Fog Over Kodiak — And Onward to the Bears

 “I’m not optimistic that we are going to land in Kodiak” is NOT what you want to hear the pilot say right before take off. Our pilot continued, "fog is hovering over the runway approach in Kodiak. It's not looking good, but we are going to try. We'll have one, possibly two, chances to approach and land. We only have enough fuel for two attempts with all of you and all of your bags on board because we have to be able to get back to Anchorage. So, we'll see what happens". With the face masks, it was impossible to see people's facial expressions but you know we all thinking the same thing... we're not going to make it. Flying out of Anchorage, the sky was cloudy but not foggy and as we neared Kodiak, things seemed to be looking good. The pilot came on the intercom as we began our descent. He updated us, "not much has changed. There's still a lot of fog. It's not looking good". The woman sitting next to me on the plane showed me a picture her coast guard fiancé had sent her from the ground in Kodiak. You could hardly see in any direction. She told me he was baffled that we were going to attempt to land in this weather, especially because there's a mountain range right at the end of the runway that we'd have to clear to lift back up if we did need to return to Anchorage.

As we began our descent, we all held our breaths. It was the longest 30 minutes of my life (more, if you count the time from which the pilot initially gave us the news prior to take off). As we inched closer to Kodiak, it was getting cloudy. Really cloudy. But clouds are fine, right? We could still see water beneath us so surely that was a good sign. With about 15 minutes left to go, we could hardly see anything. Now, I was getting nervous. I could barely see out the window until two minutes prior to touching down! When we finally touched down in Kodiak (on our first attempt!!) the entire plane bursted out in cheers. We were all clapping, yelling, and exhaling big sighs of relief. I honestly didn't think we'd make it. The pilot came on the intercom and said, "whoever put the good vibes out there, thank you". But really, we thank our pilots. The weather in Alaska is no joke. It changes constantly and fog is not something to mess with because the ground comes up really quickly when you can't see. Two days prior, someone on our trip got fogged out... All flights were canceled and he had to fly out to Kodiak later than planned. Thank goodness that didn't happen to us, but at least there were three other people from my trip on the airplane with me. We made up more than half of the trip (there's only six guests). We arrived safe and sound in Kodiak at 4PM. By 5PM, we were on our way to the hotel. At 6PM, we had a group dinner... seafood all around! Calamari, crab cakes, salmon, you name it.

On September 4, I was so excited to take the seaplane to the bears that I was up at 6AM. I did one last yoga class and then went to breakfast. Uh oh… There was a lot of fog. If I learned anything yesterday, it was that fog is not our friend!! We were scheduled to be picked up at 9:30AM and when we didn’t hear any other news, we assumed it was all systems go. Right? Wrong. We got totally fogged out. We were told we probably wouldn’t be able to fly out and we’d probably stay overnight again in Kodiak. 

The fog was so dense that you couldn't see far in any direction.

Deciding to be optimistic, the group waited outside of the hotel room—bags and all. Waiting, waiting, and more waiting. All we did was sit and wait. Some people from our group went on a walk, but I wanted to be close in case anything changed. Eventually, we had an update that the seaplanes were starting to fly, and we were next in line. Yay! We all went to lunch in downtown Kodiak (which really isn't much of a downtown. It's super small). When in Alaska, you eat seafood—so I ordered fish and chips. 

Fish and chips at Henry's.

After lunch, we were told we’d probably fly out around 4PM. BUT, as we walked out of Henry's Great Alaskan Restaurant, we looked outside and the fog was rolling in again so I didn’t think we’d still be on schedule. At 2:20PM, we received a message, “Great news, You are all being picked up at the hotel at 2:30. YAY!!!!” We headed to the Island Air terminal, more like a small building than a terminal, where we were greeted by two dogs. And let’s be honest… dogs make (almost) anything better! They certainly did in this case with their little wiggle nubs. The Island Air staff proceeded to put us on a giant scale to weigh us and separate the group accordingly… probably not the best thing to do right after lunch, ha! The staff then weighed all our camera gear and checked baggage before dividing everything between the two seaplanes. I was in the first group to take off (each plane held 3 of us plus the pilot). The last time I was on a seaplane was when I was 4, in Alaska funny enough. Our take off was surprisingly smooth considering all the fog and clouds still hanging around. 

iPhone panorama of the seaplane loading docks.

