Bear spray, matches, cell phones, fire extinguishers, guns. You are not "equipped" if you can't access them when needed.

I like Dean's posts on these topics.

"The two studies most commonly compared, the Efficacy of Bear Deterrent spray, and Efficacy of Firearms for Bear Deterrence in Alaska, both written by Tom S. Smith and Stephen Herrero, are significantly different. The incidents they cover are significantly different. The incidents were selected using different criteria.

The difficulties in making such comparisons can be reduced by only including incidents where bear spray was actually sprayed or the firearm was actually fired."