It is near mid-night as I type this in. Incredibly enough, there is still light outside.
Homer Spit stretches out in front of my eyes and the snowcapped mountains eerily reflect the lights of a day that has been falsely threatening to make a withdrawal for few hours now. Bird songs complete the eerie picture as this looks no different than a dewy early morning in any other part of the country.
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| View at 1 AM from our room |
Earlier, the day began on a great note as we woke up to see a dry - though initially overcast - day. We had an 8 AM start with the
Bear Adventures team. We set off on our way after a great breakfast from our hostess Maria. She makes delicious blueberry pancakes that I gracefully decided to partake in citing my son's taste as an excuse. We took off in a Cessna six seater at 8.30 AM after getting into Alaskan hipwaders. The one hour flight to
Katmai National park was a great experience. Aerial view of Homer Spit was quite cool. The sight of Mt. Mckinley standing tall amidst clouds was even better. But these were nothing compared to the feeling of awe one experiences at the sight of Douglas Volcano - imagine an aquamarine pool letting off steam amidst a vast expanse of snow. Sun broke out as we entered the national park and it was incredible to see bears roaming around the expanse flanked by Bering Sea and the snowy mountain ranges. Jared - our pilot and guide - landed in a beach and we started out on our hike across a vast meadow.
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| Douglas Volcano - Aerial view |
The next three hours were one of the best experiences of my life. The initial fear at seeing a huge brown bear with puffed up shoulders - Jared mentioned that they were due to the protien rich grass and fish diet they were on (my new diet?) - soon gave way to mirth as we saw a male "cat walk" as part of a courting exercise. Imagine having lunch in a meadow with half a dozen bears barely 20 feet from you and engaged in a variety of activities including napping, mating, back scratching and grazing! We saw bears walking by as if we didn't exist. The utter humiliation of being ignored brought home the fact that we are not the dominant species out here. We were dragged back into the plane for the return flight and were treated to another set of nature's awe inspring spectacles on the way back. The sheer richness of landscape covered with green meadows, mountain ranges in various shades of green & brown and huge craters hiding lava capable of destroying all of these in a moment was almost too much to take in.
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| Bear Adventures |
We took the rest of the day easy with a short visit to the Ocean & Wild life center and a walk across Beluga Slough Trail. Very difficult to get inspired with anything else on a day after the sights we saw in the morning.
Off to Valdez tomorrow. Have a long drive ahead of us to Whittier and then a 5 hour ferry ride across the gulf.
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