As we flew from Kodiak to Katmai, I admired the stretches of trees with hidden lakes and the massive cliffs where the mountains meet the water’s edge. 

Getting ready for take off in Kodiak.

Views while flying from Kodiak to Katmai.

Views while flying from Kodiak to Katmai.

We flew from Kodiak to Geographic Harbor in Katmai.

Katmai is a fascinating destination. In 1912, there was a volcanic eruption which was one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions ever recorded. Flying over the mountains you might think you’re seeing snow, but you're actually seeing ash from the eruption.  In 1918, Katmai became protected due to its geology so that the volcanically devastated region surrounding Novarupta and the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes would be protected. Katmai National Park and Preserve is one of the world’s most active volcanic areas. Within Katmai’s boundaries lies at least 14 active volcanoes. The protection of brown bears has become an equally compelling charge for Katmai to protect this animal and its habitat. The boundaries were extended over the years and in 1980, the area was designated a national park and preserve. In this region, scientists have documented 42 species of mammals from the coast to the tundra. 

Because Katmai is so remote, most people need to fly to their destination. Above the land and water, you see ponds and lakes with deep valleys set next to the rugged spines of active volcanoes.  After about an hour of flying, our seaplane approached Geographic Harbor. We circled once, catching a glimpse of our boat, before coming in for our landing. The landing was so smooth that we didn’t even know we had landed until we looked outside the window. Our seaplane docked right at the back of the boat, and we had to step onto the narrow floaters, ducking under the wing, to get from the seaplane to the loading dock of the boat. 

iPhone shot of the second seaplane pulling up to our boat. 

Seaplane getting ready to take off with the previous group.

Half of the people on the previous photo group departed on our plane and when that plane took off, the other seaplane from our group came in (and the remaining half of the people from the previous photo group then departed on that flight). We were greeted by our friendly 4-person crew—a family-owned business. Our boat which our captain built, the M/V Dream Catcher, was built specifically to handle Alaska’s extreme environment and has worked as a research/charter vessel from Southeast to the Beaufort Sea. We had our cabins assigned to us (I don’t have a roommate—yay!) and we began to unpack. Because the rooms are so small (but totally doable), you store all your clothes into packing cubes under the bed. I had already packed using packing cubes, so this part was fairly painless. There’s also a little cubby in front of the headboard to store whatever you want so I put my water bottle there along with my book and phone as well as some quick grab toiletries (sunscreen, Chapstick, etc.).  Our rooms were complete with private bathrooms, too. Getting into the bed was an exercise itself. Due to limited space, the beds are bunk bed style with limited head space.

My room on the boat. I used the top bunk to put my camera gear and extra clothes on, and slept on the bottom bunk.

You have very little room to get in—you can’t even sit on your bed without bumping your head and once you’re in bed, you can’t even lift your arm so that your elbow is over your head. 

While on my side in bed, this is how far upwards I could extend my arm. Not a lot of room!

So, my method on our trip was to sit with my head ducked down and then I'd slowly roll over onto my side to get in. Of course, you need to be careful getting up in the middle of the night too. I'm proud to say that I only bumped my head once! Anyways, after a bear safety briefing, general briefing of the boat including a walk around to see where all the emergency gear is stored and where the life savers are, a quick photo briefing on what to take, a re-iteration that for once in your life you SHOULD be slamming the door so it shuts properly, getting fitted for wading boots and waders, and setting up our mud room coat racks, we set off on an evening excursion to shore. 

The crew wrote our names in chalk so we had a designated spot for our clothes each time. 

