4 Days Camping with Wild Brown Bears in Alaska

We're about to spend the next four days face-to-face with wild grizzly bears in Alaska. She walked within 10 feet of us with all of her baby. I can't feel my body. Welcome to Katmai National Park, home to the largest population of brown bears in the U.S., with over 2,200 bears. And here's the crazy part. We'll be sleeping in a tent, basically living with these bears. Obviously, we're not doing this alone. Meet the incredible husband and wife duo behind this unique adventure. They spend three months living here every summer and have spent over 10,000 hours with brown bears. So, we'll be trusting them with our lives as we get up close and personal with these bears. I just want to lie in this field and soak in what just happened. So, join us as we hopefully have the best wildlife experience of our lives. I can't believe my eyes. This adventure started on a tiny float plane, which y'all know is my favorite, and we flew a quick and gorgeous 45 minutes from Kodiak over to Katmai. What an absolutely epic start to the trip. That was such a cool flight. The landscape could not be more different between where we started and where we are now. We left from Kodiak, it was green, beautiful, lush mountains, and then here in Katmai, just these huge, jagged, glacier-filled, snow-capped mountains. So, so cool. Also, I think one of the coolest parts about this place is that the only way to get here is either by float plane or by boat. Even though Katmai National Park is over four million acres, there are no roads in the entire National Park. Didn't really pack the right bag for this trip. Wow, what a view. Look at these flowers. Home sweet home. Is this fence electric? Always on. This is all we have to protect us from the bears. That's right. Not me when I'm dead asleep. So, one of the things we want to do first and foremost, we want to make you feel safe. We want to make you feel at home. So, the bear fence is always on. After every single rain and every night, we spray the perimeter of camp with simple green. It's really high ammonia content and the bears just will not bother. Bear spray is right out here. Lots of bear spray. You're not going to need it. These bears are not normal bears, if you will, right? These guys are a little bit different, not hunted. They're conditioned years and years and years, multiple generations of not being afraid of humans. So, we threw our stuff down, ate a freeze-dried meal, and we are already heading out to see the bears. We left the safety of the fence behind. This is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my entire life. Like, even if there were no bears, this is such an epic spot, but knowing that there are bears makes it a million times better. This is between when we brought our bags in. So, this one just walked down the beach right while we were eating. Look at the size of this sprint. The reason this is a park, that's one of the things people always need to know, right? So, in 1912, after the eruption, one of the biggest of all time, on the Katmai Coast right here, for about a 220-mile stretch, there were seven villages and it displaced those people. Lots of earthquakes under 2.5 through the park all throughout the days, so it's not uncommon to feel something. In other words, Katmai was originally formed as a national park for its volcanic activity, but now more visitors come to see the bears. All right, so we've found a spot on the beach that, according to Scott, is basically the dinner buffet. There's some bears hiding out in the grass behind us, like way, way far away, otherwise I wouldn't be facing in this direction, but we've been told as the tide starts coming out, that's when they come to feed, and every night they come to around the same spot, so we're just sitting here waiting for them to show up. While we wait on the bears, we just have an eagle casually flying around, getting attacked by some seagulls. What a wild place. So, these cubs are about five and a half months old, all three boys, and there they come. There's the show. I can't believe my eyes. Listen to their little feet. We just watched a mother brown bear and her three cubs walk out of the grass and into the ocean. They didn't even look at us. The babies are the cutest thing I've ever seen. They're so tiny. This is pretty much against every instinct in my body right now. We are heading out onto the flats with the bears, like we're going towards the grizzly bears in a completely flat area with nowhere to run for protection. Somehow I've known Scott for just a few hours now, and I trust him with my life. He seems really confident. This is fun, and this is why we're the waiters. So, when the tide pushes in, the fish ride the tide, and it comes in. When the tide leaves, once the fish enter the mouth, they stay, and you can kind of watch her. You see her step really hard, so she's waiting in the pools where she knows there can be