It was the squishiest place I had ever hiked. As I took a step, I felt the ground compress slightly, accompanied by the 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.
As I watched a brown bear dive into the water of the Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska, creating a splash so big it obscured most of its 1,000-pound body, I briefly acknowledged that I was lucky to witness what most wildlife photographers come here to see.
It is an experience to behold. There’s silence as the bear works to identify a salmon it hopes to catch, then a sudden burst of activity as it launches after it. The splashes grow larger and louder. The bear soon disappears behind a curtain of water, its sharp claws the last to vanish. There’s now a moment of suspense. We must wait a few seconds for the water to settle to see if the bear caught its fish.
But there is so much more to the bears. These moments of drama made up but a few minutes of my week with them, yet these displays of raw power are typically what we think of when we think of them.
