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…
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…
Awesome pictures, as always. Nick loved the bears and even said "bampa" when he saw you in the first shot (not intimidating the bears, like anything that weighs 2000 pounds could be intimidated...).I can't believe such a small town in the middle of nowhere would have so much "touristy" stuff! Are the border guards going to let you cross with that much fish ?!?
ReplyDeleteWow, I can't believe that Nick still remembers us. It's been 6 months since he's seen us and that's a big percentage of his life. I didn't think little kids had that long a memory. He really is a smart kid, scary smart. You may have 2 professors on your hands. Now that's scary. You better bone-up on your thermodymanics. Pay particular attention to the ideal gas law and the Carnot Cycle. :-) :-)
ReplyDelete