flounder, and if she feels one under her feet, you'll see her hit it. She just got one right there. She just got one, and now you'll see if she picks it up, she'll probably eat the first two, and then she's going to bring the cubs some. Oh, the cubs are just waiting up on the shore. As the tide goes back, we can keep moving up and up and up and up, and the beauty is if she fishes one way or the other, the cubs will just come right up to us. Don't play with my heart, Scott. Give them their space, but you do that. They are used to this. That's the beauty of Katmai. My new favorite place on earth. The distinction between brown bears and grizzlies gets asked a lot, so grizzly bears don't have access to salmon, and brown bears do for about 100 to 150 miles inland, and that's the main distinction for anybody out there wondering. Where the salmon runs stop, that's usually where a grizzly becomes a brown bear, but they are all part of the grizzly species. Just in Alaska, there are way more brown bears than grizzlies, and there's also brown bears in several other regions in the world. Japan, Himalayan brown bear, and a couple other species too, so that's the main distinction. All of the bears that we're seeing are brown bears, and all brown bears are grizzly Correct, exactly. So mom's name is Shelly. Shelly is just sitting on her butt chewing on her fish she just caught. She's got both her little hands. She just looks so cute, but she's this like beast, 600 pound animal, but somehow like the cutest, most graceful thing at the same time, and Koi stands for cub of the year. Koi means they were born this year and are just a few months old, and when they're first born they're about the size of a tin can, and now they're like 40 pounds, but they're still so tiny and cute. There you go, look at her running right at us. Look at that. There you go. That's what you dream of. No way. You can hear them, they're hungry. That's why I care when she's hungry. Wow. So the mom just laid down to nurse, and just as she had settled in, two of the cubs got in a fight right on top of her belly. What just happened? When the mom is running right towards us, glistening in the sunlight, I think I stop breathing when that happens. It's amazing how active it's all been so far, like they're not just out there sitting around, they are on the move. Another is coming, and we're just here, no big deal. We're about to have a little confrontation. What is about to happen? If a bear comes that mom doesn't like, she's gonna get him out of the way, and sometimes they'll bring him right behind the groups. This second adult bear is definitely a dude. He's got some wild energy. Mom's not sure about it. Even at that distance, normally she wouldn't be all so thrilled with him. Just a bear chasing a bald eagle. Adult brown bear number three is entering the chat. We're not sure which direction it's gonna go. Kind of feels like it's coming towards us. It's definitely coming towards us. Again guys, make sure your pack's right on you within your reach, right? It's actually walking right towards us. Run baby cubs. Is this a male? Yeah. Oh shoot, it's a male. It's going after the babies, and mommy is really, really far away. They're scared. Mom, come back. What are you doing? It doesn't have to be boars all the time that kill them, right? I can't believe this is happening. This might not look too tense from the outside, but Scott has seen three different cubs get killed by other bears in situations just like this, and I just don't think my heart could handle seeing that. Okay, feels like mom is aware of the situation. She's now running towards her babies, and in the process scaring away the male that is between her and the babies. Go get your babies. Okay, it seems like the situation has been diffused. Oh my gosh, they're so cute. First all the babies tried to climb up on a tree trunk. King of the stump. And now they're playing in the grass. Hey. No wonder I was yawning. I was like, how am I yawning? I'm sitting in the presence of brown bears. 10, 17, and the sun just set behind a mountain. Oh, I can feel it. We have definitely made the most of today. Wait. At least. Bear hair. Look at all of it. We just got to spend over three hours watching those bears. You just got the highlights, but it could not have been a more perfect evening to just be sitting out in the middle of Alaska, enjoying the incredible scenery, the bears. It doesn't get better. Just look at these views. Just dragging through Alaska. She likes to graze in different spots, and we just figure spots, and we let her just come right to us. So. Okay. Yeah, it's just patience and time. It's late. Scott could easily be taking us back to camp right now because he's done for the day, but we've just positioned ourselves in the grass for another experience. It's like they're boxing. They're standing up fighting each other. I wonder where the third one is. These two are the troublemakers for