty so my right eye or my sorry my left eye is good so I turned and I was like I think that's a doe um so I had to like do another turn this way to look over my

left shoulder and I was like all right that's a doe but she kept looking over her back and I was like oh there's got to be a buck on her. And so I wrapped underneath my tether, grabbed my bow, and I just waited, and this big brute of a 10-pointer came running in. And right as she walked away, I sprayed some estrus in the air. That got him just really stuck in the area. Whoa. What? Really? Yeah. Oh, man, he stopped ass over head. So I got to push back.

You keep knocking your mental faculties here, but, like, I wouldn't be thinking about any of that stuff i don't know at this point i'm you know i wouldn't i'm not an amazing hunter i've honestly only been hunting since 2020 uh on my own so i'm doing a lot of this like trial and error stuff on my own and i just well that won't ever stop just so yeah oh for sure for sure um yeah you'll never be like got that all figured out. Yeah, yeah. But I couldn't believe it. No problems anymore.

So already God, man, ass overhead stops and just starts sniffing like crazy. So as you saw it, you put a little squirt out. As the doe walked away. So the buck was about a minute, maybe two minutes behind her. You liked that, huh? Oh, yeah. It was cool. So I draw back and I was off by five yards, dropped under his belly. He kicked up.

Oh, off by five yards? Yeah. That's 15 feet. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't range him. I was, like, too jittery. I really just wanted to make a shot.

I thought he was at 25 yards. It was more like 35 yards. So maybe 10 yards. Um, Oh, your distance judge. He thought you missed your target by far. Your arrow missed by 15. It went right under his belly.

It was like, moment, check pins. You're shooting way out there. Yeah. Yeah. No, right under his chest.

Oh, you misjudged this thing. Oh, that's too bad. Um, was it bigger than the, than the, than the crack buck?

Um, I don't think so. No, the crack buck, at least body wise was bigger. Yeah. Um, yeah, but he was a nice 10 point I'd been watching. And so he jumps, snorts a couple of times. I'm like, do I get another shot?

I was like, but I need to range him this time to figure out like how far he was. And he was, after the shot, he pushed back about 50 yards and I just wasn't comfortable shooting at 50, um, given how little experience I had with the bow at this point. So I let him, let him go. Um, but it was a really cool experience nonetheless. Yeah. Yeah.

So brain tumor. Uh, so the balancing basically, if you take away my vision, my balance is still pretty jacked up and pretty challenging cause I don't have that inner ear, I guess going for me anymore to go. Yeah. I get vertigo sometimes. You think I could beat you in a fight? Cause of your balance.

I don't know, man. I just feel like, I thought, yeah, I thought you'd kick my ass. I felt like you'd kick my ass. I think my fighting days are over,

but, but now I know your balance is off. I might take a wild shot. Let's try it. Let's go. No. Um, yeah. So it. Let's go. No. Yeah, so I remember that first time walking in, I had my red light on, and I was walking at the shotgun, and I ate shit like seven times.

Yeah, I can imagine. Oh, really? Yeah, man, I was getting so frustrated. Oh, that's got to be bad. It sucked. And you probably think you've got to live like that the rest of your life, too. Yeah, because this is two months after surgery, so it's like, this is it, this is what it's gonna be like.

I, um. Just had surgery on your head. Yeah. Yep. It's like a 12 hour surgery. 15 tests, right? Yeah, 12 hour surgery. I'm sure the docs in Boston are like, oh, that's fine. No, I didn't tell them. Uh, yeah, so I fell a bunch, but I had the

wherewithal to change the light color to green, and that, so I fell a bunch, but I had the wherewithal to change the light color to green and that, so it was a red, blue and green and then white light, obviously. So I changed it to green and that was just a little bit better. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So that was helpful. Just like I could see a little bit better and the depth perception was better. So do you got a corrective lens on your?

Yeah. Yeah. So. What eye is that? Your right eye? My right eye, yeah. Because I'm telling you, you guys are like,

dude, he's making all this up. So in 2021... Ah, Chloe, what are you laughing about? You're laughing about the next detail? It's just really funny, like just retelling our story. And it's kind of bounces back. Another surgery.

Yeah, so prior to me leaving for Poland, I was shed hunting and I had a stick puncture in my eyeball and which one my right eye so that's why

I wear glasses now this this my left lens is just a lens there's no correction there um so I was like

the surgeon said it was one one hundredth of an inch from losing my eye or my vision in that eye a stick a stick yeah strained in my eyeball with like such velocity That is one one hundredth of an inch from losing my eye or my vision in that eye. A stick.

A stick, yeah. Straight into my eyeball. With like such velocity that it like ruptured it. It was like an open globe. I can show you pictures of that after. I had stitches in my cornea. It's brutal. Absolutely brutal.

Was it a branch that just flipped? Yeah. Yeah. Just literally like slingshotted right into my eye. Oh, nightmare. I was leaving for training for the Army, and I just was really excited to take my dog out for a shed hunt. So I left work early, got in the woods. I was a mile into the woods, and whack, hits me in the eyeball. And I usually wear, like, it was so cloudy that I didn't have, you know,

I usually wear some type of glasses, but all I had was sunglasses, so I actually't have, you know, I usually like wear some type of glasses, but all I had was sunglasses. So I actually took them off and put them on my hat. So if I had just kept them on, I probably would have been obviously fine, but. Damn. Yeah. So four years I've had, this will be this shoulder surgery from the bear attack on Friday will be the fourth surgery in three years, actually.

Okay. So it's, I'm sorry three years actually. Okay, so I'm sorry to bounce back. No, no. It's all helpful background. Let's move on to Wyoming. Alright, cool. Because we want to get a picture of a totally debilitated man. And I hope you come back next year after you get

struck by lightning. Now it's making sense as to why the bear picked you. So now we have a sensory deprived deprived a sensory deprived sort of half their man in the mountains yeah yeah um so uh we were actually like starting to feel like recovered enough from all that that we're like let's do it let's finally go on our honeymoon let's plan that's this is the honeymoon this is the honeymoon yeah um let's do it. Let's finally go on our honeymoon. Oh, this is the honeymoon trip? This is the honeymoon. This is the honeymoon. The hits keep coming, right?

So we rented a minivan. Where did you rent the minivan? Enterprise. No, I mean like... In Massachusetts. Oh, so you drove out. They'll pick you up. No plug for Enterprise.

So you drove out. You rented a min up. No plug for Enterprise. So you drove out. You rented a minivan to go on a road trip. Yep. For a three-week trip. What did you guys do? Did you do Chrysler Town and Country? It was a Chrysler. It was a Chrysler.

That's my pick of the minivan for sure. At a reasonable daily rate? Yeah. Unlimited mileage. We built a little temporary bed platform in the back on Tupperware bins. Yeah. Pretty simple. Unlimited mileage. We built a little like temporary bed platform in the back

on Tupperware bins. Nice. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. We're paying tribute to our dirt bag climber. Yeah. Hashtag van life.

Hashtag van life. Yes. Rental. Hashtag van life slash rental. Yeah. Yeah. So we basically

were planning on to do some climbing, do some shed hunting and exploring. And we were softly kind of looking to possibly move out to Wyoming. So in the next few years when she's done with school. Oh, yeah. Cause you got like a transition coming up. Yeah. Yeah. So we had spent three days in the Badlands, which I just, I love the Badlands.

Let me ask real quick. Are you still a mechanic? Technically. Yeah. Yeah. So in the army, yes. Uh, on the civilian side, I'm what's called, um, electronics mechanic for the army.

So it's, uh. Oh, so you still, you still working there? Yeah. So I'm an army reservist, mil tech, which is a dual status position. So I'm contracted in to stay in the reserves as long as i hold this civilian job understood so it's like i call it a backdoor draft it kind of sucks but um it's a pays the bills got it um so we spent three days in the badlands which i love the

badlands i love how under traffic it is compared to the other parks um and it's got just a lot of cool stuff so i showed her that because that's somewhere i've been and i've really enjoyed it we had a great time there we went hiking in the big horn national forest um got charged by a moose that was fun i thought that was going to be our scariest animal encounter yeah uh so i got us all on top of nothing yet yeah a moose with a calf or just a regular yeah yeah she was pissed oh yeah so i got us all in a boulder her my dog and i um and we just watched her kind of just strut around being angry yeah she i was i was a little worried i was like we could be up here for hours i don't i don't know how long dogs yeah yeah i know that yep um, I was actually the one that spooked them.

And I'm terrified of moose. Anytime we run into them in Massachusetts shed hunting, Shane makes fun of me because I'm always like shaking. Like there was one time I pointed one out nearby. She was shaking like the girl from Jurassic Park. And I'm like, I mean, it was only like 10 feet away. So for, you know, context.