I had no idea what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. By the time we had landed in Geographic Harbor, we knew we’d see bears because we could see more than 10 from our boat alone (and the previous group dropped hints that the bear viewing was fantastic here). I was a little worried because we were told that due to incoming bad weather we might not be able to leave this location, but we were also told that this is the best possible location to be stuck in due to the number of bears here compared to other areas nearby. This excursion alone was mind blowing. Nowhere else in the world can you get as close to these bears as we were. We had nearly 20 bears surrounding us no matter which direction you looked… and just a few feet away!! In many instances, the 150-600mm Sigma contemporary lens was way too much glass. When bears came out of range of my lens, I grabbed my iPhone to shoot videos. Due to the abundance of pink salmon, the bears don’t care about your presence. Of course, guides still take safety precautions and they’re always monitoring the wildlife in all directions asking us to step back if the bear is coming too close. The bears don’t read the rules, after all. But let’s back track… 

To get to the shore, we need to take a zodiac. The zodiacs pull up to the aft loading dock of the boat, parallel to one another and tied together with a carabiner. To get onto the zodiac, you do a sailor’s grip (locking wrist to wrist) but if you’re in the second zodiac, you step into the first one, step up onto the far side of the first zodiac, and then hoist yourself up and over into the second zodiac doing a sailor’s grip for support once more. It’s a lot easier than it sounds, but only because we handed over our bulky camera gear first. Every landing is a “wet landing” as I’d say on other trips (meaning we don’t pull up to the shore-- we get out into the shallow water and walk to shore) hence the need for waders. On this evening, we were up to our knees in water. We walked to shore hauling our buckets (we have discovered that using a bucket to carry our gear is a great tool because it protects our cameras/accessories but also doubles as a stool to sit on—the top is even slightly padded) and once everyone was off the zodiacs, we began walking with our captain leading the way. We walked across the shore, now at low tide, and stepped through mostly shallow creeks as we walked further inland towards the bears. We did have a few crossings where we were up to our knees in rushing water, and we’d pair up linking arms with one another for stabilization so no one would lose their footing and fall into the icy cold water. The hope is that by pairing up, you won’t fall. Our photo guide and captain positioned us so that we were in the middle island—the best spot to shoot. Oh, but did I mention it was raining??? Yep. It made photographing difficult on our first outing just because we were trying to get a feel for the bears’ behavior to predict the shots we wanted. Not to mention, rain covers for the camera get in your way and affect how quickly you’re able to zoom/focus. It wasn’t ideal, but I kept a few shots from our first evening just for the memories. 

I have to keep this photo, because it was the first picture I took! 

A bear walks towards us in the rain.

When we returned to the boat, my hair looked like I had just come out of the shower—it was sopping wet! 

My hair was wet, but I was thrilled after our first photo session.

When we returned to our boat, and after dessert, we all had to try on immersion suits in groups of three… Bright red super sexy Gumby-like survival suits that would protect us from cold-water immersion (including cold shock and hypothermia) in an emergency. One by one, we sat at the shoulders of the suit, slid downward until our feet reached the booties, rolled over onto our knees to stand up, put one arm into the sleeve (the sleeve has gloves attached so you have to get your fingers in the grooves too), reached around back to pull the hood up, and then squirmed to put our other arm in. The captain didn’t make us zip up since we would get hot quickly, but we did practice emergency formations on the floor, and he showed us how we’d jump into the water. It was quite a sight to see!!!  

Wearing the immersion suit in the movie theater on board as Captain Rob told us about the features of our suits.

The next morning, September 5, was our first full day in Katmai and wow, what a day it was! We had breakfast at 7AM so we’d be ready to leave by 8AM. We were all so excited that we were all ready 20 minutes before the scheduled departure. 

Getting ready to get into the zodiacs for our first full day in Katmai.

So, of course we left early. If you’re not early, you’re late—that’s my motto at least! We got into the zodiacs and headed to shore. We immediately saw a ton of bears near the shore—much more spread out than yesterday. Not even one minute after we got out of the zodiac, we were greeted by a little fox. 