sure. These are so cute. I cannot believe we're seeing this right now. Mom's just over there grazing, letting them do their thing. So this is what they want to eat. That's why she's where she's standing. The shorter grass is just like green beans. So this is what has all the nutrients, and this is what helps mom pack on all the weight before the fish get here. So this is what she wants. That's why she's in the short grass. If we walked out into the meadow right where mom is right now, she would absolutely just be pissed, right? But if we walked up to the edge of the grass and we stand there, and we use it like it's a fence, she knows that we respect this space, and she'll treat you entirely different than if you just walked out there. I'm pretty sure like three mosquitoes are biting me in the face right now. I don't even care. Thank you, mama. Come say hi. This is time and trust. This is what patience is, right? We were about to get up and leave, and all of a sudden, all four of them came and stood right in front of us like, no, stay. They're so unfazed. Like our whole group just stood up. Mom looked back for like half a second, and it's just like, oh, it's just the people. It's just crazy how calm they are around us. We're just another animal out here that they know is not a threat. Scott actually said we are basically a treat, like just completely meaningless to them. Not yummy. I love you. This feels like how you get eaten by a grizzly bear. She knows it's perfectly okay, right? That grass is a fence, and there's your window to the best living room in the world right there. We've gotten way too comfortable, and now we just walk away, just turning our backs to a brown bear. No big deal. That was the craziest experience. All right, we're back at camp. It is 11- 24, still light outside, and going to sleep in this tent. Feels even crazier. That I'm about to go get a bag of Cheetos? No. Feels even crazier knowing what's out there. Although they felt super friendly today, honestly. I think I'm a little nervous to go to sleep. I'm not. But I'm way less scared of bears after having spent time with them than I was before we went out there. Honestly, I think Scott has like 90% to do that. He's so chill and so confident that everything's gonna be fine. And like even telling us like the rules, it's like, you know, I mean. I don't want to make it seem like we're not taking this seriously. Like I don't want to be too nonchalant about it. No, for sure. Because I think Scott, like there's a bunch of things going through his mind. He's doing a lot to keep us safe, but he makes it look really easy. That's what I was saying. He's very smart and tuned in, and I'm just like, Real quick, Nate from the future here. I am currently 48 hours removed from the biggest physical challenge of my entire life, which involved running 108 miles through three countries and not sleeping for two days. It was an absolutely wild experience that we cannot wait to share with you in the next video. But for now, I need to tell you about Surfshark, which is the sponsor of this video and a long time partner of ours, which makes videos like this possible. If you haven't heard of Surfshark, it is a VPN, the best VPN on the internet, which stands for Virtual Private Network, and it encrypts all the data in between your computer and the internet so that no one can steal your sensitive information. We've been using a VPN for well over five years now, and we probably should have been using it beforehand because especially as we're traveling and we're in airport lounges connecting to sketchy Wi-Fi, and here we're in a hotel doing the same thing. Places like this are a gold mine for hackers, and a VPN just kind of gives you an extra layer of security. Think of a VPN as like, if I'm going running through the mountains, I'm bringing a rain jacket in case it rains. I hope I don't have to use it, but if it does rain, I'm going to be really happy that I have it. That's what a VPN does. You did have to use it. That's what a VPN does when you're browsing the internet. It's basically an extra layer of security or kind of like a little insurance policy for all the time that you spend online. But the good news is this insurance policy, that's not actually what it is, but you know, it comes with like this fun perk, which is you can also use a VPN to change the virtual location of your computer and get access to a completely new content library. If you don't already have a VPN, we obviously highly recommend Surfshark. And if you go to surfshark.com forward slash Kara and Nate, or just use code Kara and Nate, you can get four months for free. Plus there's a 30 day money back guarantee. So there is no risk to try it out. Okay. Enjoy the bears and next week or two weeks from now, you can watch me suffer a lot in the Alps. We have officially been going for 24 hours. Oh dang, look at that. 24 hours and nine minutes. Good morning. It is seven. Feels like the