Alaska Adventure Part 1

Tranquil, awe inspiring perfection, pure contentment- mixed with daily doses of fear, adrenaline, and intensity. 100 miles  of river, untouched or altered by man. Millions of fish, massive Brown Bears. So far from the nearest road, house, town or person that our group of 8 felt like the only people in the world.  Hope, that this place would stay this wild forever. Hope, at times, that we would make it out unharmed.

​

---

Our 13 day DIY river expedition in Western Alaska was all I could have hoped for, and more.  The trip began rather slowly, 48 hours of traveling and waiting, only to get delayed by weather on the last and most exciting leg.  Finally, sometime after noon, we got word the clouds had lifted to 500’, enough for the float planes to fly.  2 hours later I was standing on the sunny shoreline of the most beautiful lake I’d ever laid eyes on.  10 MM strapped to my chest, I had been admittedly afraid of a bear encounter.  We’d already seen 4, 3 within 400 yards of us on the flight in. The work of inflating and packing the 4 rafts while schools of red Sockeye Salmon swam at our feet put the thought of bears on the back burner.  The plan was to row 3 miles to a gravel bar and camp for the night. We left the lake, an amazing thing to be able to simply row into the river with no dams, and quickly found lots of fish and lots of bears.  The first one I saw reminded me of an elephant coming up the bank.  Luckily all of them ran the other direction when they saw us, that wouldn’t be the case later on.


We soon passed our campsite pin with no gravel bar to be seen, the satellite map was not up to date, and it was starting to get late.  We had seen 9 bears and wanted to find a site with an open area so they wouldn’t stumble in on us.  Finally around 11:30 PM desperation set in and we found a semi opening on the river bank where we could get the four tents up before it was totally dark.  We scared a bear off as we pulled in, but thankfully, had no other issues.  


The next day found us floating to the mouth of a tributary and setting up camp for 2 days.  This campsite was bear central.  I saw 3 separate sets of mother Brown Bears with cubs walking in on the campsite in only the first evening there, and had tracks 5 paces from our tent in the night.  The fishing was getting better as well, and we had a very memorable day catching  Dolly Varden, Grayling, Sockeye, and the elusive large rainbow.


Then we had a visit from an angry bear.  Four of us were chatting around the campfire at noon while the rest of the group was down river fishing.  One of the guys suddenly asked “is anyone else in camp with us?” Turning around I saw trees shaking about 12 yards away.  I drew my gun and we approached yelling.  A large male grizzly slowly stood in front of us. We all agreed its head was the size of a large beach ball.  He dropped down and began scratching the ground and urinating before half circling the camp.  We weaved  around two tents and I met him at 7 yards. No one had bear spray and I directed one of the guys to a can in a tent. He joined me in the standoff.  We stared down the bear shouting and acting big and tough for a while. He had evil dark eyes, I’ll never forget those eyes.  I remember saying, “if he takes one more step spray him and if he doesn’t stop I’ll kill him.” Finally he ambled off slowly. We figured he didn’t go far, but I felt quite good about staring one of my biggest fears in the face and staying calm, collected, and focused. 2 hours later I faced the bear again.  I had walked into the river to fish about 20 yards upstream from camp in the direction he had gone. As soon as he heard us splashing he came out of the bushes 20-25 yards from me.  I recognized him immediately and knew this was a more serious situation.  He started slowly down the bank towards me and I fired my gun at his feet.  He didn’t flinch.  I fired three more rounds into the water in front of him before the splashes made him turn.  He crossed the river, about 25 yards wide in this stretch, and walked past us on the opposite bank.  We fired one more into the water to discourage him from returning.  I was worried he would come back at night.  Thankfully, he did not. Next month, I will have more stories from our Alaska adventure.  I will also have the video of me shooting at the bear on my instagram page, stay tuned.

​