And I just like looked at it and I was like, this was right after my eye injury. So I literally had an eye patch on. I only had one eye. And I was just looking at the ground, making sure I didn't fall. It was boring that day. Oh, this is shed hunting. Yeah, this is a couple years ago. Yeah, this was in Massachusetts. So she's like pointing at this

moose and I'm like, alright, it would already charge us if it didn't want us here. And it just kept eating its food, looking at us, and then it just did a 180 and walked away. Yeah, so during this most recent encounter, I was the one that... Jumped him. Yeah, and saw the calf first, and it like took off. And I was like, whew, all right. Now there's a safe distance away. I'm going to take a picture. And I was looking at the picture.

I was like, it looks kind of small. And then I see mom walking around these boulders just grilling me. And I'm like, oh, no. So I radioed for Shane. Because I didn't know what to do I don't I don't have the knowledge that Shane has so I just radioed to him and was like uh I have a very angry mama moose that's not backing down and I'm like just trying to back up the hill and give her space and um yeah she was just coming after me. So. And at this point, you know, if something bad happens, it's going to happen to him.

So like get him over there. So, yeah, I got us all in a boulder and she stayed for like lingered around for like 15 minutes. Um, and then I could see her calf down in the tree line. So she went to the calf and we got out of there pretty quick after that. Didn't want to stick around. That was in Wyoming. Yes. Yep.

That was in the. Yes. Yep. That was in the Bighorn. Yep. Um, so then we stayed in Cody for a night. Then we got to Yellowstone and we camped out there for three days. And that was awesome. We just drove around, photographed animals. Um, it's just like a, a hobby of mine. I just like taking pictures of animals as much as, you know, anything else I do, I guess.

Um, sold some photographs, but haven't made up for the equipment I've paid for. Uh, yeah. So Yellowstone is cool. I've never been there before. It was nice to get there before, um, the crazy Taurus. And then we were heading South to Moab and we were just going to drive through the Tetons for a few hours, just check that out. We had done some research about the great gray owls

and Signal Mountain is kind of a hotspot. So that's when we went. Or at least Reddit told me so. Yeah, Reddit. But that's a good place to see a great gray owl. Yeah. So we parked. We walked up Signal Mountain Road.

And so it was three of us, two of us with the dog. We walked up there together for about half a mile, maybe three quarters. Signal Mountain Road is like, it's not a remote back country. Not at all. Yeah. All right. And it was close to cars, but there were so many cyclists and pedestrians and stuff. Yeah. There's dozens of people up there that day. Yeah. All right. And it was close to cars, but there were so many cyclists and pedestrians and stuff. Yeah.

There's dozens of people up there that day. Yeah. So as we're walking up, there was actually like a safari, like a, I don't know what that was called. Backcountry. Yeah, backcountry safari guy. Safari tour group. Yeah. Yeah.

And like we, so we bumped into them and they're like, oh yeah, we went on and off the trail. Didn't see any sign of owls, but they're out there somewhere. And, uh, they're like, didn't see any bear sign either. I'm like, and they asked me like, do you have bear spray? I was like, yeah, it's right here. Right on my FHF, uh, binder. There you go. Good job.

Yeah. You had it in the, you had the spray holster underneath the bottle. So I didn't have the holster. I ended up buying, cause I've never thought about bear spray until coming out west. I'll ease the black bear. I know that they can be dangerous still, but every black bear I've ever seen,

they're running away from me. So anyway, so I just bought some cheap elastics to hold it in place. I did stop at the meat eater store yesterday and buy the holster though. I was going to say, we can get you a holster. Yeah. Did you tell them what you were here for?

No, I didn't. No. I don't know. I didn't. I like to think they would have given it to you. You always got it. You walk in there and do you know who I am? Do you have any idea who I am?

We've gotten looks. I think some people do know. We've definitely had some people looking at us a couple times. So anyway, yeah. Going on Good Morning America, we'll do that. Yeah, yeah. So eventually Chloe decides, she's like, hey, like, you know, I only have the bear spray. I'm going to go back to the car.

I was like, cool, I'm just going to give myself an hour up here. I'll bounce on and off the road. And I knew, too, like, too like i had cadence with me our dog and i wasn't going to be able to go everywhere that he wanted to go and like you're not supposed to take dogs off the more than 100 feet off the road in national parks so i wanted to be respectful of that too so yeah i just turned around and was going to iron out some things with our itinerary and and whatnot and And yeah, sorry. Yeah.

No, you're very, you're endearing yourself to this crowd for following the rules in a national park, especially off leash dogs. Yeah. Because it's supposed to protect dogs from wildlife and wildlife from dogs. And, you know, we can't help but wonder how things might have. You actually like read the signs and stuff. Oh yeah. All the printed materials out there.

That's amazing. Yeah. That's what saved my life. Partly, partly. And probably why our dog's still alive. We don't know what would have happened if she had been there. Yeah. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join.

Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial imagery 24k topo maps waypoints and tracking that's right you were always talking about uh we're always talking about OnX here on the MeatEater podcast. Now you, you guys in the Great White North can be part of it. Be part of the excitement.

You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services hand-picked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites

are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet.

onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcomemaps.com slash meet welcome to the to the onx club y'all so i had been walking all over the place up there um i have a pretty good sense of direction that like naturally uh i had a compass with me my My phone's GPS was not working very great. Zero service for the most part. So after an hour goes by, I look at my watch. I had set a timer for an hour and 15. My alarm went off. I was like, oh, shit.

I told her I'd be back in an hour. She's probably getting a little worried. So I looked at the GPS, and basically it was just um both onyx and google maps was just pixelated like you parked here and here's yours because you hadn't downloaded the map ahead of time yeah i because we didn't discuss going to this location until the drive there and at that point no service to download anything this was like uh let's pull over and stretch our legs for a second. I heard there might be owls here. Right.

Nice. But, you know, it still pointed me in the right direction back to the parking lot. How far are you from the parking lot? When the attack happened?

Yeah. No, no, at this point. At this point, it's hard to say. Well, so up the road we had gone three quarters of a mile and then...

Yeah, but I wandered all up on top of Signal Mountain. So, the furthest probably was maybe a couple miles how far from the road were you um maybe maybe from single mountain road probably just a mile at any given time it was never more more than a mile um so i start beelining back to the parking lot. Like you're, you, uh,

bushwhacking down. Right. Yep. And. The straight line. Yep. And so just basically walking mostly east and a little southeast. And,

uh, and I just, I'm in the woods all the time. So I move really fast and efficiently. And I think that was part of my problem was it was really windy out. I think if I remember correctly, when was up to 40 miles per hour that day. So as I'm going through the woods. And what's the topography like?

Are you on a steep? Is it steep? I wouldn't say steep. No, it was, there was, it was, you know, it was a big hill, but not overly steep. I can, I have it all plotted on Onyx. It's got mature timber on it. Yep. Yep. say steep no it was there was it was you know it was a big hill but not overly steep i can i have it all plotted on onyx i can just got mature timber on it yep yep lots of downed trees um so i'm at this point i'm at the bottom of signal mountain kind of and i'm like in this weird valley and then there's this like hill protruding out and once i get around that hill i see the cub

running and you're how far from the car at this point? I want to say 50 to 70 yards. Oh, you're back at the car. No, I'm sorry. I thought you said the cub, not the car. Oh, no, no. How far from the car? Half a mile. Like, actually .6. Got it. You're just hauling ass.

Hauling ass, making noise, and I was talking out loud. But tons of ambient noise, right? As much as I could hear. Yeah, right. So the bear didn't hear me. You were talking out loud. What were you saying? I basically was just

I was actually more or less in the army like when we march, we sing cadences. My pants are baggy, my belt's too tight. Yeah, so it's kind of like, it's just something that's always just like drained in my like just cinched in my mind so i'm just like i know just give me a sample cadence i don't need the one you're doing i just want a sample uh so are they all naughty no no no like not like the old um i can't say that one never mind um no just like there's some

like uh airborne ones so you just be like i hear the choppers hovering they're hovering overhead they come to get the wounded they've come to get the dead gotcha you know so that sounds more like a shanty yeah kind of so anyway i just kind of you know just doing that and just talking out loud um thinking about bears absolutely i i was bears were a big concern for me like not that i like i was overly afraid of them i just was like i know we're gonna see them you're not paranoid you're right aware right yeah totally uh i was just thinking about them and i i knew they existed out there and it was their home um and so i see this cub running about 50 yards ahead of me and i

was like fuck running the other way yeah running away and i was like i know mom's got to be nearby and so the first thing i did was i took my bear spray out and a lot of people are like oh i bet you wish you had a 10 millimeter this blah blah blah sure i always feel i always feel a little better when i have a gun on me however um in this situation it just wouldn't have worked. By the time I saw the when I saw the cub having the bear spray out, pulling the safety off within three seconds, mom was on me.

