Hanging with Brown Bears in Katmai National Park, Alaska

I set the skiff up to get this bear coming up and over this rocky promenade. It is always powerful getting photos animals coming towards you. It shows that you are being respectful and not scaring the animal. This is the ultimate goal for a wildlife photographer.

Katmai National Park is known for being one of Alaska's premier brown bear viewing locations. People are used to the boardwalks and reservations needed for famous spots like Brooks Falls and McNeil River. However, if you have access to a sturdy boat, or an expedition ship in our case, you can get to the seldom explored coastline of Katmai, and see bears in the untouched wilderness. We were lucky with weather, and planned to explore two different bays on the outer coast, Kinak Bay and Geographic Harbor.

We started out the morning with a new spot for me, Kinak Bay. This is a long inlet that narrows to a very tight gap, then opens up into a big back bay called Hidden Harbor. The other guide, Nicole, and I jumped in the skiff after anchoring and zipped around for a scouting mission. We saw one bear back in Hidden Harbor, and another way outbay, but both went missing when we headed out with the guests. Our kayaking team explored hidden harbor, while our skiff tour and shorewalkers went towards the ocean entrance. It was out here that we came across a wonderful bear that cruised down the coast, giving us some great opportunities for wildlife photography. Kinak Bay gets two thumbs up from me!

During lunch we pulled anchor and transited down the coast to another beautiful bay called Geographic Harbor. On our way in, we saw a sleepy brown bear out on the cliff edge on one of the islands. It casually lifted its head a few times to look at us, probably quite the unusual sighting for it. It was framed with beautiful purple blooming lupine behind it, giving it quite a unique photograph opportunity. It drifted back off to sleep, so we kept cruising into the way back of Geographic Harbor.

Yet again we had the entire place to ourselves. It was just us and the bears. A mama with four new cubs welcomed us to the back of the bay. They disappeared off into the bushes shortly after we anchored, but more bears were around the river delta for us to go encounter. I took off with a small kayaking group, while two skiff tours headed out as well. It was high tide, so we could get the kayaks pretty close to the delta. We were able to just sit and watch as a bear slowly ate its way across the sedge grass filled river mouth. It hardly even acknowledged us. The skiff tours found another large, dark brown bear farther up the coast, but by the time my kayakers made it there, the bear was in a deep, restful sleep...not to be bothered by anyone.

This being Katmai, we didn't have to wait long for our next bear encounter. A smaller bear was cruising down the coast, heading towards the river. I took our kayakers over, leaving the resting bear behind, and positioned ourselves up the coast a ways, so we could watch the bear walk towards us. The plan worked out perfectly. The bear disappeared into some woods, but then reappeared in a picturesque river mouth right in front of us....just as I had hoped!

It is an amazing feeling to be in such a pristine, wild place, and to be surrounded by these very large predators, but to have our encounters be so calm and non threatening.... to us and to the bears. And to have a place like this all to ourselves is amazing. It feels like we are at the edge of the earth, exploring spots unknown. True expedition traveling.

The was the photo I was setting up for. The bear was very cooperative, and even glanced my way as it started to cross the picturesque Alaskan stream.

A huge, sleepy brown bear surrounded by wild lupines. This was on an island just before we got to the entrance of Geographic Harbor.

Four tiny cubs! This is one impressive mamma bear. This bear family scampered into the bush when we first arrived in Geographic Harbor, but ventured out later and really put on a show. The little white collar on the cubs is very common for the coastal brown bears.

At first, we thought this brown bear had something in front of it that it was eating, but on closer inspection it turned out to be his front feet that he was resting his giant head on.

It looks like this Katmai brown bear is growling at us, but it is just chewing on the sedge grass. It kept eating the whole time we watched from our kayaks.

We saw quite a few blonde bears. This one was hungry for sedge grass near the water's edge.

While I was exploring Geographic Harbor by kayak, some of our guests decided to go out with our small boat tours. Both are great ways to get a closer look.

This bear was walking down the coast, towards this stream. I positioned my kayak where I could see up the stream, thinking he might pop out and cross. It happened just as I planned!

Trying to figure out what this long floating orange thing is (my kayak).

Casting a glance my way. It is always great watching bears from a kayak. You can drift silently, while keeping some water and some distance between you and the bear.

This was a nice size bear that we spotted from our shorewalk in Kinak Bay. We were able to get the skiff to come pick us up and get a closer look.

We watched from the skiff as this bear worked its way down the coast.

As we skiffed back towards the boat, some movement caught my eye on the beach. It turned out to be a cute red fox, digging for food in the sand.

One of the guests got a photo of me and my kayak tour, while we watched a bear slowly work through the sedge grass. I am in the orange jacket.

Our skiff tour, watching a dark brown bear grazing at the shoreline.

Conditions got a little windy on our kayak in Geographic Harbor, but they started out flat calm. We had an amazing time exploring this secret coastline all to ourselves.

A picture of our morning shorewalk and skiff tour heading back to our mobile adventure platform.

Shore landing on the skiff.

Time to go walk with bears.

Guess what everyone is looking at! Bears!

As always, keep traveling, exploring new places, and posting!

• Dai Mar