middle of the day. The sun's been up forever. I think it's dark for a grand total of four hours here. I slept relatively well. I kept sliding towards Kara all night. So we just kind of slept on top of each other. Time to go hang out with more bears. Ready for this? Thank you. Yeah, no, this morning is going to be fun guys. We're going to come here on the beach. We've got a couple of bears out looking to clam and fish. We might go down and spend more time with mom and the babies. Um, a little bit later fishing. And the plan is to be out here until 11 PM. That is 14 hours from now. Also, Scott said, if you come on this tour, he can guarantee this is the weather that you'll get. How long has it been since you've had a day like this? We've maybe had two all season this year. So this year has been really hard. And then, um, we've had great bear viewing because of it, but the weather has been unreal this year. Um, almost 20 inches of rain in just a couple of weeks. The viewing has been great, but yeah, to have you guys bring this weather and we're blessed and we will pay you to do it again. You're welcome. We'll come anytime. You just let us know. It's crazy how quickly it's become normal just to be walking down the beach with no fences and no protection. And you can just see bears out on the horizon. It's still hard to explain how little fear there's been in this entire experience. I thought it was just going to be an adrenaline filled few days, but it's been calm. It's been chill. The bears are chill, just such a wild and hard to explain feeling to be out here with these massive predators that could kill us at any time if they decide to yet feel totally safe. Fearless leader. Your bag's about to... Yeah, we'll go up. We'll go up a little bit. It's just enough. We don't need to play with that. Our first river crossing. I'm excited for my waders to actually look used. Took the tags off yesterday. Wow, look at that background. This is nuts. It doesn't look like much, but the current is really strong. It's trying to pull your foot out from underneath you with every step you take. We were rewarded for our epic river crossing with a brand new female bear. Let's talk about the important stuff. I learned that most of these bears have names, not just Shelly. This one's name is Jolie, but most importantly, those three baby cubs that we've been watching also have names. The lightest one's name is Peanut, and then the two feisty brothers are Wally and Cash. So it's like Peanut, Walnut, and Cashew. Apparently, if you're the first person to spot the bear, you get to name it. A lot of the bears here are referred to as the cat, my cows. It directly relates to how much grass they eat. So by their body weight, just for example, like a thousand pound bear could eat almost a hundred pounds of grass or even a little more in a day. From late May right up until the salmon show up in Alaska, it's a major food source. If they can feed on the goose tongue and the sedge grasses, they can really maintain and gain weight until the salmon show up. It's actually crazy. We've been seeing some of their poop, and it looks like something you'd see like out of a cow or an elk or just something that just feeds exclusively off of grass that you just see so much grass in the poop. I never thought I'd be taking a nap next to a brown bear. 20 minutes later. All right, we're seeing a brand new bear. She looks so different from Shelly. When we first got here, Scott said none of them look alike. Like by the end, you're going to be able to tell them all apart, and I didn't really know if I would be able to, but it's clear. They're very different bears, and her ears are way more perked up than Shelly's. And super fluffy too, right? Yeah. Come say hi. I never thought I would say that. I feel like nothing that I'm capturing in the camera is doing this place justice in terms of just the natural beauty of the landscape, but just look at this field right here. Crazy. Good afternoon. Just woke up from nap number two of the day, which was unexpected, and I had to pee. The routine is you get a can of bear spray, and you find a nice log or some long grass, and you pop squat. It is crazy going out on your own. I mean, even though everyone's just right here, and I just went right there. I'm like pretty sure there's no bears, and it's gonna be fine, but it's a little eerie. One of my more nervous bees I've ever had. Got our own personal barista. Luxury. Kelton just made me a mocha. Yeah. On the beach in the middle of Alaska, and I'm about to slam some M&M's for dinner. We're all just sitting here drinking our coffee, and all of a sudden a brown bear's swimming. Early. Give us 20 minutes. Yeah, I'm not telling my coffee yet. Oh my gosh, you already caught fish. It's our girl from earlier. She looks so much smaller in the water. Have you named her? No. We need to name her. All you, make it a good one. That's a lot of pressure. Oh, I love her. She got right back in, caught a flounder, and I think she's bringing it out to eat it right in front of us. The fish is still alive. Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes. Should we name her Ariel since flounder was her best friend? Way to go, Ariel. And she could not care less that we're sitting here. That's the craziest part of all of this, is she went in that water, did not even look over at us, grabbed her fish, came even closer to us, and just doesn't even care. All right, Ariel's gone back for more. She's kind of playing in the water and the waves. I just love when they do the little hop. Just for the record, we think Ariel is about six and a half, seven years old, all by herself. She's a beautiful girl. So she's got a scar on her face, and apparently a boar did that to her while they were mating. Sounds rough. We're back with our favorite bear family. Mama Shelly and her three cubs just eating grass and playing. It is so clear now that there's one baby that likes to hang out with mom, and it's just really calm. And the other two are such little rascals, always fighting, being funny, to pick up on a family of bears' personalities. Never something I thought I would do. Ariel's back and giving us a show. She's become our number one bear today. We just met her this afternoon, but she's our new favorite. Her whole body is glowing in the sunshine. It's amazing. No way. That was such a cool noise. Look at the cubs standing up. Wow. So Ariel got way too close to Shelly, and Ariel ran away, and now all the cubs are standing up out of curiosity at what mom was so mad about. What a view. Wow, that was gorgeous. So good. Oh, what a day. Good morning. Your mask is on. It's a no. The bald eagles are back this morning. So cool to see. We're getting so spoiled, though. We're just like, oh, another eagle. There it is. I can already see Shelly and the three babies in the distance. It's amazing how quickly things become normal. Yeah. Not that we're not appreciating it, but you know. Just another day in the life. Our first bear of the day. She's having her breakfast right in front of us. We're just sitting in the sand watching her chomp on a flounder. You would think they would just eat it all in one go, but they really nibble on it. Fun fact I learned from Scott, apparently bears can digest just about anything, including bones and saltwater. So she might come out here fishing and swallow three gallons of saltwater, no problem. And apparently when they go to hibernate for the winter, all those bones just decompose. No big deal. How do the little bones not get stuck in its throat? Maybe it chomps them up like a crouton. It's not like it has like big thick teeth. Oh, maybe it does because they eat a bunch of grass. Yeah, I bet they do. What about the inside of the bear's mouth looks like? Maybe we'll find out. I hope not. This girl's name is Apple. Crabby Apple. Apparently she doesn't love being around other bears, which is why she's out here by herself. And they think she's 27 years old. So these females live up to 34 years old, males around 32, but a lot of them end up dying at the end of their 20s. So it's nap time for the bears and for the humans. We're lying in this grass field. This grass called goose tongue sedge is what the bears munch on, what seems like all day. And so we thought we would try it. A tad bit salty from the thyme, but honestly I'd eat it. I'd eat it as a salad with some olive oil. Like a mix between lettuce and a green bean. Everyone's awake from nap time. They went straight into grazing. They're all like yawning and sleepy looking. These babies are so cute. Unbearably cute. That was a good one. If you're wondering how they get all those shots for the nature documentaries, these guys are shooting for the BBC. The bears walk straight up to them. This is nuts. It looks like they're touching. They're not, but it looks like it. Most of these bears start at hundreds of feet away and have just chosen to walk right up to these guys. And the babies are just sitting right beside them. This is the experience I wanted, but now that I'm watching it happen, I'm not sure that I do. On that note, this BBC film crew are the same filmmakers who produced the Nat Geo show called Queens. And they're the only other people in this whole park with this. I think it's so cool that in a couple years we'll get to watch the documentary they're filming here and see the exact bears we're hanging out with right now. The mama bear is coming straight at us and so are her three cubs. No way. This is really happening. All of this would make her highly want it. I can hear it breathing. Hi darlings. It's coming straight at us. Please come right to us. This is the moment I've been waiting for. They're so cute. Hey little guy. Thank you honey. Yeah, I know. Hi. I know. Hi mommy. Hi baby. Thank you. This is the best moment of my life. Yeah, come on. Come on now baby. She walked within 10 feet of us with