Alright, let's back up. Not back up, I just want to talk about this three seconds real careful. You register a cub running 50 yards away. You know it's a grizzly. Oh yeah. Just something about it oh yeah okay and you without it without without hearing or seeing anything of the sow you know you just

spooked a cub and you pull your bear spray out absolutely you throw the safety on the spray i was trying to yeah okay so you so this is all like super fast right And then what's the very next thing you register? Mom's eyes. At what distance? A couple feet. A couple feet? Like coming straight at you or from the side? Just diagonally to my left.

So just barely like in my parade. 10 o'clock. A couple feet? I'd say 10 o'clock. A few feet, yep. And as soon as I saw her. So your attention on that cub. Right. Yeah, so I was attention on that cub. Right. Yeah.

So I was looking at the cub. You could have potentially been looking over the top of mom's back. Yeah. She probably knew you were there before you even saw the cub. 100%. 100%. And so I think she was already charging me. I just didn't.

Like I said, it was windy. Like if that cub hadn't have been there, you probably would have picked up something. Yeah. You would have picked up movement. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I was just so focused on the cub. But it, you probably would have picked up something. Yeah. You would have picked up movement. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I was just so focused on the cub. But it gave you something to focus on.

Right. So I think part of the issue was they were actually walking towards me and I was walking towards them at one point. And I can reiterate on that after, post-attack. So I remember her amber eyes. Like they're just, they're in my head for the rest of my life. And I know you were talking about your bear encounter and how it really affected you for a long time. Yeah.

I closed my eyes and I see your eyes. And, um, I just kind of, as she jumped up, I just said, no bear, no bear.

And I, I just knew I didn't have time to, to spray, I guess. So when she jumped up, what would, what did it seem like she was coming at? Uh, just like generally you or. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Just, she was just going to hit whatever part of me she could hit. With her paws. Yeah. I'm not even sure. I mean, her, her muzzle was right there and everything. Why was it a mouth open? Yeah. So she's just coming at you yeah yeah

yeah and so i just like reading the kiosk and when you when you think about it uh you're standing okay um how uh when she's on the ground on all fours where is her back on on you it's hard to say um i was so fixated on her her face yeah uh i i don't i can't put a size on that but i know when she got on her hind legs she was taller than me is that right yeah so so you kind of went from like looking at or even down maybe down definitely down on down yep and when she jumped she got of like, it was like more of a pounce, but she was definitely taller than me. And I reverted back to the signs outside the trails. and cover your neck with your hands and keeping your arteries clear, protected, and just wait it out and try to play dead. I'll tell you what, that first bite on the shoulder, which ended up,

I didn't know at the time, but she broke my shoulder, and I have a complete, what's it called? This. Oh, sorry. You have a displaced fracture. Yeah, displaced fracture. Of your acromion. Yeah.

That was from a bite. I'm not, I couldn't tell you. A bite or a blow. Yeah, I couldn't tell you. But that's where she tackled me simultaneously as I started to like turn and get down. That's when she jumped on my back. She bit my shoulder.

She bit down through my so a canine went down through my trap and in her lower mandible canine went up into my lat and so I have like pretty good gash on my lat the puncture in my trap was just crazy as like really really deep um that would have been her her canine fang right yeah yeah yep so she took me to the ground and she kind of like flopped not flopped like trotted in front of me turned around i screamed from the first bite when she did what now like like when she tackled me she kept running after she hit me she kept running in front of me and then she just did a 180 and stepped on my back. And I've never felt more powerless in my entire life.

It was almost like world wrestling, like a little victory lap after knocking you down and came back to stand on top of you. Got him. And then when she blew through you and did that bite, did it linger or was it just like a pass through? She didn't grab you? Or shake? Or shake? I don't think she did i don't know um i think there would have been more damage if she shook but also she did break my shoulder so maybe

um so when she stepped on my back she just like bit one of my legs and i was like i just basically started just putting my face in the dirt and shaking my face in the dirt, trying to like muffle as much of my groaning and screaming as I could. So she bit me a few times. I couldn't tell you which leg at what point. I do believe the last bite in my leg was my right one. And that was the worst one because she had actually picked me up from my legs. And I just basically was planking in her mouth i was trying to stay as stiff as possible so she couldn't she would have a harder time rolling me over and

getting to my vitals um god thinking on his feet again yeah amazing yeah while you're in the jaws of a grizzly steve's a big planker but i don't know you keep me thinking about that in that moment it was um i just i remember just telling myself, just shut up, shut up, stay as stiff as possible. Um, but I think like at this point, the last bite, she, I swear to God, it hurt so bad that I let out like another loud scream. Were you like stretched out or curled up? Stretched out, laying down, what we in the military would call prone.

You're taking a... A laying down shot. Meanwhile, Chloe's back at the car being like, every time, every time, an hour? An hour turns into two. He said he'd be back in an hour, and he said it was all too often. For an hour and 15 minutes.

All too often. That is so true. She's a saint. Do I tell them about the text message? I mean, you can. 15 minutes. All too after. That is so true. She's a saint. Do I tell them about the text message? I mean, you can. Has he sent it yet or not sent it? No, no, no. This is her. Maybe too much self-disclosure.

We'll get to that in a second. Okay, fine. So anyway, I'm pretty sure like her, one of her canines had like tickled my femur. And that's why I just got so much pain yeah and um so she dropped me and it was just like uh did she have you off the ground a little bit yeah yeah she just left me up um by the leg by the leg my my face was still on the ground though yeah um and when i screamed from how much do you think you weigh? Do I weigh? Yeah. 180.

Okay. Yeah. And she was probably 380, 400. See, now I think you would kick my ass. Even with all the disabilities. He's just going to keep thinking the whole way through. That's it. Yeah.

So yeah, she dropped me. It was just um, I don't want to describe it, but it was just like a, I don't know. Um, just nonchalantly just dropped me and then just stepped on my back again. Like she's casual. Right. Just like this motherfucker's dead. Like he's, I'm going to get on a threat. Yeah.

Well, she was like, she's like, I'm going to put you down now. Does she vocalize at all? Um, yeah, well she like she's like I'm gonna put you down now she vocalized at all um Yeah, but it's hard to describe. It was just like I mean you've you've heard him like that like pant that they have like Yeah, well like it was that so no crazy like Barking not at all just like a Yeah, it's I can't describe it, but it's like that normal, like, if you hear two, like, if you watch a documentary on two grizzlies fighting, it's kind of like that.

Yeah. So that, like, I scream pretty loud from that. She drops me. And she doesn't seem to be, after this, she doesn't seem to be like, it's a hard question to ask, but like, does she seem like jacked up and pumped up? Oh yeah. Just riled up. And like stiff legged and. Yeah, it was so, dude, it was so violent. Okay. Like she wanted, like

she wanted me dead. But it's crazy because like the more I look at my wound, like my scars now, I'm like, you know, this could have been so much worse. Oh yeah. It could have just bit you on the head and killed you. 100%. Instantaneously. 100%. And the fact that like she didn't just completely rip This could have been so much worse like back that bit you on the head and killed you 100% is 100% and the fact that like she didn't just completely rip like

Grapefruit size chunks out of my thigh like I just I don't understand why and how she bit me We had a shed hunter get killed not far from here. I read about that and then I Talked to someone who'd done an investigation on that and they just, they felt that it was instant. Like, I don't know. I never got, I don't know what the injury was, but they felt it was instant.

So yeah. I mean that one bite. Right. Could that one bite in the right spot. Just. 100%. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm so damn lucky. She didn't get in any of my, my leg arteries or anything like that. Um, so now she's standing on top of you again. Yep. And so I had screams like placing her front feet on you yeah at least one like a pin like pinning you down right thing yep and uh

waving to the crowd like this yeah yeah so that's when she went to bite you know i suspect would have been my neck and my head um she obviously, she got my right hand here. Let me see your back. I see your back. Yeah, we can show you after. And then she got that behind my watch. That's from teeth. Yes.

Those are bite marks. Do you have claw marks all over you? Just a little. Okay. But those have healed. Like, they're scarred but um they're not as deep as you would expect four inch claws to to cut you yeah um so she uh she went for the head and thankfully i still had the bear spray in my hand so you're holding the

spray the whole time yeah unbeknownst to me honestly i didn't even know i still had it um so when she bit down at this point i wasn't feeling, I didn't even feel it. So the bear spray is in your hand and you're still trying to protect your back. Right. Yep. So just trying to protect the back of my neck and my neck and my head. Is your finger through the ring? Yep.

