Hey internet, it’s been a while.
So long, in fact, that I don’t know where to begin this new entry. I’ve been procrastinating this blog, but part of me has been longing to return to my photojournalism habits, so I’m just going to start writing and see what happens.
A week ago, a group of seven friends and I waited impatiently for a bush plane to pick us up at Wolverine Pass in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska. We had just spent a week backpacking, covering 40 miles in the bush, witnessing the most epic glacial landscapes any of us had ever seen. We were exhausted, nearly out of food, stinky, and ready to return to the frontcountry.
This was my first adventure in years. Before we left, I was stressed and worried about our upcoming time in the Alaskan bush. I had endless checklists—things to pack in my backpack versus my suitcase, various grocery lists, to-do’s before I left home—and I was nervous about the weather. The last time we had ventured to Alaska (to Gates of the Arctic, read about that near-disaster here and here), it rained on us for seven days straight and I had never been so cold in my entire life. I also hadn’t backpacked in nearly three years, so I was worried about everything that could go wrong from bear encounters, to getting lost, to running out of food, to not being able to sleep at night. In terms of grand adventures, I was getting thrown in the deep end and my comfort in the backcountry was rusty at best.
But in the last week since I’ve returned to my home in Boulder, Colorado, I can say that this was one of the best trips of my life. The Alaskan scenery was incredible—massive glaciers, 16k foot peaks, rivers that dwarf the Colorado, and endless valleys and canyons that stunned the eight of us for a week. Photos don’t do this place justice or come close to capturing the scale of this landscape. It’s not too often that this group of friends, made up of some old CU Boulder Hiking Club alumni and a few add-ons, get together, so I was grateful to catch up with them while deepening new friendships. We had two bear encounters, and while they were terrifying in the moment, I’m glad I have the stories to tell. I’m better for it.
When I last wrote a blog three years ago, I was living in Goleta, California, working multiple part-time jobs, and in the start of a long-term relationship with Derek, my best friend and life partner. I was preparing for a big move to Milan, Italy, where I thought I’d begin a master’s program in sustainable natural resource management.
I spent hours filling out visa paperwork and figuring out logistics of the move. I arrived in Milan, on a grand adventure, and ready to live in the country that altered the course of my life and gave me a deep appreciation for espresso and pasta. I began my program in Fall 2022, and it all started to fall apart within a few weeks. I quickly realized I didn’t like my program, as I knew it wouldn’t lead me to a career path I had determined that I wanted. I couldn’t find housing for the life of me, and living in Italy as a foreigner wasn’t all that I had imagined. With a heavy heart, I decided to back out from the program and move back home a few months later (luckily, Derek made time to join me in Italy, and after I quit school we spent six weeks eating, drinking, and oogling over all the classic art, museums, and famous must-sees together).
With nothing on the horizon except for the same part-time, remote job at CU, I began applying to grad schools in the U.S. I was eager to go elsewhere, but I ended up moving back to Boulder to start a master’s program at CU in environmental policy. Crazy how sometimes you go full circle in life. And in this case, it was one of my best decisions, as I graduated in May 2025 and recently started a job at Trout Unlimited, working on water and conservation policy and advocacy in the Colorado River Basin. It all worked out.
Derek moved in with me in Boulder at the start of school, and we did our best to get outside and do all the classic Colorado activities while I was busy in grad school. In between semesters full of assignments, a capstone project, two internships, and a part time-job, we made time to climb a few 14ers, camp at Crested Butte and Telluride, and explore our local parks and trails. I even taught Derek how to ski and fly fish. I’m proud to announce that he recently completed the transition from SoCal boy to a full-fledged Colorado mountain man, an ending marked with the purchase of a pair of Chacos.
So while we got outside a bit in the last few years, nothing had prepared me for a week in the Alaskan backcountry.
It didn’t take me nearly as long to settle into the Alaskan wilderness as I expected. I slept well every night, finding comfort in my inflatable pad and sleeping quilt. I packed seven days of food very well. It miraculously all fit in my bear can and I had a good variety of snacks. I wasn’t nervous every time I ventured a little away from the group to go to the bathroom. All was well.
On the third morning of our trip, the group and I were eating breakfast next to our tents at our campsite on a ridge along Skolai Pass, and overlooking the valley below. We were discussing how amazingly, the clouds were covering the valley in an incredible inversion, and somehow, the rain clouds above the peaks around us somehow left us a pocket of sunshine.
I was nearly done with my oatmeal, when our friend Ryan said, “hey, there’s a bear!” We looked up in unison, and sure enough, there was a grizzly who had appeared from behind a small hillside in a blindspot of ours, and was heading straight towards our tents, probably 500 feet away. We all stood up in unison, everyone grabbed their bearspray, and we secured our food in our bear cans. I was shaking and thought “oh shit, what am I supposed to do again?” Luckily my friends led our response, and we all began talking firmly to the bear, waving our arms and trekking poles in the air, and banging metal cups together. The bear started running towards us, stopped briefly, then laid down on the tundra, and rolled over on its back like a dog happy to see us.