all of her babies. I can't feel my body. I definitely have adrenaline coursing through my body but we've spent enough time with her and her cubs over the past couple days that I really wasn't even scared. That was amazing. My legs are tingling. The feeling's starting to come back. Okay, we can go now. So on that note, Nate and I have done a handful of these wildlife experiences on foot and we've noticed that pretty much every single one of them our guide is carrying a gun. Usually for worst case scenario or they plan to use it as a way to, you know, diffuse the situation by shooting the ground and at the end of the day I think it makes everyone feel just a bit safer. Scott, however, does not carry a gun here. I'm gonna let him explain why. That's all you need, right? The reason we don't carry firearms in the last several years there's lots of documented cases in Montana, Wyoming where people have been killed in grizzly bear attacks when firearms are involved because in the chaos one of the friends tries to save the other and ends up accidentally shooting their friend. So when used right you spray a wall in front of that bear they're gonna run through it and they're not gonna like it and they're gonna leave. The biggest thing you can use for protection against bears is what's between your ears. I'm gonna tell you right now if anything happened here I would never want anything done with the bear but again everything we do is methodical. It's thought out. It's by the park rules. At no point was I worried about grabbing the spray here because these bears are different bears than a Montana, Wyoming, a Banff grizzly or something you might see in interior Alaska and that's huge knowing the bears in the area and where you're going. That's why we don't carry firearms. We don't believe we need it. All the time you've been at Katmai, how many times have you used the bear spray? Zero. Never even grabbed it. The days of bear camp have been pretty full on. We've got our first little break of the trip so I'm going to use that to show you around camp. This kind of looks like dental floss but we have an electric fence all the way around camp. All the orange tents are our sleeping tent. This is where the big boss sleeps. This is the bathroom. Vacant. Occupied. Here's the bathroom setup. It's basically like a camp chair with the toilet seat and then underneath there's just a bucket, wet wipes, and sanitizer. It's surprisingly less gross than you would think. This was definitely unexpected but Starlink internet so we've had internet the entire time. This is breakfast. So all of our meals are freeze-dried. We've got some cinnamon apple oats, mountain berry granola, all kinds of good stuff here. This is all of our dinner freeze-dried meals. Here's the main hangout tent. Especially at night when it's cold this is really nice but we've got all the windows unzipped right now because it gets hot in Alaska in the summer. The massive snack bucket. When we head out you just come in here grab whatever you want. Chef. Barista. All the things. Cleaner. Cook. Oh and then a massive power setup. What's going on here? Got everything going on here. We have two Gold Zero 1500s. We have a 500 and we have seven of these 100s you can wirelessly charge your phone on as well. So no lack of power and all of that is being charged by these solar panels that are sitting out in the middle of camp. This is home sweet home. Oh hey. I was just casually hanging out here. After lunch we all took a nap. There's been way more napping on this trip than expected but full bellies, warm sun and no bears. Good recipe for a nap. They provide us with these really good sleeping bags because it's very cold at night. Air mattresses. The air mattresses are surprisingly thick like this is the thickest camp mattress I've ever had. Pillows and something that I've never had in a tent before but has been really nice is there's a table in here and they're also nice enough to provide these full body wipes. That's your shower. There's no shower here but these make you feel surprisingly fresh. So that's been good. Got a little lantern. So the food setup for this trip is breakfast, lunch and dinner are all instant meals. So Kelton cooks for us and this one specifically is bringing back some good memories. This is the exact same meal I ate every single night running six marathons in six days in the Sahara Desert and I'm still not sick Can you almost taste the sand that would get in your mouth? Perspective is the funniest thing when you're backpacking and living in the wild like this. The fact that I don't even have to boil the water or even clean my spoon is such luxury. Like coffee gets made for me every morning just by Kelton instead of Nate. So Nate's on vacation too. I still gotta do the hard job Walking in from here. Oh yeah. 10 feet over to that tent. This just in we've got a new mother and cub that we've never met before. Cub's name is Silver and the mom