Got it. Yep. And so she bit down, like I said, she got my wrist and my hand and then she got a mouthful of the can so when i heard pause you once sure we had a person not we had a girl on one time that got mauled um she got tore up pretty good but she was in the same situation where she's down and it's biting here on her back and she's holding it and just sprays it in the face while it's biting here on her back and she's holding it and just sprays it in the face while it's biting her.

And that's what saved her? Yeah, just had the spray on her chest and just was able to do a blind shot over her shoulder. That's incredible. And got it and it dropped her. Good. Did it ever go through your mind

to try to discharge the spray i didn't even know i was still holding it okay yeah it wasn't an instinctual thing at that point oh yeah all this has happened within like 10 seconds yeah right how many seconds you think at this point i think the whole attack was probably 60 to 120 seconds oh so maybe two minutes tops yeah so once she hit you were like i mean you said it a bunch of times real clear but just reiterating like you're holding it and gripping the spray but you forgot about you're gonna shoot this thing i think i just had the ring only um and so it was kind of like sticking up diagonally up with the bottom obviously facing up. So when she bit down and I heard the pop, I was like, that's your skull, dude.

I'm like, she's got you. And then I felt a warm sensation go down my back. When you say heard the pop, what do you mean? So the can popped because it's pressurized. So when she bit down on the canister. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. I got it. But did you know that it was the can?

It took a second. Because I would have originally thought it was part of you. That's what I thought. I thought it was So. But did you know that it was the can? It took a second. So. Because you, I would have originally thought it was part of you. That's what I thought. I thought it was my, probably my skull. I was in a vehicle rollover one time coming back from hunting. And I just got a coffee at a gas station. And we ended up hanging upside down. They see belts.

And I'm like, and I thought, I was like, like oh it's all my blood running out of my head and i remember touching the back of my hair and looking at my hand there was no blood there there's nothing wrong with me nothing wrong with me whatsoever but for this one second i'm like oh no my life's blood yeah so um so bam you hear a pop yep and i my initial thought was like oh shit she just popped you in the head like your your skulls popped open and i felt warmth going down my back and my face i thought it was blood and uh then i i heard her panting and running away and i was like i was like, wait, what? And so I got up in the bush.

What noise was she making? Just the same like. Okay, so not a different in pain noise. Nope, nope. She just like, I mean, I don't want to describe it as sneezing, but it was just like she was very uncomfortable and couldn't breathe properly, I guess. I don't know.

And I heard her thumping running away and then that so I was like you're alive and I got up in the push-up position I saw her running up the hill that her cub ran up and she went the direction of her cub yeah I'm 99% sure. It was very disorienting regardless. So after she ran away, I got up and I ran the opposite direction. You were still able to run. Yeah, I ran, I want to say almost half a mile. Now, how are you not full of spray?

I am. I'll show you the picture after. But I mean, are you blinded? Nope. It didn't affect my eyes whatsoever. I don't know how or why. Because they pulled that part of your brain out probably. Yeah, right. They also nicked. Brain surgery.

They also nicked the thing that makes your eyes swirl. The backstory combines to make your superpower. Right, right. Yeah. Here we go. While I was in there, I did you a favor. Nothing will ever hurt your eyes ever again. Was it in your nose and mouth? Yep.

Yeah. I'll show you a good picture after my hands. But when that can went, did it dribble or did it poof? Poof. Okay. Yep. Um, and so when I got up and started running. Her teeth went through the can.

Yep. Who's got the can now? Um, National Park. Are you getting it back? No. Why not? They gave me the holster back because uh udap thank you udap for saving my life udap comes with a holster um like a plastic

holster you need the can i don't need it i've got the scars no can we get it for our auction house of oddities i mean do you want to contact i have have the biologist number. It's your can. Why would they be able to have your can? I don't know. Did they request to keep it? They did not, but it never crossed my mind. You got a can with a bear's teeth holes in it. And not just like a random one you found. Right. No, they... The one that saved your life.

Yeah. They, uh... Yeah, I got a lot of stuff with bear teeth holes in it because they always bite our poly pipe at our cab. I mean, no one cares about that. But you got to get that can. Because we can put it in the auction house of oddities. Yeah.

Or whatever. You can sell it. Or he could keep it. Or he could keep it. I don't know. If they can go to auction house oddities and someone's interested. What about your old staples? Can we have those?

That would get a good bid. What else you got? The VA got them. They took your can. Yeah. So they took all the VA got them. They took your can. So they took all my clothes. Why did they take your can? I don't know. Let's hear how he gets off the damn mountain.

I've been holding my breath here for two and a half to three minutes. So she runs? She runs. I run the opposite direction. Pepper sprayed. Yep. I mean, is there any with all the pain from the biting biting are you registering like an intense stinging no what are you what are you registering are you like get the fuck out of here are you are you thinking i'm so injured i'm gonna die i can't believe how uninjured i am i looked at

my hand and i was like if my hand looks like that then i don't want to know what the rest of me looks like but you're probably just going on adrenaline, right? Yeah, 100%. Still on adrenaline. 100%. And you knew what way to run? Yeah. The opposite direction of the bear is the best way.

So you didn't go toward the truck? No. The van? No. You just were getting out of there? I was just getting to a safe location. Clearing the scene. Because I knew I was bleeding pretty bad.

The back of my pants were completely red. I didn't get any good pictures. I'll share the video, which I took just in case I did die. I'm happy to share that offline, but that's something that I think is a little too intimate to share with the public. You get a little glimpse of my butt, and not physically, but the amount of blood on my backside.

When I started running, there was this big pile like there's some leftover snow from the winter and as i'm running through that i see the grizzly tracks in there so that is what fuels my hypothesis that they're walking towards me at the time got it um so i run up to start running up the top of this hill we i have it all saved on onyx so we can like i don't remember how much elevation I gained, but it was almost half a mile, I believe. Um, looking back on it now, were you going, were you, uh, I know you're going away from the bear. Are you also going away from the vehicle?

Yes. Okay. Yeah. All right. So you're, you're. I ended up almost a full mile from the parking lot. So you put that, and then as you're running, at what point did you, did, did you feel like you got back to your normal self or is it not hitting yet? Like your normal rational, logical self.

Um, so that happened maybe after being on the phone with Chloe for five seconds. Okay. So once I started running up the hill, I just remember like I still had all my, I didn't have a lot of gear at me. I just had an extra lens, my camera, a fanny pack, and then my, my bino harness. My camera weighs about seven or eight pounds.

That thing was just dangling between my legs, hitting me, bouncing off everything. I had to climb over a bunch of downed trees basically hurtling over the trees um and i had checked my phone and realized that all of a sudden i have 3g and i was like wait i haven't had service in three days since being out here basically i'm gonna call my wife and tell her i love her and that you know what i called her to tell her what happened and that i love you because i don't know what's going to happen. What did you say?

So I text her. Well, I called her. It didn't go through for some reason. Then I text her just one word, attacked. And then she called me right back as soon as I sent that text. And so I picked up. Attacked. Yep.

The text didn't go through. The text also never went through for through the text i just saw his initial phone call and was like that's weird that he's calling me and i called him back so i tell her i'm like hey i'm like hey chloe it happened i was like i got attacked by a grizzly and she didn't even this is the emt in her but like didn't even register any empathy or any form of like, the only thing she cared about was preserving my life. And, you know, being in the military, I've taken half a dozen, what we call combat life-saving classes in, um, in my career. And it's always, no matter what, the number one thing is stop the bleed. That's the most important thing. Well, obviously making your situation safe first,

but secondary is stop the bleed. If you're conscious, you always work on yourself. So she reminded me, you know, she's like, where's your first aid kit? And I was like, it's in the fucking bag. And I'm like screaming at her. And she's like, all right, just stay calm. Like tourniquets, you need to to improvise what do you have on you i was like i have my backpack my fanny pack and um camera straps and she's like okay like i was like she's like start improvising and i'm like

i need to be safe first i need to get somewhere where i can be safe and so i ran up to the summit of this little hill and then i started assessing all right where am i bleeding from and that's when i like looked at my really looked at my hand i noticed my underneath my watch strap she bit through my watch strap and i like looked i lifted my arm up and i could see daylight through my strap so i was like well that's fucked i'm just gonna leave that there um and then i just like looked behind me i I saw that I was bleeding, obviously, on my backside. I put my hand there and it just felt like a steady like drizzle of blood. And it was extremely warm.

I noticed that the coloration wasn't, it was just like a deep red. So I was like, okay, that's not arterial. So I think I have more time than i thought so i just laid down started taking some stuff off um and then i started applying the tourniquets i put two on my right left leg one high and then one lower um so you're in triage mode you're trying to figure out what the priority is right um. Um, I felt generally safe, but always was concerned of a secondary attack. That's, you know, what happened to Todd or, um, so I, that was always playing in the back of my mind.

