We rode in a boat that looked like the Minnow from Gilligan's Island on our journey back from Fox Island. The ride launched the second half of our journey, taking us back to Seward where we caught a bus to Anchorage by way of Turnagain Arm and a short stop at the entrance of Kenai Fjords National Park.

The "three hour tour" refrain from the Gilligan's Island theme song played in my mind during our short ride on the "Minnow." Threatening skies provided an interesting back drop to our trip but the seas remained manageable and we arrived in Seward shortly after we left without incident.

Part two of our Alaskan Safari was going to be all about bears and logistics. The next morning we would travel from Anchorage by commercial jet to King Salmon on the Alaskan coast. This tiny town would be our home base for several days as we road float planes back and forth into the Katmai peninsula along the southern coast of the main part of Alaska.

Katmai and the surrounding areas, you see, are famous for a natural phenomena involving grizzly bears. Normally solitary by nature, ranging across miles of territory alone or in small family groups of mother and cubs, grizzlies nonetheless congregate together during salmon spawning season to fish and bulk up for winter hibernation.

It's the salmon that bring them, massive numbers race into the streams of Alaska to spawn and die. The bears, and other wildlife, gather at the streams to catch them. Katmai provides the perfect environment for people to watch these bears as gather to catch salmon.

The male bears in Katmai reach nine feet in height when standing and the females, while smaller, are also massive. The spectacle at Katmai includes bears catching salmon as they leap up the falls. You may have even seen an image not unlike the one below in a  nature magazine. We are standing on a raised platform next to the falls, not 100 feet from the bear.

Exciting to witness, to be sure, but this was not the highlight of our trip to Alaska's coast. Our guide, who has studied grizzlies for two decades and observed them on foot in the field many times, took us outside Katmai National Park to walk among a group of grizzlies.

On foot, walking single file through high grass and along a lake shoreline, we spent the morning observing  and photographing the 29 grizzlies who were feeding, resting, playing and interacting in the grass, the water and along the shoreline. 

The three below were on shore next to the grass less than 20 yards from us when I snapped this image. They seemed every bit as curious about us as we were about them.

So, stay with us as we journey into the wild center of Alaska and then journey down to the coast. Join us in Denali National Park and along the Alaskan Railway to Talkeetna and Girdwood. Witness the northern lights with us north of Fairbanks and the belugas in Turnagain Arm.

Visit Fox Island on the edge of the Kenai Fjords National Park. And, of course, stay for the finale as we become veteran Alaskan float plane commuters and visit the great grizzlies of Katmai National Park and walk among them in coastal Alaska.

* Photo note: While most of the images in these posts are taken with a Sony full frame camera, the first two images above (along with the first and last three images from last weeks post) were taken with an iPhone. The first image above is a composite of four images stitched together in post processing.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. More of  our images can be found on our companion website at trekpic.com. Feel free to share this blog with your friends. The more readers the better. 

Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

A couple of times we got fogged in and had to wait for the weather to improve before we could board our float plane to head out of King Salmon on Alaska's southwestern coast. The fog I am in now, however, is of a different nature.

It is in my head. A part of the jet lag that comes from an all-day air trip through four time zones. Not a terminal ‘brain cloud’ like the one that enveloped the Tom Hanks character in the movie Joe Verses the Volcano, but enough to slow me down the day after our return from two weeks in the Alaskan interior.

As my mother would say, “this too will pass.”

In the weeks that follow, we will revisit parts of that trip and explore what it means to travel with a group in one of the wildest parts of North America. Of course, there were great moments like busing in to the middle of Denali National Park, a 6 million acre expanse of protected land, on the 92 mile gravel road that serves as the park’s only paved access.

We joined the 30% Club on the journey in and out, seeing the largest mountain in North America. You only see this when the weather is clear which also makes it possible to capture iconic views of moose, caribou, grizzly bears and porcupines during the drives.

It was also interesting to ride the Alaskan Railway south from Denali to Talkeetna, the entry point for climbers preparing for Mt. Denali and film site for the classic television series Northern Exposures. A later drive and a stop along the great Turnagain Arm waterway, first seen by European eyes by the discoverer Captain James Cook in the 1700s and site (not on the tour) of the Turnagain Arm Pit Barbeque, introduced us to beluga whales in the wild.

A class four bus trip speeding down a pothole filled gravel road through high grass to a class one rafting trip among glaciers highlighted our subsequent visit to Girdwood. Blaring rock music and a dancing, head shaking Goldie Hawn look-alike standing in the front of the bus confirmed we were ‘not in Kansas anymore.’ A visit to a local Cajun restaurant there by way of local shuttle buses also provided a second opportunity to see the Northern Lights.

To round out the first week, we headed south from Girdwood to the Alaskan Kenai Peninsula, driving on Moose Pass through the Kenai Mountains and past the Turnagain Arm National Heritage Area to Seward. From there it was on a boat to Fox Island, a remote place that would serve as our launching pad by water into the Kenai Fjords National Park.

We will share more in our next posting about our itinerary and the second week into coastal Alaska to see grizzlies in the wild. For now, we leave you with this image of Alaskans and visitors watching belugas in the Turnagain Arm waterway, in the northwestern part of the Gulf of Alaska.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. More of  our images can be found on our companion website at trekpic.com. Feel free to share this blog with your friends. The more readers the better. 

Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

That's right. We are back from two weeks in the heart and along the coast of Alaska. Visiting three national parks and seeing wild grizzlies and moose and more.

Beginning next Thursday and continuing on for several weeks we will be reviewing our trip and sharing some amazing images. Things you have heard about and somethings you maybe were not aware of.

From Denali Park's 6.0 million untouched acres to Alaskan Railways to coastal bears who can stand nine feet tall and grab moving salmon out of a stream. Beluga whales, caribou and moose with  full antlers squaring  off for mating rights will fill the coming posts. Float planes, class 4 bus rides, visits to unique locales and much more is coming.

I hope these first few images will spark your interest. Don't miss the fun. You will see and experience things you have not seen or experienced before.

And, if we succeed, you will also get to see how 14 strangers become friends as they travel together through a wild and foreign land. If you followed our Safari Series you know what to expect. If you did not, join us now and check back to last September to follow our eye-popping trip to Kenya.

Here are a few entries to introduce you to our blog:

Check back next week as we get started. If you don't get email reminders for the Venture Moola blog, try clicking on this link to sign  up -Click to Follow Venture Moola!  I hope to see you next week.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. The images are from the author's Safari Collection at Trekpic.com. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. Want to plan your own safari? If so, feel free to check out the outfitter we used at Porini.com.

And, feel free to share this blog. The more readers the better.  Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.