JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — Apex Park will likely remain closed through the weekend after an aggressive bear encounter on one of the park's popular trails.
Denver7 brought you this story on Monday morning after a woman reached out saying she had been attacked and followed for more than 30 minutes by a black bear on the Enchanted Forest Trail the previous afternoon.
CPW said Friday it did not have any updates on the bear or investigation. Anybody who sees a black bear in the area is asked to call the Denver CPW office at 303-291-7227. The park will stay closed "indefinitely," CPW spokesperson Kara Van Hoose said Friday morning.
The woman told Denver7 that while hiking on Sunday, she felt a tug on her backpack and a paw or claw on her thigh. Initially, she thought a mountain lion was behind her, but when she turned around, she saw the bear. Relying on her previous experience with bears, she began yelling, throwing rocks at it and making herself look large and intimidating. Unlike previous encounters with bears, those tactics did not work this time and the bear continued to charge at her and follow her for more than half an hour as she tried to navigate to a more popular part of the park to seek help.
Denver7's Maggy Wolanske spoke with the woman who was attacked and followed on Monday, and shared some tips from experts on avoiding conflicts with bears. Watch her report in the video below.
Moving forward, she said she will hike and run with bear mace and a Garmin with a SOS function.
The park closed on June 22 and has not reopened.
This marked the first reported bear attack in the state this year. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) said they categorized the incident as an attack, instead of just an encounter, because the bear had grabbed the woman's backpack and made contact with her leg.
Van Hoose explained on Monday that yelling at an unhabituated bear will usually scare them and they will run away
"But bears that are habituated — their drive for food kind of overtakes anything else that they might be feeling," she said. "So they're no longer that scared of humans because they know, 'Well, I'm just going to get food. And that's my main purpose right now, is to find food.'"
CPW is asking residents to ensure they do not provide unhealthy and unsafe food attractants for bears, especially after the past warm and dry winter.
"We're not definitively saying this happened because of weather or drought or lack of natural food. We can't say that for sure," she said. "So, we're preparing people that bear conflicts and bear sightings could be up this year, as we've seen in past drought years, because the natural food resources for bears were really depleted."
Below are CPW's general advice for bear encounters:
- Move slowly and casually, not directly at wildlife. Stay calm.
- Allow animals to keep you in view and do not surprise them.
- Avoid direct eye contact; watch from the corner of your eye. This is especially true if the animal is a predator. If you look away, then you may not know where it is going or doing
- Face the animal and back away slowly if you can do so safely.
- Don’t run or turn your back.
- Never climb a tree.
Looking for another place nearby to hike this weekend? Jefferson County Open Space and Parks had Mount Galbraith Park to the north and Matthews/Winters Park (which connects to Red Rocks) to the south. If you're seeking uphills like Apex Park, check out Mount Falcon Park or White Ranch Park from their east parking lots (get there early though; their smaller parking lots fill quickly on weekends) or Deer Creek Canyon Park farther south.
