![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792026971_209_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nDave Bass was thinking about what he\u2019d do if he saw a brown bear as he ran up the new Indian Valley Trail on Sunday. He made sure his bear spray was within easy reach in the pocket of his running vest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was rehearsing, like, \u2018Okay, so I should not hesitate to get it out and get the safety off as quickly as possible,\u2019\u201d he recounted in an interview the next day.<\/p>\n
Bass spends a lot of time outdoors and he\u2019s seen plenty of brown bears. He\u2019s even been charged twice. But after Sunday\u2019s attack, he said he\u2019s rethinking just how he\u2019ll be playing in brown-bear country in the future.<\/p>\n
\u2018Thinking I was about to die\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bass said just after 12 p.m., he and his labradoodle Milli were less than half a mile from the trail\u2019s turnaround point.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came around the corner and there were two brown bears 50 feet away, and the sow charged me immediately,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The upper portion of the new Indian Valley Trail, near where Dave Bass was attacked by a brown bear on Oct. 11, 2026.<\/p>\n
Bass grabbed for his bear spray, but he couldn\u2019t get the safety off. He struggled with it. He\u2019s not sure why. Maybe it was his hands, cold in the snowy alpine.<\/p>\n
The bear closed the distance in a few seconds. Finally, the safety popped free.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was able to unload less than a second of bear spray, but super concentrated,\u201d he said. \u201cGot her right in the face.\u201d<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t remember much after that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt like something crashed into me,\u201d he said. \u201cI was thinking I was about to die, and I was experiencing a bunch of pain in my left wrist as she was biting it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He curled up in a ball, covering his head.<\/p>\n
He may not remember everything, but he knows what he was thinking: \u201cI’m about to understand what it feels like to die a terrifying death by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
But then, suddenly, the bear wasn\u2019t chewing on his arm. It wasn’t on top of him anymore. It was running off downhill. The other bear followed.<\/p>\n
Bass took stock of the situation: puncture wounds on his left wrist. Were his tendons intact? He wasn\u2019t sure. There were scratches on his back and his T-shirt was shredded. He felt bruised. He had bear spray in his eyes. His dog Milli was just down the trail.<\/p>\n
There was no cell signal, but Bass thought he was well enough to run the seven miles back to his car.<\/p>\n
Halfway down he managed to text his wife (who happens to be an editor at Alaska Public Media).<\/p>\n
\u201cI told her I got attacked by a brown bear and that I was okay \u2013 like fully okay \u2013 and that didn’t make a lot of sense to her, so she had a lot of questions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
She was worried, and confused, but she said the fact that he included a brown bear emoji in the text message helped her believe he really was okay.<\/p>\n
Back on the trail<\/p>\n
Less than 24 hours after the attack, Bass was antsy to get back outside. His tendons were fine, his wrist was bandaged, he had antibiotics. It was sunny, and the trails were only a quarter mile from his house. He buckled his bear spray on his hip and grabbed his labradoodle\u2019s leash.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on Milli, you\u2019re going too!\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Dave](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792026972_103_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
James Daggett<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
Alaska Public Media<\/p>\n
Dave Bass walks along an east Anchorage trail with his labradoodle Milli the day after he was attacked by a brown bear on the new Indian Valley Trail. October 12, 2026.<\/p>\n
He said he wants to make sure he doesn\u2019t brood. It\u2019s a kind of subtle exposure therapy to get back into the woods, like getting back onto the horse.<\/p>\n
Brown bears have injured at least five other people in the Anchorage area this year. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has reported attacks on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson<\/a>, on a trail above the Bear Valley neighborhood,<\/a>on the Dome Trail<\/a> and near the Prospect Heights <\/a>trailhead.<\/p>\n Bass said his experience rattled him. Surviving it has given him a new lease on life, but it may also change the way he thinks about risk.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m sure I’m still going to want to go into the mountains,\u201d he said. \u201cI’m a little less sure that I want to be deep in the mountains by myself, out of cell phone range.\u201d<\/p>\n But then he paused, squinting into the sun.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing by yourself is riskier,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if I were to remove all the fun adventures I’ve had by myself over 21 years in Alaska, that would be really sad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dave Bass was thinking about what he\u2019d do if he saw a brown bear as he ran up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-882624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}