The most tragic part about this story is not his death, he chose a lifestyle and stuck to it despite all the warnings, for me it's the fact he persuaded his girlfriend to camp with him in bear territory and ultimately got her mauled as well.
The brave part Brave I get that. Heroic, not so much.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wyoming-college-wrestlers-recount-...
It seems like they survived the initial attack by sticking their hands balls deep into the bear's mouth while it was attacking. They took compound bone fractures and one of them got a bicep nearly ripped off. Bear was persistent and attacked twice. Tried to bury one of them in the dirt (for the cubs) and left. They managed to escape with some very haggard injuries. Bottom line is I wouldn't go deep into grizzly territory unless I had a twelve gauge with 00 buck shot. Inland grizzly bears have dwindling fish stock and they hunt large game and they're wildly aggressive. Yellowstone had 62 instances of bears charging hikers in 2011 from what I saw.
But yeah, I'd want bear spray and a gun as plan b.