Katmai National Park - Episode 2

Welcome back everybody. The bears and I are waiting to show you more pictures of Katmai National Park. We also want to tell you about our exciting (unplanned) adventure when we tried to fly back to Homer, Alaska. OK, lets get started.

This is our group taking a little rest during our day at Katmai. Actually the bears were only a few feet away. The guy in the back with the grey cap is Mike, our pilot/guide. When we were watching the bears Mike made us kneel or sit in a small group. That way we look less threatening to the bears. This is especially important to a huge female with a couple of small cubs.

Here’s mom watching over her 2 cubs again. Bears are extremely attentive mothers. I just couldn’t get enough of this bear. She was incredibly tolerant of humans.

Wow ma, what's that??? The mom and cubs were busy eating when they all suddenly got up and turned around. Then the mother sat down like this. There was a big male bear coming. Mike said this sitting position was a submissive sign that she was no threat to the male.

This is the big male. (I sat down and got submissive too…)

Kathy took this nice scenic with a low camera angle. It gives you another view of Katmai.

How about a few more pictures of the cubs playing??

These fuzzy little rascals were so cute.

Check out the little milk teeth on the cub in the back. He looks like he’s about to give his brother a right hook.

You have to look at this picture real close. There are 2 huge bear tracks in the mud. I outlined one in black to make it easier to see. The white outline is a human footprint inside the bears track!! This gives you some idea of how big these animals are. And you thought I was kidding when I said that one bear was as big as a Ford Focus…

This big guy was sitting but it wasn’t submissive. I think he was taking a break from overeating.

Here’s another group of tourists watching “OUR” cubs. See the cubs on the left side of the frame?? These people weren’t nearly as close to the cubs as we got.

Have you ever seen an Army tank eat grass??.

The next photo is rated PG. If you have small children looking over your shoulder (Kelly) you might want to look at the photo before you let them see it. I don’t want to offend anyone.

Now, why would I show this?? I asked our guide how you can tell a male bear from a female bear. He said that female bears pee out the back and male bears pee forward, frequently peeing on their feet. Hmmm, this sounds like some guys I know. Obviously this is a female. Also, look at the fur on her butt. The dark patches are exposed skin where she shed fur.

When our time with the bears was over (3+ hours) we started walking back to the plane. For some reason this bear started walking parallel to us. He walked with us almost all the way back to the beach. The blue in the background is a stream we had to cross. He walked across the stream too (after he took a drink). Then he sat down and watched us walk away before he went back across the stream toward the other bears. I think he was our official park escort. I would have to say that I’ve never had a better escort, anywhere.

One last look at Katmai, bears, fog, mountains. Bye, I’ll be back.

Here’s a peek out the window as we took off. Notice how close we are to the drift wood.

You see those little red things on the ground below us? Those are tents. The park service set-up tents in Katmai for anyone brave enough to spend a night with the bears. The tents are surrounded by an electric fence. The fence is powered by a battery that’s charged by solar panels. I wonder what happens if the sun doesn’t come out for a few days and the battery goes dead?? They also provide bear-proof containers for food storage. Going to the bathroom must be fun. There are no outhouses there and you must have to leave the security of the electric fence to do your business. Could get interesting.

OK, one last look at the mountains of Katmai. What a day!! Now we just have to fly back to Homer to finish our 6 hour adventure.

Here’s where things get weird. Our flight back to Homer was supposed to take approximately 1 hour 15 minutes. As we flew back I was watching Mike’s GPS. He had loaded waypoints along the route so I was following our progress. The GPS also showed our airspeed, time to destination, etc. About 15 minutes before we got to our destination I felt the plane starting to descend. I looked down and the clouds were blocking my view of the ground. There was this one little hole in the clouds and it looked like Mike was heading for it. The plane is very noisy inside (he passed out earplugs before we left Homer) so I couldn’t ask any questions. As we got lower I could see the ground through the hole in the clouds and it didn’t look familiar. As we got even lower I saw more of the ground and I didn’t recognize anything that looked like Homer. Where the heck are we going?? When we approached the airport I knew it definitely wasn’t Homer. Was Mike holding us for ransom?? We landed at a little “unattended” airport. There was no one around but it was really getting foggy. When we finally taxied in and Mike shut off the engine we all asked “where are we Mike??”. Mike’s answer? (see below)

Seldovia!! Where the hell is Seldovia?? Oh no, we’re in Russia!! Russia is right next to Alaska, you know…

It turns out that our airport in Homer was socked-in with fog so we couldn’t land there. Another airport further up the coast in Kenai was also fogged-in so Mike diverted us here. Mike said he would buy us dinner and then, if the fog cleared, he would fly us to Homer. Great, a free meal!! You know how much an engineer likes free food.