Um, I apply the second, but again, it doesn't matter if you bleed out. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join.

Whew. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial imagery 24k topo maps waypoints and tracking that's right you were always talking about uh we're always talking about on x here on the meat eater podcast now you um you guys in the

great white north can can be part of it be part of the excitement you can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service that's a sweet function as part of it. Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services hand picked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites

are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try on x out if you visit on x maps.com slash meet on x maps.com slash meet welcome to the to the on x club y'all at that point i'm talking i think chloe called me back she's she's with the ranger at this point they're asking me where i am trying to like send them my grid coordinates nothing was like accurate for some reason i sent them coordinates from google that sent them like i don't know how

many yards off i'm blowing i have my my rescue whistle with me i'm blowing into that um but 40 mile an hour wind still right so yeah so um eventually uh 9-1-1 like she was i don't know she was at the range at rangers like he needs to call 9-1-1 and get on the phone with the operator so they can communicate with the helicopter yeah because at that point they had the helicopter in the air looking for you and um they wanted to try like pinging his phone to off the tower to see you know how much time has gone by at this point i couldn't tell you at this point but total from when i called her to when i was airlifted was a little less than two hours, which is very fast, all things considered.

The problem was like in my own head, I was like, okay, well, I got attacked. I was relatively close to the road. I thought I was like 300 yards off the road. Turns out when I ran away in the opposite direction, I was like 900 yards off the road so they were through these technical technology sorry through these these errors through the systems like the my GPS and all that stuff they were having trouble finding me when I was on the phone with the operator basically he's like alright can you see the helicopter I was like yes I can see the helicopter I was like tell them to stop and go to their three o'clock and fly straight and they're

gonna fly right over me and that's what they did they flew right over me couldn't see me still but i was obviously on the phone i was like all right they just literally just flew over me tell them stop again and they did it again i told them you know they're flying low yeah like 50 feet over maybe 60 feet over the trees. And it's like. And they flew right over you and didn't see you. Yeah. That's what I was going to, is it, are you still

in like pretty timbered stuff? Yep. So they flew over to like a clearing and I told them to stop and I started waving to them and that's when they. And you're probably wearing earth tones. I am. Unfortunately, uh, if I had, if I was wearing

my normal pack, i have a orange like signal uh sheet um and i have my ifac first aid kit that had trauma stuff in it um like we said yeah yeah i swear everybody i'm prepared yeah yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Normally. Yeah. Normally I am. Normally friends make fun of us. Give me one more chance. Yeah. How much stuff we bring with us. Yeah. So at this point though, right?

Like you're on the ground. There's a lot of opportunity for panic. Yeah. Like somebody doesn't see you right away. You built that up as like, okay, there I'm getting saved or just talking with chloe and stuff and like you have to have some moments of this isn't gonna work out oh yeah i mean when i saw the helicopter that was my first real real relief um but yeah like i would say at the

beginning i think i think i had the tourniquets on already, or maybe I didn't have the tourniquets on, but I made that video. Cause I was like, I'm bleeding out. Like, I don't know if I'm going to make it. I just want my family to know, like, I love them, you know? Yeah. Um, so what, what is your confidence in your, your self-care so far? Like at this point on the Hill, are you like, I've done everything I can do? There was a point where I was like, okay, I realized the blood flow is slowing,

um, in every spot, but my back, uh, I had moved once post tourniquet application. Um, and there was a lot like, so I moved once,

sat down in different spot. And then after a few minutes I had moved again and i noticed there's a lot less blood under me so that was good um so basically at that point i had a but are you thinking about shock though too yeah that was that was literally where my brain was kind of going in that um there's a shock and hypothermia was a real concern uh basically the the operator was like do you have anything to wear and i was like well i took my hoodie off to absorb some blood i can put it back on he's like put it back on i'm like okay she told me to put my elevate my feet so that i wouldn't pass out because like i was never like i don't say I was ever close to fainting or passing out, but there were points in time

where things did get a little hazy. Yeah. And I guess at a certain point, you know, being up there for hour and a half-ish, I was feeling like, okay, like this is taking, to me, it's a really long time. Like in retrospect, it's not. But to me up there, it felt like a lifetime. And I'm just like- Chloe, what are you feeling like okay like this is taking to me it's a really long time like in retrospect it's not but to me up there felt like a lifetime and i'm just like what are you feeling like because you can't talk to him now he's on the phone with 9-1-1 yeah yeah um i i don't know it's

it was such a surreal experience like i uh the first phone call that i made to family was to his cousin and she was like how are you, and she was like, how are you feeling? And I was like, honestly, my feelings went offline as soon as my husband said, like, I've been attacked by a bear. Like, it just, I don't know. I feel like because of my work as an EMT, I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing. Were you, like, looking for him, like, with the ranger? No, so that was the worst part. Yeah. looking for him like with the ranger that was the worst part yeah so um initially uh after i called 9-1-1 um i had grabbed my bag uh and my first aid kit and i was kind of

and my bear spray and i was kind of like pacing in the lot and i was waiting for the first ranger to show up and i didn't know what kind of response we were going to get so the first ranger shows up and and I'm trying my best to give him an idea of where Shane might be based on like oh well this is where I saw him last but you know who's to say where he is now

but he did send me these coordinates and it was funny because the ranger you know doing his job, doing a great job, was just like, great. And he just hopped back in his truck and drove off. And I'm just standing there in the parking lot like, what? And so I yell after him.

To go where? To drive up Signal Mountain Road to look for Shane. And so I yell after him, I'm an EMT. I can help. And he goes, cool, I'm a paramedic.. I'm an EMT. I can help. And he goes, cool, I'm a paramedic. And I'm like. So you got compartmentalized into not helping pull the crank on you. Which just sucks.

Yeah, which, you know, like, I don't know. I was talking to some friends after it and they're like, hey, you know, when we've been involved with SAR stuff, people have just said that they have certain credentials and they don't. And they end up getting in the way and like my whole thing you know with training as an emt uh you will fail your practicals as an emt if you forget to ask like oh is the scene safe and so while 100 i wanted to run into the woods and find him i knew like well if i run into the bear first i might be drawing away resources that he needs way more than i do or you know i could go get myself killed break your leg like running around right yeah yeah so it was it was really hard um being in the parking lot just waiting and feeling just like feeling like i had this skill set that could be potentially useful

oh and just doing nothing with it. Just sitting there. There's nothing worse than being like, listen, I'm somebody with skills and I can be helpful. And then if you do something stupid, then you're like, but I'm still really good, you guys. I just did this one stupid thing by which I'll be judged forever. Right? Oh, man. I just feel like it's like put this whole spin on like the survivor's guilt

that i feel for like we were on the same walk i turned around i went back to the car and then i'm like oh i could have maybe done something and oh yeah just sitting there oh okay so the helo yeah so at that like in while i'm up there on that hill alone like a lot of things are going through my head like is the bear gonna come back um should i climb a tree like what's my best scenario i just basically the only defense i had was my knife so i i had that out and i was just like at this point like if i'm she comes back i'm probably dead so i might as well fight it um so the wound, like I started, the pain started to creep in at this point. Um, my shoulder was rocked and, um, so when the helo shows up, I felt the first like real relief. I'm looking at the helicopter. I'm like, okay, cool. So I actually started to crawl towards it

and I got maybe five or eight feet away from where i was sitting and then i heard shane shane burke and i was like and i see a ranger the 12 gauge i was like thank god he come in on foot yeah yeah i had about i would say about by the time by the time the helicopter's ready to take me out, there's at least eight or 12 Rangers with shotguns that set up a perimeter. How far had you come from the attack site? I want to say half a mile-ish. Like I said, we can look at Onyx.

The Rangers would have a better idea because they did a full investigation from where they picked me up down to where there's a huge, massive blood trail that they followed. So the first ranger shows up, and he's like, you're Shane Burke? And I was like, yep. Never heard of him.

Looking for a different guy. He's 50 feet that tall. Yeah, so they have to ask that. And he's like, all right, I'm so-and-so here to help. And then a female officer shows up. She rad i don't remember her name um and they just start cutting my stuff off and uh you know as i mentioned on in my post was you know my ultimately you know i believe in conservation i believe that i was in the you know, I believe in conservation. I believe that I was in the, you know, there's just the wrong place, wrong time. That bear didn't do anything that it like wasn't natural to it.

