Autumn on the world's largest sponge

It was the squishiest place I had ever hiked. As I took a step, I felt the ground compress slightly, accompanied by a sound that was part hiss and gurgle. As I stepped again, the ground where I had been snapped back into place.

Walking on the lowland tundra of Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska is like walking on the world’s largest wet sponge. It’s a place where even when you can’t see water you can feel its impact.

Katmai encompasses a diverse landscape. Mountains reach a couple thousand feet above meandering rivers. In between is the spongy tundra — an area poor in drainage, but rich in life.

It’s a vast place, spanning nearly 6,400 square miles. It’s one of the largest national parks — nearly the size of the state of New Jersey. Perhaps the biggest indication of its size and remoteness, however, is that the mountain I’m on doesn’t have a name. Neither do the other peaks across the lake. On the way here I flew by one named peak: Big Mountain. After that, people apparently lost interest naming things.

I intended to concentrate on the rivers, which promised to be full of salmon and therefore bears. But I found myself drawn more to the tundra, which provided a more relaxed view of the bears and allowed me to touch the land.

I was there on what technically qualified as the last days of summer, but it felt like fall. The salmon runs were winding down. The bears were having their last large meals before hibernating. And the landscape was red and gold. The greens dwindled by the day.

One of the essential themes in my photography is to capture my subjects as expressive, living things. I try to create the opposite of a still life. Even what at first glance appears to be a static landscape is in motion, even if that motion is more figurative than literal.

Despite the wind, there’s not a lot a movement. The only trees are down below. The ground cover here is mostly comprised of lichen and very short plants and shrubs. There’s little to catch the wind.

There is, however, a lot of change. Each day, the land became substantially more fall-colored. The first day, some reds and golds dotted the wet meadows and hillsides. By day four, there was more red and gold than anything else. Families of bears were content to feed on aptly named bearberries.

As I stepped back, the story of the land was even easier to see. From the air, the landscape is pocked with kettle ponds, evidence of the short summers. Retreating snow and ice saturates the ground, which because it’s frozen most, if not all, the time, is not capable of absorbing and distributing all the runoff. Whatever the sponge can’t hold spills into the nearest indentation in the land.

There’s so much to see and appreciate. All we have to do is take the time.

(Kevin’s book, Five Minutes in Nature, collects images and stories about his experiences in the wilderness, curated to help you have deeper encounters of your own. Preview and order it here. Prints of his images are available through LivingWilderness.com. Learn about new work by joining his mailing list.)