Tennessee couple who went missing in Alaska says they ‘didn’t sleep and encountered bears’ while in wilderness

A Tennessee couple who went missing in the Alaska wildness for eight days recalled their tortuous ordeal as they ran out of food quickly, didn’t sleep and encountered bears. 

Jonas Bare, 50, and Cynthia Hovsepian, 37, explained how their ordeal unfolded while attempting to take a brief three-hour hike on August 10 during a birthday trip in Fairbanks, Alaska.

“By simple bad choices, a three-hour hike led to an eight-day survival,” Bare told Alaskan radio station KUAC. “We made camp over the eight days [in] four different places to reassess what we were going to do.”

The man also recalled how the couple met some furry friends in the wilderness, which kept them up at night.

“We ran across a couple bears. Nothing that was really scary for us, but we were very vigilant about our surroundings all through the night,” he said. “You can’t sleep, you have to keep a fire going, you just take little breaks here and there and you just keep pushing.”

The Nashville couple was doused in rain many times throughout their journey, they told the radio show.

They ran out of snacks by Aug. 12 — just two days into their disappearance.

Bare and Hovsepian were reportedly following a “loop trail” when they got disoriented and ended up in a burn area.

The couple, who believed they were no more than six miles away from the resort at all times, had no way of contacting authorities for help as neither brought their cell phones with them for the hike.

“You can’t tell between the burn marks and the actual trail,” Bare told the local outlet. “Giant pillows that as soon as you took a step in you had to take all the energy just to pull your foot up again, it was just exhausting.”

While stranded, Bare said they did spot a rescue plane, but was unable to flag it down.

“They were just miles away in another range,” Bare said. “There was no way we could ever get to them.”

Bare said he and his girlfriend tried to create a “smog fire” to get the pilot’s attention, but “nothing seemed to work.”

By Aug. 17 — seven days into their disappearance — Bare said they began to worry they wouldn’t make it out alive.

“We knew if we didn’t get out of there on our own accord, we were dead,” he told KUAC.

The next day, Bare began hiking north, leaving Hovsepian — who is visually impaired and sometimes uses a cane to walk around — behind, saying he’d be back in five hours.

Bare eventually made his way back to the trail, where he encountered two hikers and eventually made it back to the hot springs.

When he made it back to civilization, he was reunited with his father, who had flown in from Ohio to help search, who said he “didn’t even recognize me.”

First photos of Bare after his reappearance showed him wearing an ironic t-shirt saying “Dude, I’m right here” and his face covered in dirt.

“He’s in shock and I’m in shock,” Bare laughed.

After that, he and a rescue team went back out to get Hovsepian and the pair were treated for hypothermia.