So I was like, Hey, like, you're not going to kill that bear, are you? And he's like, well, we're going to have to look into it. And I was like, well, I hope you don't. And he's like, well, I was really admiral. You were like, this one's on me. Yeah. So, yeah, they just start, you know, know assessing me they do their own blood sweeps at this point they're you know doing their thing to get an iv started um and they're all down in my

my area and are they trying to are they are they doing anything to try to get the dna off the bear yeah they they did so they know if there's a record of the bear they know what bear and what did they what did they what were they swabbing to try to get a dna clothing and the bites they're swabbing in some way and put it in like a tube yeah yeah i mean so they completely took all my stuff off that hill i didn't have my phone for two days after the attack they'd have all kinds of ways to find us yeah yeah we got like everything back in an evidence box and i opened it up in the motel room like not fair spray everywhere about the bear spray. Oh god that sucks. You're shitting me.

We're just like coughing and hacking. They gave you everything back except your can. Oh they told us I forgot. I did ask them about the can and like oh yeah we have it and it never occurred to me if I should take it. Why in the world are they holding that can? I don't know maybe there's DNA on it. I don't know.

It could be in a visitor's center in a display i'll text the the the biologist and see if i can pay for it to to ship to you guys or something but um so at this point like you know i'm i'm sitting there like i'm in their words they said i was a really good patient i was you know obviously i was in a lot of pain at this point is the helicopter landed or just hovering? It left and landed for a minute. For how far away? I have no idea. I imagine where she was. At the gravel pit

parking lot down the road where they were at the ambulance staging. So there was no good place right there to land? No. Okay. Yeah, they actually short hauled him out? Yeah. They dropped two search and rescue people from the Jenny Lake Rangers down. Actually, one might have walked in.'m not sure but anyway um so they're working on me they're just stuffing me

with gauze and it was like every every second they're like oh here's another hole here's another hole let's stuff it with five feet of gauze it was sucked was that painful very painful um and they just got you stripped down oh yeah butt naked they're putting like the uh the emergency blankets on me and stuff like that they put heater packs on my chest underneath in between my armpits um and then my concern at that point it was like hey uh did i shit my pants and they're like, they just lift my leg up and they're like, no, you're good, dude. I was like, sick. You just crawling, gaining back whatever dignity you have. They say that to everybody.

There's multiple times that conversation came up throughout. So yeah, they plug me up and they're ready to short haul me out. On a? Just like, it wasn't a stretcher or a rescue basket. I forget what they called it, but.

Oh, really? I thought it was like a Stokes basket. No, it wasn't a basket. It was like a, I felt like I was in a burrito wrap. It was just this big red wrap. What is a short haul? What does that mean? Basically, they're, instead of flying me to the hospital,

they're going to lift me up from the site bring me to a safe location where there's an ambulance waiting well and like dangling from the helicopter yeah so does that when they come down with that burrito wrapper do they drop it and then you hook up and then they come down and hook up or is it stayed hooked to the yeah so they dropped it and then it didn't stay hooked up okay so they say get them ready yep and then they lower down a hook yeah and someone on the ground hooks that correct and they lift you out yep and so i think her name was livy no lexi lexi sorry lexi uh lexi so she she tethered in with me she flew with me um she was great i think she was on a newer side um because when they were talking about who would would

fly with me she was like oh i've never been So she clipped into the same hook you're clipped into. Yep. But on some kind of climbing harness or something. Yeah, she had a rescue harness and some diesel equipment that she was connected and tethered with. So we land. There's a lot of people on scene. Some rubberneckers. Yeah. Some rubberneckers. Yeah, and then I admit,

so they load me up into the ambulance, and then they start checking me out there. One of the Rangers, the investigating Ranger, came into the ambulance. He introduced himself. He had some questions for me. Like what? Where's the can?

Yeah, where's the can? So you say. Yeah, he just wanted to know some of the finer details, like just some quick details so they could have an idea of what happened vaguely before they go out. Because they didn't go out to the attack location until the next day. I think they secured it overnight, but they didn't like go out there to do the overall investigation until the next day. So he had some questions like, you know, are you sure it was a grizzly? Like I got asked that like 50 times.

I'm like, I know black bear. I know it wasn't a black bear. Like it was definitely a grizzly. He's like, well, what are some identifying features? I'm like, big brown bear, big hump on her back. Like, I don't know. Great big claws. Did this to me versus running away.

Yeah. And so, you know, my care team was great. They finally hit me with some painkillers, which just took the edge off. Now, Chloe, are you there at the ambulance? Yes. Just briefly. Okay. Yeah.

Which is funny because I got in and Shane's like, don't cry. I just didn't want to cry. And just get out of the ambulance so I can go. And then they repacked all his wounds so he was there for like another hour. And you couldn't ride in the back with him? No, I had the dog. Were they taking you to Jackson

or to a park? To Jackson, yeah. And at this point, have they begun trying to flush all that bear juice out of there? So I did mention it because I was like, guys, my hands are really freaking hot right now. I was sweating really bad because they had,

because of the scare of hypothermia, they had the heat cranked up to a thousand degrees in that. And so, yeah, I was like, hey, I have a lot of bear spray in the back of my head. It's really starting to make me uncomfortable. So they tried to clean it up the best they could. All my wounds that were packed had absorbed, all of the gauze had absorbed too much blood.

So they had to actually repack everything there. So we sat there for, I would say, almost an hour. Yeah. Wow, they repacked everything. And then we drove, we get to the trauma bay and it was just like they i i went through the front door and it was just all of a sudden there's he made a lot of friends really fast a lot of people working on me touching me putting another iv in um just assessing everything the surgeon came in told me his plan Chloe shows up they let Chloe

stay in there the whole time before the surgery basically just making sure I didn't have anything to eat within a certain time frame and yeah they just kind of started to go over what just assess and like write up a report on like where all my wounds were so they could go into surgery prepared the surgeon was like hey man we're stapling everything it's like if we do sutures we'll be here till the morning and i was like yeah dude just do what you got to do i don't care um so i had a total of 60 staples uh nine sites that needed stapling. Um, and they just did like a deep clean of all the wounds, secondary or infections of obviously a big concern for grizzly bears or any animal bite for that matter.

But grizzly bears are notoriously dirty. Um, so yeah, I, uh, got to call my best friend on the phone and tell him what happened. He was expecting like a honeymoon report and it was the honeymoon of horror so so the i forget what news station called it i think it was inside edition

they gave us like the best graphic that's amazing it was so funny and i knew we started laughing that was the first time I started laughing about the situation. Like, I knew I was okay. I'm not, like, I've had so much shit happen to me in the last four years that I'm just, like, if I just sit here and be mad about it or sad about it, it's not going to do me any good. So I just, we had a laugh. My buddy Murphy was just like, dude, like, stay out of the woods, dude. And I was like, absolutely not. That's where I feel most alive. And I'm still going to do it.

A lot of people are like, oh, I bet you won't go back to Wyoming. I'm like, we might move there. It's not true. Our friends have been amazing at keeping our spirits up, like teasing him and being like, you know, there's easier ways to get attention rather than getting hoisted out by helicopter. Do you feel you'd be any more jumpy?

What do you mean? Being in bear country. Oh, absolutely. Do you picture laying off on real grizzly hotspots? I don't know. I mean, I don't think we'll be back for at least two years anyway yeah uh so let's just say i mean outside of that let's just say i said to you man let's go check out a spot where there's always a lot of grizzlies hanging around depends am i gonna be like in a vehicle or am i gonna be on the ground walking i i don't know i have three yeah in groups of three you're gonna bring spray yeah um

i think i'd go you do yeah i mean still pretty fresh it's still really fresh you know it's only been three weeks right i mean we i listened to the otter podcast and like those women came on after nine months so they had a lot of time to process what happened and talk about it. It's very real to be here right now. Like it's, you know, people are like, you're already back out West. And I'm like, well, I had a pretty cool opportunity. I wasn't going to pass it up.

Um, huh. Yeah. So you feel like, yeah, no, you, I see what you're saying. Like the freshness of it, but you feel like down, you're comfortable with the idea that down the road you'd spend time in bear country. I think so. I, I, I've struggled with the idea of camping in bear country i think i would do what you do and bring electric fence um no done that one time oh just one time okay but just because it was a kodiak island yeah well a fog mac which is actually the same thing okay um i remember they're separated

by a narrow straight but yeah that's the only time i've used that stuff okay i'm not down on it just the only time i've um no good good buddy of mine uh drew an awesome uh tag in wyoming for elk this year and and like super dense grizz country and he's bringing an electric fence there despite having, an untold amount of hours and super dense grizz country in Montana and never bring an electric fence. Yeah. So it's like, you know, there's no one way.

Yeah. And, and you don't, just because you've done it one way forever, it doesn't mean you can change. You don't have to change. What it would afford you is, is at least you'd be able to sleep at night. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. All day you're, you know, you're still doing what you're doing but at night if it's anything that helps you get a little bit of sleep totally yeah hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love and on x are available

for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial imagery 24k topo maps waypoints and tracking that's right you were always talking about uh we're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more.

