Our task was simply to change some batteries.

But the batteries were in a radio collar worn by a male black bear in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. Wes Larson, a wildlife biologist at Brigham Young University who was figuring out how to reduce human-bear conflicts near backcountry campsites, had invited me along for a “little adventure”: We would tranquilize the bear while he was hibernating.

On a cold and clear day in February, Wes, his brother Jeff, his assistant Jordan, and I were following the GPS coordinates from the bear’s collar up a steep and into a red earth canyon covered in high desert brush and freshly fallen snow. The signal led us up the face of a