Buy Coghlan's Bear Bell with Magnetic Silencer

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Perhaps I am a rare person who can honestly say a bear bell may have saved my hide, but yesterday evening I'm fairly confident it did exactly that. I was hiking in the Angeles Nat'l Forest and had one of the blue bear bells with the magnetic silencer on my pack. Note that I was hiking alone on this trip.

As I turned to go into a lightly traveled canyon, I moved the magnetic silencer so the bell was doing its thing.

About a mile up the canyon, I rounded the end of thick canyon wall to enter another canyon and ran straight into the biggest ****ing bear I've ever seen in my life. Seriously. He heard the bell before he saw me, he was already running in the other direction by the instant we could make visual contact. Note that I was downwind of this huge dude. He galloped off about 50' and turned to look at me full-on. Ugh! This guy was a monster! A California "black" bear very brown with standard tan muzzle. As big as a small sofa and twice the height and width. Major crap.

Me? I held my arms up, looked 'big', and stepped backwards back around the corner carefully. Once I was around the corner again, I hit the trail home, checking behind me all the while.

I'm fairly confident that being downwind like I was and with the two of us meeting right at the end of a thick canyon wall, that without the noise of the bell we would have met almost face to face. NO THANK YOU.

After last night, I really don't care if the bell is ever useful like that again. I will always have one when I'm in the hills. It's a little thing, but I'm good with that.

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I got this for my wife almost as a joke but we did use it on a couple of long hikes in the Adirondack Mountains in New York State this summer. I guess it worked, because we were not harassed by any bears! In all seriousness though, bears would just assume stay clear of people, so the experts say that the best way to avoid an encounter is to let them know you are coming. This product certainly makes noise as you move around on a hike, and I believe that it is indeed effective. Be warned though, when you are half way up a high peak, and it's hot, and humid, and the black flies are biting, the incessant sound of Santa's sleigh maybe a little too much to bear (no pun intended). The magnetic silencer mostly works, but it's a little tricky. The metal ball inside the bell has to be right at the bottom of the bell for the magnet to immobilize it completely. Even then, it will break free once in while as you move around. The product performs exactly as well as I expected it to. I think it makes a charming little gift for the outdoors type person. For the price, it's worth it just for the fun of giving it to someone and having a good laugh.

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There are differing points of view about whether or not bear bells actually deter bears. As a woman camping alone, I got it to attach to the zipper of my tent if anyone tries to unzip it I'll hear it! The bell is plenty loud, and I like the nifty silencer.

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I recommend a bell for any one or any dog who lives in a black bear area, since I don't know anything about brown bears.

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put this on my 2 1/2 year old for a camping trip so I could extend his "range" a little and it worked well the magnet in the mesh cover to stop the ringing is very cool so the bell doesn't get too annoying