We walked into town (very, very small town) and the only place with food that was open was this smoky bar. Imagine, it was Saturday night and only one place was open. So we walked in with all our gear and our clunky rubber boots (we left our shoes back in Homer). We got quite a few stares. I guess they don’t get too many visitors on Saturday night. Anyway, Mike bought us all pizza and drinks as we waited for the fog to clear. Well, things didn’t quite work according to plan. The fog got much worse so we couldn’t fly back to Homer. No problem, Mike can just call someone to come get us in a car, right? What do you mean there are no roads into Seldovia!!! We’re stuck here?? With no clean clothes, not even a toothbrush?? Time for Plan B. Mike is going to get us rooms for the night -- in beautiful downtown Seldovia. Oh goody, another Alaska adventure…

We went to the only hotel in town that was open. The outside doesn’t look like much, does it?? We went inside and I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. It looked like they had just remodeled the whole place. No kidding, it was spotless, freshly painted, new carpets. It was great. Hey wait, there is no one at the front desk. In fact, there is no one in the entire hotel!! Now I’m looking for Norman Bates. They had a phone number to call if you wanted a room. How novel, the hotel is unlocked and no one is there to keep a person from robbing the place blind. Do you think you would find this kind of place in Miami?? So Mike calls the inn keeper and they’ll “be down in a half hour or so”. Just make yourself at home. Hey look, a TV, let’s see what’s on. Snow, snow, snow… Dang, no TV signal in Seldovia. So we sat around, finally got checked in and picked-out rooms. They don’t assign rooms here. You just pick one. We got a nice room with a view of the main street in beautiful downtown Seldovia (population 284). Unfortunately the local watering hole (where we had pizza) was a few doors down and drunks kept walking by making noise. Mike told us he would check the weather the next morning and let us know when we would be leaving. Good night.

The next morning came and Mike didn’t wake us up. I hope he didn’t abandon us here. We looked outside and it was still foggy. Well, now Mike is going to buy us breakfast too. Wow, 2 free meals and a free night in Seldovia’s finest hotel. How can you beat that?? Sniff, sniff, something stinks, wait, that’s me, better take a shower. Yuck, no clean clothes or deodorant. Oh well, this is an Alaskan adventure.

The breakfast was great. Afterwards we had time to kill waiting for the fog to lift so we walked around town. This is a foggy view of Main St. in Seldovia. Nice quiet little place. Notice the dog in the lower right corner. He was walking around loose. This is very common in Alaska. People do not like to leash their dogs up here.

Seldovia is kind of an artsy town. They had a bunch of huge wood carvings down at the pier.

Here’s a little more Seldovia art. Pretty nice, isn’t it??

Here’s the local hardware, grocery, buy-anything store.

They also like to paint fire hydrants in Seldovia. They were having some sort of competition so all the hydrants were painted. I think this one is suppose to be a puffin.

This one is a dog. Cute.

If I read this sign correctly, I can take a shower on Monday, Wednesday, or Saturday from 2PM to 7PM but only if I call first. Now I know what I was smelling earlier this morning.

On 4th of July they have a big party in Seldovia. One of the main events is climbing a greased pole. I guess they left the pole up so this guy was showing-off for his girl friend. This is about as far as he made it.

Oh no, they locked me in the Seldovia jail. Notice the Gore-Tex jacket, heavy shirt, and clunky rubber boots. This is the middle of July and it’s in the upper 40s outside with light drizzle. Yucky!!

I couldn’t pass this one up. That’s me with my 350 lb. halibut, red suspenders, and my Eskimo bride, Kathy. You gotta love downtown Seldovia.

I like the carved wooden moose in front of this little shop.

I took this picture from a little bridge just outside Seldovia. You can see how foggy it is. The airstrip where our plane is parked is just behind me. We have to take off over this little river, fly between 2 hills that you can’t see because of the fog, make a turn to the right and climb out over Kachemak Bay. I sure hope Mike has X ray vision.

We walked to the airstrip, Mike did his preflight inspection, warmed up the engine and then we waited. About an hour later he saw a break in the fog so we jumped in, started the engine, taxied out and Mike snuck through a hole in the fog. What a piece of flying!!! Apparently this is pretty normal flying for an Alaskan bush pilot.

Look, we made it. That’s the Homer airport just ahead.

Steady as she goes Mike. We’re almost there.