looks so different from every other bear. We're really close. Really close. We just keep walking and it's fine. All right so mama Shelly is on all fours just staring at this new mom and cub but apparently because this cub is bigger than hers they kind of dictate what happens but Shelly she's alert. Feels like we're watching a bear soap opera right now. It's like keeping up with the brown bears. There's some tension. You know what you should do to your face? You know what you should do to yours? The new mom and the silver cub have moved to the ocean and they're playing with each other. It's not a bad place to brush your teeth. Well it's a very sad day. Bags are being packed but thankfully we don't get picked up by the float plane until 7 tonight so we basically have one last full day. Go hang out with the bears a little bit longer. We are back with mom and her babies. Mom's already caught a flounder. Babies are jealous but they're too scared to go through the water. Oh he just stood up. Just walk on over there little guy. He can do it. He's gonna try to walk on his hind legs. Go on. They look like little meerkats. They do. Mom's like all right enough of this. Mom may or may not be coming towards us. We will happily babysit if you want to drop the cubs off. We are great aunts and uncles. So here's where we are. Here's where the babies are. Hi little peanut. Come see us. Your mom's gone. That's Cash. That's Wally. You got mama fishing over there. Oh my gosh. They're all whining because their mommy left them with us. Oh listen to their little noises. Mama please bring us a fish. We do love you. Don't be sad. Mom and babies are coming right towards us just like yesterday. We got your babies. Don't worry. Come on peanut. Yeah you're safe with us. Mama's not giving up her food. We are currently directly in between the mom and her three cubs. I never thought this was possible. She's right there and the cubs are right there. We're babysitting if you will. Oh wow thank you. That was epic. And yes it is a bit scary when a big bear like that starts running right at you. Wow she's just gonna come right by isn't she? Hi big girl. Hi sister. That was awesome. How does this happen? How is this real? Turns out the reason she was going back to her babies is it was time to nurse them. She just plopped right down right in front of them. So they've been nursing about a minute and a half right? She's gonna be running out of milk and they're gonna start hunting between the nipples. See watch that. See they're hunting. Every time mom stands up when they nurse you'll see her take her backside leg and she lifts it way high above them. She's gonna scoot and turn so she never hurts the babies. It's really cool to watch and it doesn't matter how old they are. It's really cool to watch her when she stands up. At first we thought this trip would be about seeing as many bears as possible but instead it turned into something much more special. Getting to know the same mom and her three cubs. We are so grateful that Shelly and her kids shared four days of their lives with us. By the end it felt like we knew their personalities and they knew us too. Lying in this field with them on our last day in Katmai felt like the perfect ending to the trip of a lifetime. Just got to spend an hour with those guys. Oh that was so good. I just want to lie in this field and soak in what just happened. That is the reason we flew all the way to Alaska. That's the reason we booked this trip and that's the exciting part about wildlife is you never know what you're gonna get. It's not like you see a photo of the Eiffel Tower and you know when you show up it's gonna be like that. With wildlife you never know and you hope for those moments and on day three for the grand finale we got it. I just can't shake this feeling. Wow. There was not a single moment in that hour that I felt any fear. I don't know how to explain it like the bears are so calm like you can just feel how comfortable they are. Completely wild to say that we were within 15 feet of a massive 700 pound brown bear and didn't feel any fear but it's a different place out here. I gotta give Scott and his wife credit like they really set the tone at the beginning of the week too like really from the start I felt this way like everything's okay they know exactly what they're doing and it just couldn't have been better. I wouldn't change a single thing. All right if people want to come where should they go? They can either go to alaskabearcamps.com scottstonephotography.com or focusphototours.com. Any one of those are going to direct you in the right direction and we would gladly help anybody get here. We meet a bunch of awesome people when we travel but I would say that Scott and Jackie are two of the most passionate people that we've ever met about what they do so if you want to come have a great time with bears. Thank you man. Feels like we just got off the plane yesterday. I'm so sad.