Brown Bear Walking Alpine Tundra Below Snow-Capped Peak, Katmai

A solitary brown bear ambles across wide-open alpine tundra in the backcountry of Katmai National Park, the last of the day's warm light raking across low wildflowers and dwarf shrubs. Rolling green foothills stretch away toward a snow-capped peak on the horizon, the air clear enough to see every ridgeline and melt-scar on the upper slopes.

Most visitors to Katmai see brown bears in a very different setting, crowding the salmon streams at Brooks Falls or along the coast. Up here, above the alder and away from the rivers, a single bear on the tundra moves with a quiet purpose that the crowds at the falls can't quite capture.

Brown bear, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Ursus arctos. Photo © copyright by Carl Donohue.

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