25-Year-Old 'Made One Mistake' When She Went Camping. Then Authorities Found What Grizzly Bear Left Behind (Exclusive)

• A new book by Lamar Underwood chronicles more than a dozen worst-case scenarios when humans crossed paths with grizzlies and other bears

• "The one thing victims have in common is being in the wrong place at the wrong time," the longtime wilderness writer says

• Among the stories in Incredible Bear Attacks is what happened to Swiss tourist Brigitta Fredenhagen

After spending decades writing about the outdoors, 88-year-old Lamar Underwood, former editor in chief of Sports Afield and Outdoor Life magazines, predicts that it’s just a matter of time — days or weeks — until another hiker somewhere in the U.S. is attacked by a grizzly bear.

“Just wait,” says Underwood, “it won’t be long now."

"This is when they begin coming out of hibernation, trying to get some food," he explains, "and somebody traveling in grizzly country — maybe in Glacier National Park, Yellowstone or somewhere in Alaska — is going to walk into trouble.”

Underwood recently released his latest book, Incredible Bear Attacks: Terrifying Tales of Savage Encounters between Bears and People, which chronicles more than a dozen previous worst-case scenarios when humans crossed paths with grizzlies, black bears, brown bears and Kodiak bears in the wilderness.

“Everything you hear about grizzly bears is true,” says Underwood, who has authored nearly 20 books on the outdoors.

“They are one of the most dangerous animals on the planet, the ultimate predator," he says, "weighing up to 800 pounds, standing six and a half feet tall and incredibly strong.”

Each year, beginning in spring when grizzlies awake from months spent hibernating, between 30 to 40 people — in Alaska, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, a small portion of Washington and British Columbia — are attacked, and two to three people are killed, after coming into contact with these animals.

However, the majority of bear encounters pass without incident — and most attacks occur when those in the backcountry stumble upon a grizzly by accident.

“The one thing victims have in common is being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Underwood says. “One of the keys to staying safe is to make plenty of noise and never travel through grizzly country alone. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the bear will run away as fast as it can go."

"But," he adds, "when it doesn’t run away that’s when trouble happens.”

One of the “worst attacks” that Underwood has come across in his decades spent covering the outdoors — and included in his new book — involves an incident in July 1984 when a 25-year-old Swiss tourist named Brigitta Fredenhagen traveled to Yellowstone National Park to hike and camp in the pristine wilderness.

“She only made one mistake,” Underwood says. “She went alone.”

Fredenhagen was an experienced hiker. Hours before she died, she retired to her tent after cooking dinner, removing all her food from her campsite and hoisting it up in a tree.

After she was reported missing the next day, rangers arrived at her camp to discover pieces of her body scattered about the area near where a grizzly had apparently pulled her out of what remained of her tent.

“It was gruesome,” says Underwood. “Bears kill through a combination of physical blows with their claws and chomping at you with their teeth. They will absolutely rip you apart.”

A seasoned outdoorsman himself, Underwood confesses that the only time he ever felt in “grave danger” during all of his wilderness adventures came during a fishing trip on an Alaskan river in the 1980s.

Moments after arriving at their designated spot near a bend in the river, both his guide and fishing partner wandered upstream, leaving Underwood momentarily alone.

“They were only out of sight for just a minute or two when I began hearing sounds coming from the alder bushes along the river," recalls Underwood, who instinctively took off running to join his shotgun-toting guide.

"I knew exactly what it was and it was so close that I could smell the scent of moist, wet fur ... That could have been my own tragic bear story — but I guess it wasn’t my time.”

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