As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. I want to get back to the bear. Did they identify it? Did they know it? They never came out with publicly whether or not they knew what bear it was, but I'm sure they do.

Yeah, they keep pretty good track. Yeah, I've talked to some people. It could be a bear they haven't. It totally could be. I know bear 399 is a hot topic of the situation. The photographer's bear. Yeah, the most habituated bear ever.

Right, but she's actually attacked two people. So, I mean, it's not far-fetched. She does have a single cub right now. We were told she was not in the location at the time and she's got an alibi we're also told that like she was like six miles away yeah we've been we've been told a lot of things about our situation very far but even if it was her I don't care like it was a bear I mean as far as it was acting naturally,

so it doesn't really matter to me. It's not like this bear seeked me out and was like, I'm going to kill you, motherfucker, for being in my area. She had a very real reason to not want me to be alive. Well, yeah, just like you said, you're in a place with a lot of human traffic. Right. And you peeled off away from all that traffic into what sounds like a nasty blowdown area, unbeknownst to you.

Right. But it seems like a pretty secluded spot. Yeah, and you already got scratched anyway, so what's the difference if they killed a bear and owl? Right. It wouldn't do you any good. Was there, do you know if there was elk around in there calving? I did find elk droppings, but I did not see any elk. Yeah, so that's kind of the bulk of it.

I mean, a lot of people don't know that those army cadences that you guys sing sound a lot like a bawling calf elk to Brody's point. Really? Yeah. Oh. No. Come get me bear eye. Blind in one ear. In the future,

would you, um, stick with spray, pepper spray? Absolutely. Um, I mean, like I said earlier,

I always do. You've had a lot of training with pistols. Uh, not, not necessarily pistols. pistols are. military, they don't teach you a lot about shooting pistols necessarily? I mean, so we, you get familiarized with it.

But pistols are mostly reserved for infantry, military police, special forces, officers. So your commanding officer will be assigned a pistol, not a rifle. I'm, as being like mostly operating vehicles, I'm just assigned a rifle. As being mostly operating vehicles,

I'm just assigned a rifle. Or a machine gun. It depends. Usually we don't give mechanics machine guns because they're the ones getting down, dropping driveshafts and stuff like that. So it'd be silly to give them a machine gun when that's your most casualty producing weapon of the squad. So it doesn't make sense.

Explain that to me. Most casualty producing weapon weapon so that's the weapon that's going to lay down the most lead oh i thought it meant the highest probability of getting that no sorry that would make sense yeah sorry oh yeah they don't want yeah you're supposed to be doing your job not their job right i got you yeah but you said a handgun would have done you know probably in my specific situation absolutely like maybe if i went for the gun first shot and that scared it but me getting an accurate shot on it that wasn't i would just piss the bear off even more like yeah if you couldn't even hit the i mean yeah think about the spray you don't need to aim it that good i'm i'm not i'm like i think three

seconds is generous like how fast it happened if you didn't hit that if you didn't have time to hit that button on that spray and you knew to go for it you didn't have time to hit that button on that spray and you knew to go for it, you didn't have time to aim a gun. That's what I try to tell people in the comments. If I see a comment worth commenting, I know. The otter.

Everyone in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming is by birth a bear expert. I will tell you, Wyoming is by birth a bear expert. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I will tell you, I got, uh, this would be like a checking you out charge, not a charge. That was on this show, right? Well, no, not that one, but, uh. Who was with you?

That was me. Oh, okay. We were on the BC one. Yeah, we had, yeah. But then there was Alaska. We had a little bit. He had another, he had a run in long ago too. Uh, but I was, I was actually working on a grizzly bear DNA project.

But super early in the morning, had two dogs with me coming across the base of this hill. Look up on the hillside, giant grizzly bear, biggest, biggest grizz I've personally seen in Montana. And it instantaneously turned and it was probably 200 yards away and drop down like full charge and hit the brakes at probably like 50 yards and this was like a pretty good amount of distance the entire time man and it just hauled ass right and i've thought about that a lot and i was like the only way i would have shot that bear is if i would have left my camp that morning with the the idea that i am gonna kill a bear today yeah so be ready let's go like an arcade game. Yeah, exactly. You're just having the mindset of like, I am,

I'm going to kill a bear today. So just be ready. I'm going to kill a bear. Yeah. Right. Which is just not the situation. I mean, they can run 35 miles an hour,

30 yards takes a second and a half. Yeah. Like it's just, they're fast. So yeah, I mean, now shit your pants or not you didn't shit i did not i'm very very proud of that um that was one of the first things my buddy murph asked me he's like so you shit your pants and i was like no he's like no you must not

be that bad then but i also think man if you got time to shit your pants or piss yourself it's not really happening. Did you piss yourself? No. No. I was pretty dehydrated anyway, but no. Man. That's amazing.

So you've got a surgery coming up? Yeah. Yeah. So my, after I was getting discharged, so I was only in the hospital for one night. Which is amazing. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. It was kind of a mind fuck for us. But they were basically like, you're not getting any more antibiotics, only oral.

You can stay here, but it's going to cost like five grand a night. I'm like, yeah, let's go get a hotel. Because we had to stay in the area because the Rangers had all my stuff, my cell phone, my camera, all my backpack stuff. The can. Yeah, they have the can still. Damn can. In this situation, do you get any sort of military medical assistance? VA help at all?

Yeah, the VA is definitely going to be a big help. So you still get VA coverage if you get hurt outside of that? Yeah, because I'm a disabled veteran, so I have a high enough percentage to get free health care. Okay. So the only thing, like, yeah. They're going to cover everything. The ambulance, the hospital, surgery, PT.

They'll cover everything. They're covering that can. Maybe. We'll look into that. I'll text Justin. I shouldn't have said this. I'll cover everything. They're covering that can. They'll look into that. I'll text Justin. You said earlier you said she had broken your shoulder.

That's what they're working on now. So they just kind of left it as is? Yeah. So when I was getting discharged, the nurses were kind of putting band-aids on me and stuff. Chloe helped them so she had an idea because bless her soul she's the one that has

been and now I have you know I can move my arm a lot but you know the first week I couldn't even button my pants like sitting down to take a shit like the toilet seats right on one of my wounds so uncomfortable to do anything so did you two drive all the way home too?

Yeah. Oh, man. Oh, yeah. We had to finish out the honeymoon in style. Yeah, I think. If we didn't, we're just going to be very upset. When you turn that van in, how was everything? Oh, man.

Yeah, the windshield got cracked by a rock from a car. So that's been a fiasco to deal with. You just can't win. No, dude. So they were dressing my wounds for me to be discharged. And they were like... They just noticed this deformity in his shoulder, this little knob. Yeah, they knew my shoulder was messed up.

I told them I was in a lot of pain there. The nurse was like, does that always look like that? And I'm like, no, I like looked over. I was like, Oh, what?

I can see it right now. Yeah. Um, what? Yeah. What? Yeah. There's literally a knob there.

Knob right here. Oh yeah. Look at that. Sorry. Was that like that before? So they, uh, she was like,

Oh, this looks like a protruding knob on your shoulder they thought it was just a dislocation they're like that should reset let me talk to ortho and see if he'll come in and look at it and he's like yeah it looks like ac separation just follow up with your ortho back home and i'm like oh god didn't they give you like x-rays and stuff no i know be like gang we're already here yeah it's kind of crazy paying for it that's it's kind of crazy. The VA's paying for it. That's kind of crazy. I try not to dwell on that. No one's answering your shoulder. I guess I feel, my sense

is that emergency medicine's trying to move away from just nuking everyone with radiation, like CT scans right off the bat. One of my friends has had so many emergency room visits in the last year that she's surprised that she's not glowing in the dark from all the radiation.

So I could appreciate that. But at the same time, we got home and I just felt so bad that we took two weeks driving home. And this man has a broken shoulder. And we're just like, yeah, you're fine. You guys didn't rock and roll home. No. It took two weeks. We had to change our itinerary and everything. fine. You guys didn't like rock and roll home. No. It took two weeks.

We didn't, like we had to change our itinerary and everything. Well, plus just how was like crawling into your makeshift dirt bag Oh no, we rented, we stayed in hotels and stayed at friends'

houses along the way. Yeah, so basically we just wanted to like stay with the friends that we were already planning on seeing and just to give him kind of some time

to recuperate. He had to tell that story a thousand times. Anytime he went to anybody's house. How's it been going? Been talking about it quite a bit, which is fine. I think for me, that's therapeutic in a way. Yeah.

