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Katmai National Park, Alaska
Live through this and you won't look back
Bears!
Forget everything you've seen (and everything you will see), the unmistakable highlight of this slideshow and easily one of the highlights of my traveling life (at least so far) was at Hallo Bay in Katmai National Park. There, hundreds of miles away from just about everywhere, a secluded meadow near a secluded beach harbored a hell of a lot of grizzly bears and, for a few hours, me.
Even if there weren't grizzly bears in every imaginable direction, Hallo Bay would have still been a magical place. The area where we walked consisted of an open beach (where grizzlies liked to dig for clams), criss crossing, swift moving glacial rivers (we were issued rainboots before we left Homer so that we could ford them), tossed driftwood logs (which doubled as convenient bear watching benches) and open meadows that were framed by distant mountains and equally distant glaciers. During the most severe winter storms, the Pacific breaches the beach and floods the meadows, something which not only explains the driftwood but also makes the bears happy. Certain grasses thrive in the (slight) seawater, leaving bears with a food source that is both sweet and salty and (for them at least) pretty damn tasty.
It was not hard to spot the bears at Hallo Bay. First from the plane and then from the beach and then (on all sides) from walking through the meadow. The area was flat and green enough that giant, 1,500 pound grizzly bears were easy to spot, and the population is healthy enough that you could always see at least one distant bear from every close up bear you came across. I tried counting sighted bears but quickly lost count somewhere around thirty. At times we would be waiting on a driftwood log and watching one bear while five or ten bears were easily spotted just by scanning the meadow in all directions. That was one of the things that is hard to adequately describe, being in the middle of them, watching them watch me, knowing how special (for me at least) that moment in time would be.
Before we left Homer we were given a serious rundown of the rules of grizzly bear engagement. Our small six person group (including the pilot, four people I did not know and me) was to walk single file or group together at arms length so as not to appear overly threatening, we were not to run away under any circumstances (grizzlies have an irresistible instinct to chase after you), we were not to leave any trace of people food (so that the bears would not start associating people with food) and we were not to do anything stupid like bring fish in our backpack. Another rule was that we needed to maintain a minimum distance between ourselves and the locals, with an arbitrary number of 150 feet floated as a reasonable guide. Of course the bears were not at that initial rules rundown in Homer so it should come as little surprise that they occasionally would think about coming a bit closer whenever they felt like it. The bear pictured below got close, real close, probably about 15 feet (although it could have been closer) before our guide stood up, spoke calmly and waved his arms enough that the bear decided to slowly walk away.
Before we left Homer one of the things we were warned about is not to be scared or to look scared, not to instinctively try to outrun a grizzly bear that can easily outrun you (in Denali I was told that grizzlies there were clocked over 40 miles per hour during short bursts). One of the things we were warned about was that occasionally grizzlies might stand on two legs. Usually its because they're just trying to get a better look, although sometimes its an attempt to look bigger. Of course sometimes it could mean that they themselves are getting ready to attack you, although that's not likely to happen. But just in case it does our pilot/guide knows what to do and he will protect us. And also by the way if something horrible were to happen to the guide AND we were to survive, we were all checked out on how to operate a special coast guard emergency radio and a secondary emergency satellite phone. Just in case.
And while the grizzlies in Katmai National Park are uniquely approachable, it's not as if they're somehow not still wildly dangerous animals. If you've ever heard of Tim Treadwell or the movie "Grizzly Man," then you should know that two bays over at Katmai National park was where he met his unfortunate end. If you haven't heard of him (and want to) there's a reasonably good article with links at Wikipedia that includes a lot of (sorry) grisly details of his death- things like recovering his head and part of his arm (and possibly even less of his girlfriend) at the campsite.
The bears at Hallo Bay and Katmai National Park form the singular healthiest population of grizzlies in the world with a typical weight of about 1500 pounds a bear (alternately grizzlies in Denali are lucky to be 400 or 500 pounds a bear). Katmai is home to a few thousand bears and some of the richest salmon streams in the world. Once the salmon are running the bears migrate to the streams, stake out a good spot and eat all day. Before the salmon show up (which is when I visited) the bears hang out in the meadows and eat grasses constantly all day, only to be occasionally interrupted by naps. What a life.
(More) Bears!
I'll try and keep the comments short (that’s a first), there are only so many grizzly bear stories I can think of and only so many ways that I can say that it was one of the coolest things I have ever done in my life.
One last bear story (so much for trying to keep the comments short I guess). The guide/pilot told us that in Homer there are periodic grizzly bear attacks, just a fact of life and something that most Alaskans accept. Most of the attacked residents are newly arrived joggers who go for a run on a rural road only to pass a bear. The bear's prey chasing instincts kick in, they start chasing the jogger, catch the jogger, knock the jogger down with their big scary claws, realize the jogger is not tasty food and attempt to move on with their lives (which only works if they don't get caught).
Walking among grizzly bears at Katmai National Park was one of the greatest experiences of my life and could not be more recommended. There are multiple companies that leave out of Homer (a five hour drive southwest of Anchorage) and like everything in Alaska, none of the tours are cheap. The price of about $500 includes the flight, the borrowed rainboots and all of the memories you can stand.
