Bears in the Alaskan Wild

This may be my heaviest photo post yet but when you go on a once-in-a-lifetime Alaska Bear Adventure and take hundreds of photos, how do you choose your favorites?

We've had some pretty rainy cold weather my entire stay here which has put a bit of a damper on planned activities like hiking and glacier cruises and sea life viewing.  Since the Bear Adventure was already locked in and paid for, we made the 4 hour drive to Homer in the rain.  We awoke early the next day for our 7:30 start time only to see the rain was still coming steadily down.  Sad. When we arrived though we were a bit encouraged to hear that it was supposed to be much nicer in Katmai where we were headed.

    

First we had to gear up.  Hip waders are more fun than you'd imagine.  You can walk right through mud and across streams without worry.  

We had a 1.5 hour flight out to Katmai National Park in a Cessna.  Once we were above the clouds and  past the rainy peninsula, the views were outstanding. 

Homer Spit

Initial views of the mountains and glaciers of Katmai National Park.

First bear viewing from the plane

Landing at Katmai 

Our guide Michael walked us right up to within 20 yards of this mama bear and cubs.  I kept expecting him to stop but he didn't until we were seated right across the stream from them.  While there were moments of initial hesitation on my part, none of the bears really even seemed to take notice of us.  This mama bear even came within 20 feet of us when she was chasing a salmon and still pretty much ignored us.  

Michael was thorough in explaining bear behavior and instructing us on when to remain single file, when to kneel and when to tighten up as a group and why it was important.

Mama's baby cubs--I named them Lucy and Linus.  They were absolutely darling of course and watching them interact with each other and mama bear in their natural environment was truly one of those experiences you don't forget.  Linus was assertive and grabbed the salmon while poor Lucy chased after him whining and begging for some.  I'm pretty sure she even told on him at one point. 

Mama bear found a salmon.  We watched all of these bears dawdle and mosey along slower than molasses so it truly is a surprising thing when one suddenly charges across the stream at lightening speed...seemingly at you.  After a quick skip of a heartbeat, we saw she was actually fishing.  

She was so fast she caught two...one in her mouth and one under her front paws. 

We were close enough to hear the surprisingly loud cracking and crunching of salmon bones (who knew they had such loud ones) and see what appears to be guts flying out of the fish.  It was kind of cool to see the full size photo and realize they are actually salmon eggs.

Salmon sushi

We saw these two huge guys playing together later on in the morning.  Mama bear kept far away from them.  

This was such an unbelievable experience--we ended up seeing 7 bears altogether.  We absolutely felt safe surrounded by these giants and the pictures don't truly do justice to the experience of watching bears living and interacting in the wild.  I'd plan another entire trip here just to do it again.