A fox comes out to greet us.

The fox was slightly skittish, but only if you made sudden movements. It was trotting around us, checking us out, and even followed us after we had photographed it. As we continued walking in the direction of the bears, we saw another fox. We were hoping for an interaction between the two, but it didn’t happen. Immediately after, however, we came across a sow nursing one of three cubs. 

A cub nurses on one of six teats.

We stayed with them for awhile and then there were so many bears around us in every direction that I didn’t even know where to look! Look left? Bear. 

A gorgeous bear comes straight towards us.

Look right? Oh, that one just caught a fish. 

A bear catches a fish with our boat in the background.

Look upstream? Mom is coming with her cub. 

A sow and her cub walk upstream.

Look downstream? The cubs are wrestling.

Cubs play in the grass.

Brown bears, along with polar bears, are the largest of the bear species. They have the widest distribution and range of any bear species on earth. They’re found scattered throughout Europe and Asia as well as North America (primarily in Alaska and Western Canada with small populations in Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming) and they live in a broad range of ecosystems including subalpine mountain regions, icy tundra and thickly wooded forests. Brown bear sizes varies with different populations according to the available food supply. The diet of most brown bears can be more than 80% vegetarian. Coastal brown bears are an exception—they feed on salmon during the summer and plants play a much smaller role in their feeding habits. In the spring, they rely on flowers, grasses, and roots and in the fall, they feed on blueberries, soapberries, and cranberries. Accurately identifying weights of bears is challenging because their weight depends on the season. That being said, brown bears from Alaska and the Kamchatka Peninsula (Russia) are about one-third larger than their inland cousins of Europe, North America, and the sub-Arctic, likely due to their abundant food supply of protein-heavy salmon and rich berries. In Katmai, mature males can weigh up to 1,700 pounds with their female counterparts weighing up to 700 pounds. An extremely large brown bear, when standing on its hind feet, is about 9 feet tall. Because brown bears are solitary, there’s no need for communication beyond the very basics so the animals lack complex body language and the ability to vocalize is limited to a narrow range of sounds (resulting in the most adorable groans). Their ears are small and unsuited to impart a visual signal and their tail is a short stump which isn’t useful for conveying messages. 

A bear walks downstream in search of salmon.

The bears establish home ranges, which aren’t technically territories because grizzlies won’t guard boundaries from one another. The exception to this is when a bear feels its exclusive access to a limited resource is worth the risk of defending but for the most part, guarding an expansive range is impossible since bears journey across the land to find nutrient-rich foods, traveling as the seasons change. Annual home ranges vary in form and size depending on topography and food sources contained within them. As adult males range widely during mating season in search of sows, their home ranges tend to be larger than that of females. On the Kodiak Archipelago, for instance, home ranges are typically between 51-85 square miles for fully grown boars and 10-36 miles for adult females. Bears typically search for food during morning and evening hours, though they can be active at any time. Because of this, and due to the tides, we typically photographed in the mornings and evenings when possible. 

Bears are solitary by nature, so their social system is relatively simple in structure. Sows with cubs form family units that exist 2-3 years. Females can have between 1-4 cubs and the cubs stay with mom 2-3 years on average before the mother starts displaying intolerance towards her offspring. The cubs will then frequently feed, sleep, and travel together on their own during the first summer and fall without mom. Unfortunately, almost 1/3 of cubs don’t live to see a second summer. Between 10-20% of yearlings disappear and 25-30% of sub-adults never attain sexual maturity (7 years old for males and about 5 years for females). Most of these deaths are caused by another bear or malnutrition. On this trip to Katmai, we saw at least 5 family units of sows with cubs—and that’s just off the top of my head. 

Anyways, back to September 5. At one point, one of the sows was fishing with her cub not even two feet in front of us. This cub was particularly aggressive and growled at its mother every time she caught a fish. The poor cub even got slapped by its mom at one point.

