When photographer Eric Elofson heard about a contest looking for photos of the world’s most manliest man, he knew exactly who to shoot.
That man was his younger brother Alex Elofson, a motorcycle mechanic in Olympia, Wash., and the only person he knows to have survived three close encounters with wild bears.
The first, and most memorable, encounter happened during an August 2004 during a hiking trip in Yellowstone National Park with the two brothers and a friend.
About half way through their 71 mile hiking expedition, Alex had fallen a few paces behind his brother after reaching Big Game Ridge. While fidgeting with his 30 pound backpack, Alex saw three figures charging toward his brother and friend.
“Kinda in a delirious state I thought, wow, wildlife, we hadn’t seen much lately,” said Alex, 26, in an interview with the Daily Dot. “Then a split second later I was like, oh no. This is bad.”
The figures were a mother bear and her two cubs.
The mother bear charged at Eric, swung, and missed, Eric wrote on Reddit. Then she turned her sights on Alex, who was standing by himself.
She charged at Alex, stopped a few feet in front of him, and stood up on her back legs.
As Alex and his brother tell the story, Alex got down in a karate position.
He placed his hands in front of him, ready to attack.
“They still make fun of me to this day,” Alex said. “It felt like forever that the bear was standing there, growling. I swear to God, her breath smelled like rancid meat.”
Their bear story continues: As the bear stared at Alex he realized that he had a can of bear mace attached to his hip. So in one swift motion he said he reached for the canister, shot the bear with the mace, and watched her fall to the ground. The bear eventually regained her composure and scampered off into the woods with her two cubs, he said.
They don’t have hard evidence, although in fairness it’s hard to grab a camera when being confronted by a bear.. But notoriously skeptical redditors (they shared their tale there) seems to believe them.
And from the looks of it, the guys did get to take some photos during their trip, including one of the brothers holding cans of bear mace.
Alex was temporarily blinded by the mace and had to be helped down the ridge by his brother and friend.
The men eventually ran into a father and son from New York who let them stay on their camp site, Alex said. The father also shared some food and whiskey with them.
About a month or so after their trip to Yellowstone, Alex was home in Seattle, near the university district, when he decided to step outside to catch some fresh air. Little did he know, sitting in the backyard was a black bear staring right at him..
“I just opened the door for a quick second and I was like, nope, nope, and closed the door,” Alex said.
Alex’s most recent bear encounter occured in July 2007, a few days before a friend’s wedding in Wisconsin. Before the celebration he and some friends decided to visit Yellowstone to camp and fish. While resting his rod in the water Alex spotted a brown bear jump in the water and swim toward him.
“I just dropped my pole and ran,” Alex said.
The next day, Alex received a call from his dad about a segment he saw on the news. Apparently, someone was mauled by a bear at the same campground he had been staying, he said.
“I don’t have good luck with nature,” Alex said. “I’m pretty sure they have something out for me.”
Between 1980 and 2002, more than 62 million people visited Yellowstone National Park, according to Yellowstone Outdoor Adventures, an education program.
During that same time, there have only been 32 bear attacks at the park, the program states.
And luckily, none of them have involved Alex or his brother.
So during the first week of August, Eric (who was visiting from Washington, D.C.) had his brother grow some facial hair, strip down, oil up, and channel his inner badass for The Art of Manliness Put Up Your Dukes Pose Contest.
“It was fun. We had a blast,” Alex said. “We had crowds and crowds of people watching me smoke my Calabash pipe. I enjoy doing weird things for a good laugh.”
The photo of Alex standing near a railroad track in the dark not only made people laugh, it won Eric the contest and collected hundreds of comments on Reddit late last week.
The post, appropriately titled “This is my little brother- he was once attacked by a bear,” gathered 568 comments and more than 4,000 upvotes.
“I think you have that sentence wrong,” wrote Thatsongbird, referencing the title of the post. “A bear was once attacked by him.”
“Do you happen to have any videos of him being oiled up for this picture?” wrote pretzacoatl.
“I have quite literally never seen a man with so much sex appeal,” wrote hotcars.
Eric and his brother have taken their new found fame in stride and hope that bears steer clear of them in the future.
“The attention from Reddit was crazy; some people recognized him from around town, some people recognized me from an AMA about the attack, but mostly people wanted to bang my brother,” Eric said. “Not sure how I feel about that yet. The ladies over at r/ladyboners were quite nice, though.”
Photos by Eric Elofson.
