Grizzly bear kills guide just outside Yellowstone National Park

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48. I am hardly well acquainted with these situations.

But it sounds like was caught unawares.

The tragedy that pulled heartstrings and stoked emotions in Jackson Hole and well beyond stemmed from a raghorn bull elk that Chubon’s crossbow hit with a “poor shot” on a Thursday afternoon in mid-September. Uptain, an experienced guide for Martin Outfitters, was with his hunter on Terrace Mountain, a broad peak that’s 6 air miles from the Turpin Meadow trailhead. Uptain and Chubon couldn’t find the elk, but they returned the next afternoon to where it was hit and then found a large blood trail. They followed it into a patch of timber and around 1 p.m. discovered the undisturbed carcass.

It was a warm day — peaking at 73 degrees in nearby Moran — and while field dressing the elk Uptain removed his shirt and left it and his black nylon shoulder strap holding a Glock 10-millimeter handgun 5 or 10 yards uphill of the carcass. A canister of bear spray was slung from a hip holster on Uptain’s left side, but Chubon’s bear spray was left in his pack because it had “become cumbersome carrying it on the horse,” he told investigators.

Uptain was removing the bull’s head, with Chubon nearby, when they heard a sound of rocks tumbling, presaging the attack.

“Mr. Chubon stated he looked up and saw two grizzly bears running full speed directly toward them,” Game Warden Jon Stephens wrote after interviewing the surviving client.