A mother loses her patience with her cub and snaps at him.

Eventually, the sow turned her back to us to eat, with her cub looking right at us. Now THAT is a trusting momma bear. As they sat on the side of the water, you could see the steam coming off their backs. 

If you look closely, you can see the steam coming off the bears' backs.

As we laid belly down in the rocky gravel, we photographed more than I thought we would just because the morning was action packed! We saw two other small groups this morning since people fly in via seaplane from Homer, but we already had the best spot on the shore, so we didn’t worry much about it. 

A bear shakes off the rain.

A cub rips apart salmon.

Drool slowly drips down a bear's chin.

On this excursion, I played around with more abstract/artistic photography.

We had a pleasant zodiac ride back to boat after our excursion. The weather was still gorgeous. 

Taking the zodiac back to our boat.

When we came back to the Dream Catcher, we immediately downloaded images and prepared for our first image review session. I found my perfect editing spot— the aft lounge. There were windows looking out, a decent DVD collection and library, a fireplace, and four reclining chairs that we had to try hard not to fall asleep on (some of us were more successful than others!!).

My favorite editing spot. I always sat in the chair at the bottom left of this photo.

We took a break for the most amazing salmon chowder complete with sourdough bread. The galley here is larger than I would have pictured when I think about other expedition boats I’ve been on. It’s equipped with a microwave, stove, large fridge, and plenty of counter space. There's a large dining area right by the kitchen too. 

The dining area on the Dream Catcher. There was a smaller table and booth on the left that could seat three people.

The freezer was downstairs, near my room. After lunch, it was back to editing while munching on freshly baked oatmeal raisin cookies. I took a 30-minute power nap just to give my eyes a computer break, and then we gathered for critique. After our first review was complete, we headed out for an evening photography session. Alaska’s weather changes frequently and today definitely proved that. In the morning we had sunshine and blue skies. This afternoon, however, we got rained on. Another group had our center island spot already claimed, so we shot in a different location. With the low tide going out, we had our deepest stream crossing yet. We were up to our knees with a current so fast that we were slowly being pushed downstream even though we thought we were walking in a straight line. Once we positioned ourselves on another bank, we still had plenty of action around us, probably more so than the morning in terms of fishing. Below are some pics from our afternoon ashore.

Sun beams shine through the clouds.

A cub sleeps on its mom's back.

A bear goes after a salmon.

A bear claws at a salmon, almost missing it.

A sow chases a salmon upstream as her three cubs continue upstream.

When we got up to leave, we were surrounded by bears everywhere… 

A bear brings its salmon right to us.

... and gnats. But the gnats flying around us have been pretty constant on days with no wind. They get in your eyes, in your nose, in your ear—everywhere. They’re definitely pesky. With bears in every direction, there was nowhere for us to go, so we just had to wait for the sow to walk with her three cubs across the stream. On the way back, we spotted a bald eagle though we didn't photograph it this time. We figured there was one nearby because all the gulls started flying away which they only do if there’s a bald eagle nearby. 

When we came back to the boat, we were treated to a wonderful halibut dinner… fresh caught by Star (our captain's better half) earlier in the day! Our lovely chefs Star and Katie prepared it with sour cream, mayonnaise, and seasoning (similar to Lawry’s salt), and while that might sound really weird, it was the most delicious halibut I’ve ever had. She also prepared a great salad with apple and bacon. 

Halibut dinner.

For dessert? A dump cake. This was my first time hearing the term but apparently, it’s when you take whatever you have and dump it into a cake. This crumble cake had pineapple and cherries, topped with homemade vanilla ice cream. We certainly won’t be going hungry onboard! The food has been great. 

Dump cake with homemade vanilla ice cream.

After dinner, I took a quick shower and discovered that my legs are already very bruised from getting down low for better angles. I guess that’s why they said to bring knee pads?? Oh well! 

Thanks for reading about my adventures… Stay tuned for what's to come! As always, follow my instagram @elissatitle for more pics.