I have bumped a few grizz before, I always figure if I stay calm they stay calm, I escalate the situation they escalate.
Every encounter is a little different and hindsight is 20/20 especially behind a keyboard when you weren’t there. With that said since you asked…
Personally I wouldn’t have done the bear banger if it wasn’t reacting to you. Its kind of like your sitting in your house and a buddy comes over and yells right behind you when you didn’t know he came over, sometimes you will just jump and go into flight mode, sometimes you will turn swinging. Don’t want the bear to do the later.
Also with a bear banger that close if they don’t know where it came from they can run towards you as well thinking it came from the other direction.
Turning and running away up a hill, if you didn’t look where the bear went, it could have caught you in a few of your strides, they are scary fast when they want to be.
Better to keep your eyes on the bear, slowly back away, if it turns then talk in a calm as can be voice. Have the bear banger/spray in each hand ready to go if needed. That has always worked for me in the past, and some of my encounters have been much much closer then 30 meters.
But like I said easy to nit pick when behind a keyboard in my house…
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