Hiking and trekking tours in Katmai National Park, Alaska

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Trekking Tour – Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Katmai National Park (7 days)

The floatplane drops us off in the Brooks Range in the »Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes«. Here we set up our base camp and explore the volcanoes and the Mageik Lakes. After a volcanic eruption, many valleys were buried under up to 200 meters (650 feet) of ash. Today, nature thrives on this nutrient-rich soil. The top of the food chain, the grizzlies, gather here at a well-stocked table. Katmai National Park is bear country – the leaping salmon draw the bears just as much as they draw us. On this one-week tour, you can look forward to nature's spectacles at their finest.

Description

Katmai National Park is famous above all for its exceptionally large number of grizzly bears and for the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes – and both are well worth experiencing. The tour starts in Anchorage with a flight over the Mount Iliamna and Mount Redoubt volcanoes to King Salmon. From there, a bush pilot takes us in a small floatplane to Brooks Camp, where we spend the first night at the campground. We take plenty of time at the nearby Brooks Falls to watch the huge brown bears up close, which gather here especially in July and September, as they hunt and snatch the salmon leaping their way up the Brooks River to spawn. Some of the most impressive photos of grizzlies and Kodiak bears have surely been taken right here.

An off-road vehicle takes us along a bumpy road to the Three Forks Overlook. The contrast between the snow-capped mountains, the lush green of the surrounding valleys and the lava coast is probably unique in Alaska. This is where we begin our trek into a »moonscape« shaped by volcanic activity and river erosion, starting with an ash-covered valley. When the Novarupta volcano exploded in 1912 – probably the largest volcanic eruption in the world in more than 2,000 years, many times larger than that of Mount St. Helens – the entire valley was buried under a layer of ash and pumice up to 200 meters (650 feet) thick, with smoke billowing from thousands of its cracks and holes. Hence the name Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. To this day, 14 volcanoes in Katmai National Park are still active.

We cross the Lethe River and hike to its source at the Novarupta volcano. Sharing its name with one of the five rivers of Hades in Greek mythology says a lot about how special it is. Grizzly bears also pass through this valley in spring and fall on their way to the salmon. We explore the Mageik Lakes, climb one of the volcanoes and Katmai Pass, and set out to experience the geological and biological diversity and wildness on foot and capture it on camera. This week packed with scenic and bear-filled highlights goes by far too quickly!