Yippee, we made it. Our 6 hour trip turned out to be 23 hours. I guess we really got our money’s worth. Too bad our big Alaska adventure is over.

Well, if any of you are ever in Homer, Alaska I would highly recommend a bear viewing trip to Katmai National Park. It’s a little expensive but so is everything else in Alaska. The experience is incredible. This blows away everything else I saw or did in Alaska and possibly anything I’ve done in my life. Kathy and I can highly recommend K Bay Air for your adventure. Tell Mike you want the premium trip with an overnight stay in Seldovia and bring a big memory card for your camera. The bears are waiting for you…

Katmai National Park - Episode 1

Well, this is it, the pictures from our big trip to Katmai National Park. That was, without a doubt, the highlight of our 3 months in Alaska. The plan was to fly in a small bush plane from Homer, Alaska to Katmai NP (1 hour and 15 minutes), spend a few hours on the ground among the big brown (grizzly) bears there and then fly back to Homer. As is frequently the case in Alaska, things didn’t go exactly to plan. I’ll explain as we go through the pictures.

I had a lot of pictures to post for this adventure so I’m doing it in 2 batches. This group is about 35 photos. I’ll post another 35 or so in about a week to finish the story.

First, a little background. Katmai National Park is a wilderness area. That means there are no roads, no permanent structures (not even an outhouse), no electricity, no cell service, and, oh yes, no runway for the plane. The plan was to land on the beach at low tide!! Sounds cool, doesn’t it?? Let's go!!

This is our trusty airplane. It’s a 1976 Cessna 206. It had 6 seats and room in the tail for our gear. The guy in the background with the grey cap is our pilot/guide Mike. He’s giving us a flight safety and bear viewing briefing. You’ll notice that we are all wearing clunky rubber boots. They supplied the boots for the mud and streams we had to cross. Kathy is on the left and the other 3 people were a group of 20somethings from Houston, 2 girls and a guy.

Here’s a shot of Kathy as we were about to taxi out. Kathy hates heights and small planes so I have to give here a lot of credit for making this trip. Of course, it was her idea. The pilot sat us where he wanted to for weight and balance. Kathy was up front with him (lucky!!), I was in the second row with the other guy, and the 2 other girls were in the back. Yippee, let’s go!!

This is a view of the airport at Homer. In the distance is a narrow strip of sand called the Homer Spit. It’s loaded with touristy stuff like RV parks, fishing boats, restaurants, gift shops and a hotel. As a side note, we were watching the crew of one of the charter fishing boats cleaning fish for their customers one day. They were incredibly fast. I timed one guy cleaning Halibut. He completely filleted a Halibut in 40 seconds!!! I couldn’t believe it so I timed him on several other Halibut. Sure enough, he was in that 40 second range on every Halibut. I wouldn’t want to get in a knife fight with him…..

Here’s a view of the Kenai Mountains from 10000 feet. Notice that there’s still some snow left on July 11.

I took this looking over the pilot’s shoulder. I held the camera up between him and Kathy without looking through the viewfinder. Photographers call this a Hail Mary shot, like a Hail Mary pass. Unfortunately the autofocus system focused on the dashboard instead of the mountain dead ahead. It kind of looks like we’re going to crash into it. I’m sure Kathy was enjoying the view.

After we flew around that mountain in the last shot this was the view out the window. This is the northeastern corner of Katmai NP. All that snow is part of the icefield of an active glacier.

This is called 4 peaks glacier. As the name implies, the glacier is surrounded by 4 mountain peaks. The mountains capture winter rains off the ocean, cool it and enormous amounts of snow fall here. The snow compresses to form the icefield which feeds the glacier.

This is a view of a glacier that people rarely see. It’s taken from the top looking down. The greenish water at the bottom is glacier run-off. It contains large amounts of finely ground rock called rock flour. The deep blue water in the distance is the north Pacific Ocean.

Here’s another view of the mountains in the northeast corner of Katmai NP. You can see that we’re moving away from the glacier.

Here’s another Hail Mary shot. Now, pay attention. That’s the Pacific Ocean on the left. That green grass on the right is a huge meadow where the bears are. That little dark grey strip in the middle is out “runway”. It’s rough gravel that’s exposed at low tide. Along the right side of the gravel you might notice some light colored objects. That’s driftwood (huge trees) brought in by the tide. Mike’s job is to stay on the gravel without dumping in the ocean or hitting the driftwood. Close your eyes Kathy!!!

