The best memory of Alaska (besides sharing this adventure with my beautiful wife and having the kids come and visit us, of course) was the Alaska Bear Adventure excursion that we did out of Homer. We boarded a small plane bound for the Katmai National Park that landed on the beach where the pilot skillfully avoided hitting driftwood. Katmai is only accessible by boat or plane and contains 10,000’s glaciers and active and dormant volcanoes. It is one of the prettiest places I have ever seen. On the flight over we saw some amazing site:
Views from the plane: Katmai, island volcanoes, and glaciers.
Kat wanted to see bears and I think that she got a little bit more than she bargained for. But, since we are both still alive, I can honestly say that it was very exciting to see bears in the wild about eight feet from where you are sitting. I’ll let the pictures speak for me here:
Our pilot/guide does not carry a gun, only a flare to space the grizzlies away if they get too close. As part of our bear encounter training, we were told not to bring any food, crouch if a bear gets near you to show them that you mean on harm, and to only leave footprints behind.
This was the first year that our pilot/guide was doing these excursions. We saw a sow with two 2-3 year old cubs napping so we sat on a log and watched them. Our guide sat on the end of the log, Katrina was next to him and I sat next to Kat. When they got up and decided to go fishing they walked right by us. Our pilot/guide unholstered his flare:
Kat started to put her leg over the log like she was going to run – something that our training told us not to do, you see you cannot outrun a bear. The pilot/guide kept pushing her leg back down and told her to stay put and quiet. Amazing encounter!
After the bears didn’t catch any fish they decided to go back to wander in the grassland. This time one of the cubs walked very near us. Our pilot/guide stood up (remember we were crouching just like our training taught us) and stated “I’m here bear”. The cub changed direction and followed his mother.
I was in the co-pilot seat on the trip back (very scary take off from the beach) and could see that the pilot was talking/laughing in his headset and mic. Once we landed I asked him if he was laughing because he was alive and if that was the most terrifying experience that he has had to date with his new job. He said “Yes”!
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