Da Real Bears

Well, I finally made it. After years of wanting to get to Alaska, I finally got there. I was there for two weeks and hardly scratched any reasonable idea of the surface of the place. But it was beautiful and exciting... and beautiful. I'm a sucker for mountains, and surprise surprise, they have a bunch of em. I'm already looking into going back to see more. I could go on, and may at a later date, but I should probably focus on grizzly bears. I spent about a week in Lake Clark National Park, where there's a healthy population of grizzlies. My time was spent along the shore, where the bears are pretty habituated to humans, so the danger level was a little more reasonable. By reasonable, I mean since the bears are used to seeing people often and there's a pretty good salmon supply in the area, they are less interested in either attacking out of fear, or making a meal of us. That said, I practiced smart bear etiquette and did what I could to keep a bit of distance, even when they had a different idea. They are curious, and sometimes came within feet of us. We saw about 3 or 4 families (moms and cubs) and a few young individuals who seemed to be residents of the area. The guides were pretty familiar with most of them. Most of the time they were looking for salmon in the creeks or foraging in the marshes. The weather wasn't great, but the coast provided lots of different environments to shoot in, from the beach to the marshes and fields. Overall a great experience - can't wait to see more. Thanks to Chas Glatzer for his expertise up there !