The beach is getting closer. Mike’s doing a good job, so far. You can see the driftwood better now. Keep those eyes closed Kathy. Here we go!! GERONIMO. (notice the fog bank rolling in, in the distance)

Dang, we made it. Thanks Mike!! Look at the tire tracks in the beach. You can see how he lands close to the water but then steers up higher on the beach. This keeps the plane from being washed out to sea on the incoming tide. Obviously this maneuver takes a bit of practice. Mike’s been flying since he was a kid. He’s been flying in Alaska for 20+ years and landing on beaches for about 7 of those years. He hasn’t lost a passenger yet. That’s what he said anyway…

OK, here’s the set-up. Now that we landed he gave us another briefing (how not to be eaten by 1000 lb. bears) before he opened any doors in the plane. Then we walked over a bluff adjacent to the beach and into that big green meadow you saw a few photos back. Keep in mind that we were on foot, not in a vehicle. There were no guns or bear spray allowed. The only protection we had was a marine flare (waterproof) that Mike carried. He claimed that the bears are really afraid of the bright light and sound of the flare. I hope we don’t have to find out the hard way.

As soon as we walked over the bluff this monster popped up. Jeeeez, his head looked like a microwave oven with ears!!! What do they feed the bears in this place??? Sorry for the poor photo quality. This guy scared the crap out of me. I thought the landing was exciting until I saw this guy pop up so close to us.

After the bear looked at us from the grass he wanted to show us how big he is so he stood up. The grass he’s standing in is about chest high so you can see how tall he is. I think you would need an 8 ft stepladder to pat him on the head. Again, sorry for the poor photo quality. I hadn’t settled down yet.

This guy is showing us his big teeth.

Nice bear, nice bear…

One point I want to make about the bears up here in Alaska. They are called brown bears up here but biologists have compared their DNA to the grizzly bears in the western US and they are identical. The brown bears in Katmai and on Kodiak Island are referred to as coastal brown bears (sometimes, Kodiak Bears) because of their proximity to coastal areas. The only difference is where they live, what they eat and their size. Grizzly bears in the western US grow to about 400-500 lbs. A 500 lb. grizzly is pretty rare. They feed on roots, berries, insects, grubs, carrion, small animals that don’t get out of the way fast enough, and they steal food from other predators. They spend a lot of time foraging for enough food to eat.

Coastal brown bears have a pretty much unlimited supply of food so they get massive. In the spring they feed on sedges (native grass), in the summer when the salmon are running they gorge on fish and in the fall they eat berries until they can’t walk anymore, then they go to sleep for the winter. It’s basically non stop eating from March to November. What a life.

This guy is the size of a Ford Focus!!! You think I'm kidding..... (I found out later that the record for a coastal brown bear in Alaska is 1400 lbs, 11 ft long. Now that's a bear)

Here come the judge… Doesn’t he look all fuzzy and soft?? (except for that big scar on his nose)

Rub my belly! Watch out for the 5 inch claws.

The guides call this guy lefty because his left ear is missing. I wonder who was big enough and tough enough to take his ear off. He was one of the biggest bears we saw that day.

We came upon this sow (female bear) with 2 little spring cubs. She had already nursed them and they were finishing their afternoon nap. We spent over an hour with her and the cubs getting great shots. These cubs were born in the den in January or February during mom’s winter sleep. These were taken in July so the cubs are about 6 months old. I’d guess they weighed about 20 lbs. or so. They were really cute and they had a great babysitter.

Tell me this doesn’t scream “CUTE”. They were checking us out.

Mom’s taking a bath after her nap. Bears love water but the cubs didn’t go in.

I guess the cubs are smelling her to make sure she’s their mother.

Take a close look at the belly on this bear (behind her front leg). See how close it is to the ground?? Now compare that to the belly in the bear picture I posted on August 9 (kissing bears) That was an inland brown bear. It’s not as well-fed as the coastal variety. Keep in mind that this picture was taken before the salmon run began. This bear will get a lot fatter by fall.

This gives you a good idea of what the terrain looks like in this portion of Katmai NP. The short grass in the foreground is the sedges the bears feed on this time of year. They don’t seem to like eating the tall grass in the background.

Don’t mess with my kids!!!

Notice the grass hanging out of their mouths. It’s funny to watch bears graze like horses or cattle.

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Put em up ma. You don’t look so tough…

Another bear was approaching so everyone got very alert.

The cubs spent a lot of time playing.

Bye everybody. See you in Katmai episode 2.

This ends the first half of our Katmai photos. In episode 2 I'll show more bear photos and I'll tell you about our adventure on the flight back to Homer. It was quite eventful. Don't miss it. Until then, happy trails.

Dennis & Kathy