Mountaineer Greg Boswell prises apart bear’s jaws to flee animal that had clamped its teeth round his foot before torchlit descent off mountain

Two British mountaineers have described their terror as they were forced tofight off a grizzly bear that mauled one of them as they were climbing in the Canadian Rockies.

Greg Boswell, 24, a professional climber from Fife, Scotland, managed to prise the bear’s jaws off his right leg before he and climbing partner Nick Bullock fled into woods during the attack, which happened on Sunday night local time.



In their panic, the pair got lost on Mount Wilson, Alberta, before finally finding their route. After a three-hour descent by torchlight that included abseiling down sheer cliffs, they drove two hours to hospital in Banff where Boswell, who was bleeding badly, was treated for five large puncture wounds.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The injury to Greg’s leg. Photograph: nickbullock-climber.co.uk

The two men described their ordeal in graphic detail on Facebook and on Bullock’s climbing blog as Boswell, regarded as one of the leading young climbers in Scotland, posted photographs of his injuries and of him toasting their narrow escape with the appropriately named local beer Grumpy Bear Honey Wheat.

In a Facebook post, shared by his father Peter, Boswell wrote: “Ok. Crazy news from Canada! I’m going to put it bluntly, but would just like everyone to know I’m ok, just a little shook up and sore!



“I got attacked by a grizzly bear last night and lived to tell the tale, and to make the 3 hours descent and 2 hour drive to the hospital. All stitched up now and on the mend.”

The climbers had been scaling an ascent called Dirty Love on the 3,261-metre (10,700ft) Mount Wilson in the Icefields Parkway, and were “bushwhacking through thick forest”, Bullock, who is from Llanberis, Gwynedd, north Wales, said on his blog.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Greg toasts his escape with a local Grumpy Bear beer. Photograph: gregbozza/Facebook

“Greg was behind. ‘Bear, aaaaaaargh.’ I spun to watch Greg sprint past me and in hot pursuit was a grizzly. The bear bounded, pulling and pushing the snow with powerful legs. The snow lapped its belly and didn’t appear to slow it,” Bullock wrote.



“Greg ran out of sight and the carnivorous freight train passed me, snorting and growling and bounding, dusting me with spindrift – it looked at me for a second, and for a second I thought this is it, this is really fucking it, but in that second the bear had spotted Greg had fallen.”



Bullock said he ran uphill as fast as he could while Boswell, who had fallen on his back, watched “the monster closing in”. As Boswell screamed and shouted and kicked at the bear, “it bit straight through his brand new boot as if it were a carpet slipper”, Bullock said.



“It lunged once more and crunched into his shin, placing a paw on his other leg before lifting him off the ground.”



He added that Boswell “grabbed the bear’s mouth and prised apart the jaws, pushing and screaming ...‘Nick, Nick, help, it’s got me’”.



Bullock said he stopped running, and returned to try to help his friend. “I took steps forward and out of the dark a shape ran at me,” he said. “I screamed, the skin at the back of my throat tore. But the shape was Greg, screaming and running and shouting. I looked into his ashen face and saw something I had never seen.”



The two tripped and tore and crawled through the dark woods, all the time waiting for the bear to ambush them. They took turns to keep watch, shining headlamps, while they quickly packed up their climbing gear, then “sweating, swearing and shouting and banging axes together”, they followed what they thought was their trail.

It turned out they were following the wrong track. “We had to retrace. We had to head back towards the bear,” Bullock wrote. One hour later, they spotted where they had gone wrong. They found the ropes they had placed earlier and managed to abseil down the rock band before wading through snow.



“In the distance, wolves howled. Following Greg’s bloody footprints, I wondered at what distance bears can smell blood,” Bullock wrote. Three abseils later and 30 minutes of wading along their tracks, they finally reached the road.

Boswell’s photographer father, Peter, said his son rang him immediately he got down from the mountain and as he was being driven to hospital. “He said: ‘Not to worry you too much’, which makes you immediately worry, and then said he had been attacked by a bear ... He said he did not dare look at his leg to see the extent of the damage.”

His father added: “He said he had, foolhardy or not, actually stuck his hand in the bear’s mouth to try and pull it off. The bear ripped the thumb off his glove the teeth were that sharp.



“He said the bear let go of his leg and was stood over him. Greg said he thought “’If he goes for it now, I’ve had it’. He was staring straight in the bear’s face. He thinks because he had his head torch on, and it was very bright, as he moved his head and the beam moved across the bear’s eyes, it must have startled it.

“It took them three hours to get down, and they could hear the wolves and everything howling because they were making so much noise themselves.



“It is a very very rare occurrence, and it’s even rarer the fact that someone survives when it does happen. He has been very fortunate. He is badly shaken, but it has not put him off climbing.



“He said when he was at the hospital, and he was there for nearly 12 hours, he kept nodding off, and then he would awake with a start because he just kept seeing the image of the bear in his dreams.”



He said his son would be flying home as soon as he was given clearance from the hospital. “We are just very relieved parents,” he said of himself and his wife, Tina.



As Boswell recovered, he wrote on Facebook that the incident was as terrifying for Bullock as it was for him. “I literally owe my life to Nick,” he said. “I was in shock after the incident and didn’t know what to do. Nick got me off there and drove me to hospital.”

He added: “I would probably have died of hypothermia or blood loss if he hadn’t kept me going. My stupid idea was to climb a tree and wait until daylight. Twelve hours in -20C and with some serious bleeding to my lower leg is not the best way to spend the night. I can’t thank Nick enough, even though I know I don’t have to. Cheers bro!”

