Recent Updates
Website
Changed the look of the photo galleries - 10/11/10
Photo Galleries
Added Bears of Katmai 2010 photo gallery - 10/13/10
Tales from Colorado to Katmai
The overhaul of this web page is a bit overdue and intended to be a creative outlet for my passion for the outdoors and widlife. I eventually hope to document my experiences and share with friends and whomever else may stumble across this. If you are wondering what bears have to do with hiking and climbing then read on.
I've been hooked on the outdoors and photography for about 20 years. Hiking has always been a passion which led to climbing and mountaineering. I should point out two facts about myself, one, I'm an ordinary guy who loves adventure but you won't be reading about 5.12 routes or Mt. Everest ambitions. You will read about my success and failure of classic hikes/climbs such as; Half Dome, Mt. Shasta, Longs Peak, The FlatIrons of Boulder, and Denali. I'll post my trials over 10 years of summitting all of Colorado's 14,000 peaks. I'll include photos and even try to inject some humor where needed. The second fact is about my secret of getting a good photograph. I am not a technical photographer, although I 'm trying to learn more. My methodology for getting the good picture is by being in the right spot at the right time and trying to find an unusual angle or shot . I am extremely fairly critical of my skills and my improvement continues to be a work in progress.
Which leads us back to bears....I've always been intrigued by bears. Maybe it had something to do with a warped show from my youth. You remember "Gentle Ben" with Dennis Weaver and Ron Howard's brother. The lure of a pet bear and a air boat never quite left the deepest levels of my mind. I made a visit to Pack Creek to see the brown bears of Admiralty Island in 1995 and a few years later I found I needed another Brown Bear fix. While searching the web I found a remote Bear Viewing camp in Katmai National Park. To make a long story short, I was fortunate enough to not only visit Katmai as a client, but to also work as a Wilderness guide for a few seasons. The last five years I have visted the Katmai interior using Brooks Lodge as a base camp. As it turns out I still do not have a pet bear or an air boat but I have gotten familiar with the park and spent many hours observing bears in the wild. I've learned much from the wildlife of Katmai and my time in the mountains. These experiences have me subscribed to the quote "In nature as in life, things aren't always what they seem."
