A short while back, I spent a week at Katmai Nat. Park (work related) during the fall. The park closes down for the winter in mid-September. Already overflowing with bears coming down to the Brooks river to feast on the salmon carcasses and the remaining live salmon, it gets even more crowded with bears after the people are gone.
Here we were walking up the trail, past the boarded up Brooks Lodge and adjacent cabins when we came up on this fellow in the photo. As we were on foot and about only 30 yards away, we let him go on at his leisure and stayed where we were until there was more distance between us.
Though they were more interested in packing down as much fish as possible before hibernation and weren't interested in humans, I still can't help the hair from standing up on the back of my neck when I'm this close to a brownie and all I can do in any emergency is throw my camera at him.
