Hiking Deep into the Estuary at Aniakchak National Monument, Alaska

Parts of the estuary maintained enough wetness to throw off some beautiful reflections on our hike back.

At one of the least visited National Monuments in the USA, our group braved boot sucking mud and massive brown bears to hike deep into the valley at Aniakchak Bay, Alaska. This is a truly wild place. There are no building, no roads, no facilities.... just pure Alaskan wilderness. Brown bears roam, unimpeded by anything man made. And if people do arrive, we are just temporary visitors.

Today, my plan was to hike my group far back into the valley, but first we had to find a place to land our skiff on the shoreline. Usually, we can poke up the river and land near the entrance to the estuary lagoon. However, today's extreme low tide made that impossible. We we braved the incoming surf, and did a beach landing. Luckily we have great skiff drivers and all went well, although it did add another half mile to the walk.

The group performed admirably and we made it a few miles deep into the valley. Along the way, we noticed some fox tracks, and quite a few bear tracks. It looked like a mommma with cubs had walked through here, although not too recently. Then we came across some massive tracks, heading in the same direction we were. Luckily we had really nice visibility, far around us to each side. Sure enough, we eventually followed the tracks right to a large brown bear, chewing his way calmly through a field of sedge grass. The wind was blowing at us, so it took the bear a little while before noticing us. But, eventually he paused his eating, and looked straight at us. I imagine all the brightly colored jackets caught his eye.

He went back to eating, but now keeping a eye on us as he did. We were still quite far away, so we ambled a little closer. This must have been a bit too close for the bear's comfort bubble, so he strode up and over a ridge, into some dense alder. Its always amazing to see how quickly such a large animal can disappear.

We never saw the bear again, even though we continued past the alder forest to the marshy fields beyond. The valley itself was surrounded by mountains, and the wet mud of the estuary was like a mirror. I had the group trek out into the estuary for a reflections picture, which was great, although two of the guests went down into the boot sucking mud. Chalk it up to another bonding experience which are so plentiful on this type of adventure.

It is always such a pleasure to help people experience these wild places. Aniakchak National Monument might be one of the more wild.