While we were relieved that we were seeing signs of a curious bear, we continued our noise to claim our territory. The grizzly stood back up, and started to walk away from us, until it stopped again ~1000 feet away, and laid down in a field of flowers to enjoy the rare sunshine and take a nap. Immediately, we all agreed we needed to get the hell out of there, as this bear more than likely wanted to come sniff out our campsite and would probably run out of patience. So a few stood watch while the rest of us packed up camp as fast as we could. I screwed the lid onto my collapsible bowl, making an absolute mess of the rest of my oatmeal, and threw everything into my pack without rhyme or reason.
Twenty minutes later, we were packed and headed up the remainder of Skolai Pass, leaving the bear to explore our camp. It all made sense that we saw a grizzly that morning, there were signs everywhere. Bear poop, berries, and bear digs (where grizzlies will dig up the tundra in search of moths, leaving an out-of place looking hole in the grasses) littered the hillside. We noted that we probably should not be eating our breakfasts in camp, even if we’re about to start hiking soon. You never know when the smell of your morning oats and instant coffee will tempt a grizzly to appear from behind a hillside to check out your tents.
Our campsite on night 4 had the most epic views of the trip.
Our second bear sighting was on our last night of the trip. We had just rounded a final corner on the hillside above a plateau hanging in a huge valley that we had been hiking in for a few days. There stood our ending point, Wolverine Pass, on top of a massive plateau. How the bush plane would land on that small strip was a worry for another day, as we had a fairly large ravine to hike through to reach the landing strip, where we would set up camp for the night.
Right as we looked down into the ravine before we began our final approach, there was a grizzly, doing it’s grizzly-like things of looking for moths and berries, between us and the landing strip.
Damn. We were all exhausted, ready to go home, and damp from the day of hiking in our rain gear. The weather had held up great until the last day, and one day of rain had us reeling to go. And now we all had to deal with the fact that there was a grizzly painfully close to the final place we needed to be.
We made the decision as a group to give the bear plenty of space, and hike up towards the air strip and make camp. We’d have to be extra careful to not bring any food or other smelly items into camp. We all agreed to even store our packs with the bear cans at night, far away from our tents.
Eventually we stored our food and bear cans in the ravine, far enough from the bear, and reached the landing strip and set up the tents. Since it was sprinkling and we were all ready to be dry, most of us went into the tents to relax a bit before dinner. Derek and I were reading when someone shouted “bear! Heading straight for the tents!!” I panicked, put on all my rain gear as fast as possible, and got out with my bear spray. Once again, there was the same grizzly, about 300 feet from the tents, heading straight towards us.
We began our routine again - banging metal, trekking poles, yelling firmly at the bear. It circled us for a few moments, then took off in a full sprint away from our tents down into the ravine. For a moment, we all panicked, as the bear was heading straight for our food cache, but it ran right past the bear cans and into the bottom of the ravine, out of sight. We successfully scared it off.
I knew I wasn’t going to sleep that night.
The bear came out of the ravine a few minutes later, and started making its way back towards where we first saw it, and continued its usual bear activities. We kept an eye on it for the rest of the evening, even eating dinner with the bear in sight (much better than any TV you could watch during a meal). I was terrified that the bear would come back to the tents during the night to wake us, but my friends reassured me that we had done everything we could and the statistics were in our favor.
I slept a few hours on and off until about 8am, when we decided to get up and prepare for the plane to arrive at 10:30. Miraculously the bear was nowhere to be seen. Our grizzly routine worked.
The bush plane came in shortly after 10:30, impressively landing on a short strip of semi-flat gravel. Amazed, we were packed up and ready to go, and loaded onto the plane. Taking off had our adrenaline going, the way the air strip was positioned on the plateau made it look like the plane was about to run off the end of a cliff. A few minutes later, we landed in the tiny town of McCarthy, Alaska, safe and sound.
While both bears had me scared shit-less, in hindsight, they were great memories. How many people can say they fought off two grizzly bears on the Alaskan tundra? I’ll tell these stories for the rest of my life.
Now that I’m in a 9-5 job with a somewhat normal routine, I’m realizing that I miss the writer and photographer who lives within me. She never really left, but I was so caught up in all the other chaotic parts of being a grad student for the last three years that I didn’t make any time for her.
I’ve been feeling a longing to return to this side of my life, the side where I let my friends convince me to go on these crazy adventures, pushing our comfort zones in order to learn a bit more about ourselves and the world. I’m forever grateful that I have these friends in my life.
I’ve also really missed writing and taking photos, so I hope to make an effort in the next few months to get back to it. In some ways, it’s unfortunate that my phone takes just as good of photos as my small camera most of the time. I’ll have to adapt, and maybe change my photo process.
Whatever that looks like, thanks for reading this far and for supporting my photojournalist efforts. You’ll be hearing more from me very soon.
With love,
Katherine
