Katmai National Park

Day 4 (afternoon), August 18, 2009

Katmai National Park

Ok, sorry for the long delay. I believe I left off with us flying to Katmai National Park (http://www.nps.gov/katm/index.htm), on the mainland across from Kodiak Island.

Katmai National Park is another ENORMOUS park in southwest Alaska on the coastline. It was originally created to protect the "Valley of 10,000 Smokes" a famous geologic anomaly, but is also famous for its brown (Grizzly)bears and other pristine wilderness and wildlife in an incredibly beautiful part of Alaska. For those of you who know about Timothy Treadwell, this is where the nut job got eaten by the bears. For those of you who don't know about it, you should rent the movie "Grizzly Man". Discovery Channel has created a series out of his home movies, but these move a bit slower than the movie/documentary. It's good and worth the time, even though I just gave away the ending.

You can click on the pictures if they're too small.

Closeup of Geographic Harbor

We flew northwest of Kodiak across the island, then across the Shelikof Strait, and then over the mainland coastline, which is rugged, gorgeous, and nearly uninhabited. Soon we flew into Geographic Harbor inside Katmai National Park, eventually landing near the head of the harbour at the mouth of the ? River. Josh dropped us off on the river delta, and we waited while he brought the plane out to deeper water - the tide goes out quickly here and would leave the plane stranded if he left it there. When he came back, w walked slowly and in a group to the spot where we would watch the bears. From out spot on the delta we could already see a lot of them. Anyway, we walked over near another group of people from another flight tour company on Kodiak, and a group of well-healed photographers who were there with the 3-foot long camera lenses as part of one of those small scientific cruises - the boat was moored offshore. I'd love to do one of those one day. Especially to Antarctica.

Anyway, I could spend a week describing everything about the bears, but I'll let the photos tell the story. I've set up a slide show below of all of our pictures and those from Ed and Jeanette. There are hundreds of pictures, and there are some really good ones. Here's a short description: This is one of the coolest thing most people would ever do. You're sitting quietly literally only a few feet from the bears. You're not on a ledge, there's no fence, no blind, - nothing. You're literally feet from the bears and they know you're there, and for the most part, don't care. As long as they don't think your a threat to them, either aggressively or in competition for food, they pretty much don't care that you're there. But, there is literally nothing keeping them from coming right over and slicing you in pieces with their giant claws like "Wolverine" from X-men (that's the only nerd-comic book reference you'll ever hear from me - I hate those movies), or biting through your head with 1 chomp. It is intimidating and exhilarating, all at the same time. Just one story: when we 1st got there, Josh's friend Joe told us that it is very unlikely that they'll get too close to us, but if they do, just stand up and clap your hands - they don't like that. Well, just minutes after getting there, there was one bear - the biggest - that was clearly the dominant male in the area and was bullying a smaller bear near us. This guy was huge and mean, and had the scars on his face to prove it. Well, the small one got too close, and "scar" roared and started chasing him - this all started only about 3 feet up stream from us. Well, the small one started running away from the big one, RIGHT TOWARDS US!, with the big one right behind him! Sarah got really nervous and quickly stood up and started clapping. I wasn't ready and just pointed my camera towards the action holding down the shutter button. (I was sure I got some great shots, but then realized the freakin' lens cap was still one - as I said - it was unexpected). The little bear ran right towards us and then veered off only a few feet away and ended up running between us and the other group of photographers only about 20 feet away. Fortunately the big one didn't follow (or I may have crapped my pants) - when Sarah and Joe stood up and clapped, the big one stopped and walked off. Anyway, it was one of the coolest things that's ever happened, to me anyway.

Here are some videos of the bears so that you can get a taste of what we experienced:

So, why are the bears here? They're feasting on the salmon runs. You can just watch, literally waves of salmon swimming up stream in this very shallow river, which is hardly more than a wide stream. It is amazing to watch these bears chase and catch the fish. They do a fair amount of chasing, but they catch plenty. While feeding they hardly go more than a minute or 2 between finishing one and catching another. The drive in these fish to swim upstream must be incredibly strong - obviously plenty survive this bear gauntlet, but to fight against a strong current, try not to get eaten by so many bears, eagles, Josh's dog Kody, and so many other things . . . It's just pretty remarkable. Enjoy the slide show:

As for the scenery - even if there were no bears, this would be an unbelievable place. This is truly one of the most beautiful spots I've ever been. You have a crystal-clear harbour teaming with wildlife, surrounded by steep, rugged terrain with a few high waterfalls in view. It is just an amazing place. Some more videos:

Bears with some scenery. Josh's plane and the tour boat are in the background. Those white patches on the mountain sides arevolcanic ash not snow.

We were there for quite a while, but when we had to leave it was still too soon. We walked slowly back toward the water's edge as Josh went to get the plane, and we loaded us and headed out. However, the adventure had only just begun. Before we left Kodiak one of the tourists with us asked Josh if we'd get to fly to other places in the park. Josh said it was possible, but rather unlikely as it was pretty windy today, and is always more so on the coastlines. However, once we took off after bear viewing and "testing the waters", it turned out the weather was nearly perfect. So, we flew along some gorgeous coastline in the park, over some incredible mountain peaks and active volcanoes, mountain ice fields and glaciers, and amazing tundras. This was like the flight of a lifetime and I'm sure most of these things are shrouded in clouds most of the year.

After flying around for a while, we landed in Hallo Lake, which is created by and located at the base of Hallo Glacier.

Some great video Sarah took as we approached the bottom of Hallo Glacier.

Flying over the very end of the glacier and the terminal morraine.

Landing in Hallo Lake

As you might imagine, it was quite chilly since we were litteraly only ~100 yards from the base of an enormous sheet of ice. This place was incredible too. I know that if I always use superlatives to describe everything, people are going to think I'm just exaggerating, but this really was an amazing place. No sign of humans anywhere. Just a gorgeous blue-green lake with ice bergs floating in it, a rocky shoreline with moose tracks, miles of tundra in every direction, and 1000-foot high cliffs nearby. Unbelievable. I just wanted to walk off into the bush and go exploring. There are just too many amazing photos from this leg of the trip, so I'm going to create another slide show rather than trying to pick out a few of the best.

Unfortunately, it was getting late and the sun was approaching the horizon, so we had to get going. Really too bad, but this had really been an amazing day.