Yeah. Keeps the story alive, I guess, in my head. The first thing I did when I got my phone is I wrote that post before I even thought about posting it but I just wanted to have all that information down um while it was still fresh

how long uh how long was it before the phone started ringing from like nah as soon as I made that post I would say I for the first week I would say I, for the first week I was getting 50 to 70 phone calls a day. Um, gee,

uh, my inbox on Instagram was just crazy. That's why I didn't see Corinne's message right away. Giannis ended up messaging me and I follow him. So it went straight to my inbox. Um, yeah, it's,

the media has been crazy. Uh, the media is really like so essentially like they really kind of kept her out of it and made her seem like a damsel in distress and i was like no like she helped save my life she was a very she contributed a ton to it um and then the the other extreme they would go the opposite way. They were like, Chloe, paramedic, rushes into action. I'm clearly not a paramedic.

I was put in my place that day. Some places were like, Shane Burke, combat-hardened veteran, disabled veteran, fights off grizzly. I'm like, dude. Very modest about my combat time. It was very minimal. Most of the time, anything that happened to me in Iraq was just the insurgents basically just trying to annoy us.

So combat, I wouldn't even say combat, just sitting, you know, a lot of times it's just indirect fire or just randomly shooting at our trucks when we drive by and some IEDs and stuff. But it was never like I wasn't running and gunning, kicking doors and looking for saddam myself yeah just getting randomly shot at and blown up is fine that's fine that's normal from where i'm sitting so yeah um so yeah it's and then what really really pissed

me off there's this youtube video that he he got all of his facts within less than 24 hours of the bear attack So I made one of those dumb videos. Yeah, and it is those like bad. It's bad. Yeah, it's super bad it has a disclaimer that says please respect the victim and Their family and we're literally in the comments like none of this is accurate, please. And then you would just delete the comment right away. Get your facts straight. So that sucked. And I've had some hate mail. People have been like, oh, you should have died up there. Because of what?

Because they're just, I don't know. Now, what's the criticism? So a lot of people, not a lot of people. I would say it's been overwhelmingly supportive. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely overwhelming. Jackson in particular, big shout out to Jackson. I can't even think Jackson as a whole Enough for the the care the like we hospitality was through the roof

So but there are some people 399s fan group We're telling like trying to tell people that spread rumors that we were out there over a carcass trying to harass bears. Yeah. Three days prior to the attack. Yeah. We had only been in Tetons for a couple hours. And not the type of harassment where you just parallel them on the interstate all freaking day long with telephoto lenses.

Not that harassment. Not at all. People on that Bears fan page. I had a few messages like, oh, you're no hero. And I was like, I never said I was a hero. I was like, self-preservation doesn't make you a hero. You just did a plank in a bear's mouth.

Right, right. I just survived something that was really traumatic. What was the thing? What about sitting on a carcass what did they say um so this woman messaged me and she was like you uh she's like you know you're not a hero the the people in jackson are you know just so you know they're saying that you did this and no one believes your story and i'm like okay like i i was super respectful i have you know and then there's just other people that were like um who in their right mind would go stand next to an elk carcass yeah i don't i don't know man yeah one of the best arguments for grizzly bear recovery

is that you get enough of them that none of them have a name. Yeah. Yeah. It's like... Or even a number. Yeah. The whole idea of like fandom around individual animals. Oh my God, man. Yeah. I mean, it is what it is. And I don't...

It doesn't bother me because at the end of the day, when these people are setting this stuff to me, I'm just like, all right, someone's parents didn't love them and it shows. My favorite misconception was just be honest. It wasn't a bear. Tell us what it was. Yeah.

I don't know if that's what they're trying to go with or if they're like, you did this to yourself somehow. I don't know. I think with your history of baiting bucks into wedges. Oh, if anybody can orchestrate a bear attack, it's you.

It's the old deer guy. It's the crack buck guy. Damn, what an adventure. You glad it happened or bummed that it happened? You know, I'm a little bummed. I like being under the radar

so like my instagram following went from like 2 000 people to over 12 000 uh there's waiting for what's next yeah that's that's a little something i'm not used to i guess um i'm thankful for some opportunities that did come out of it but and, and I'm just thankful to be alive. And I hope that if anything, like people just learn from this experience the best they can, and maybe it'll prevent one other one. Cause it is, I know like when,

so I, the Otter podcast was like one of the ones I listened to on the way here. So it's really in my, my mind. But you mentioned that you kind of want to have like a soft encounter with a grizzly. Yeah. It's a little touch. You got a little worn out? I don't know.

Nah, I don't want that much. Maybe the softest an attack could be. I want it to come up and it's going to be like, listen, I'm going to scratch you right in the chest. Let me know when you're ready. Okay, do it. I'm ready. This is a very mild attack, all things considered. A little too heavy duty for me. Okay, do it. I'm ready. This is a very mild attack, all things considered.

A little too heavy duty for me. Yeah, it sucks. My tissue in my legs is like really tight right now. So it's like not hard to walk, but I feel it. I feel like when I kneel down, I'm stretching it. It feels really bizarre. And the shoulders is a really big setback because that's going to hurt my climbing. I don't know if I'll be able to hunt this year.

I might try to apply for a temporary crossbow license, but then I've got to buy a crossbow. So it's kind of like, I might just sit this year out. No, no. We can figure out a crossbow for you.

We can help you out. There's plenty of cliffs that you can lure. Bait more. Got a good boulder set up. Yeah, it'd be cool. He's jamming apples down his neck. Now we play the waiting game. Yeah, that would be cool if I could get

a temporary crossbow license because then I could hunt. That'd be sweet because I've put actually a lot of time in one of these zones. I'm pretty sure they'll give you one. Oh, come on. You'll figure it out. We'll make some calls and find you across the bowl.

That'd be cool. But I gotta say, I was not certain what you'd look like when you walked in here today. you thought you'd look a little more beat up. Yeah, privately I thought maybe I won't be the worst looking guy at the podcast table. But, like, I mean, if a guy saw you on the street unless they knew what they're looking for like i'm just shocked that it was three weeks ago yeah because

some of those photos are pretty overwhelming yeah i i don't i've i've always bounced back pretty quick um and and all these injuries I had yeah dude you're a survivor man yeah um every like the the eye injury you know I was like I'm I gotta deploy to Poland like I want to go like uh you gotta you gotta fix me doc and she's like this is like a year-long situation I they fixed me up uh in six weeks she was like there's no she's like everything has to go exactly right for you to go to Poland. She said better than perfect. Yeah.

So at the post-op appointment, I was like, how does it feel to be better than perfect? Wow. The brain surgery, I bounced back really fast. I was, like I said, two months after I was hunting, you know, by myself. I get these ingrown toenails. Yeah. Those suck though, man. Those suck. I've got one. I see your, I see your. Youown toenails. Yeah. Those suck though, man.

I see you're off your wrist brace there. Oh, I also get a lot of slight carpal tunnel. Oh man. A lot of slight carpal tunnel. I'm feeling you. Send you a sympathy card. I'm feeling you. No, yeah. You've been through hell.

Yeah. I hope to, I don't know. I don't know if i want you to keep it up yeah or if i want you to chill out no i um you need like a little good luck streak now i do i do you guys gonna take a second chance at a honeymoon you feel sick you feel like you got it taken care of um so next summer we'll be back in Montana. Um, a company or organization rather called, uh, operation second chance reached out to me. Um, and it's basically like disabled veterans or purple heart recipient,

um, retreat. So a couple's retreat. So we, Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So they reached out and they're like,

Hey man, like, uh, actually this wonderful wildlife photographer out of montana named colleen she i think she i want to say she's the first person i responded to on instagram she's been super super sweet this whole time she like uh she's like if you ever want to come back i'll show you where there's great gray owls you can photograph she sent me a care package she got me hooked up with a second chance organization.

Your photographer's sticking together. Yeah. Total sweetheart. She's been awesome. So, yeah. I think that's the plan. That's some stuff to look forward to. Yeah, I think that'll be the time.

Unfortunately, like working for the government, time off is, like I have generous time off. However, like this is going to set me back so far that i gotta like tiptoe around what we're gonna get for time what i'll have for time off yeah that's working for the army i know some guys work for the government they got nothing but time off yeah um so i i like i said it can be generous but because i'm at zero right now essentially um after the surgery. I'll have to accrue some time off, but we'll see.

By the time we get there, I'll have a couple weeks stashed up. Get a job at the ARS, dude. Yeah. Non-stop time off. That'd be nice. Yeah. All right, man.

Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having us. Big fans. So, yeah. Really, really happy to be here. Stay safe out there. Thank you. Don't forget your bear spray.

Never again. Yeah. Thanks for sharing. My pleasure. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this.

OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K

topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet.