8-days into our 59-day countdown to the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service (August 25th, 2016) and we give you 8/59: Katmai National Park. Katmai is one of my favorite National Parks. Everyone knows and loves Katmai for bears. If you have ever seen a slo-mo video of a salmon jumping over a waterfall and landing in a bears mouth it was probably filmed at Katmai. As cool as that is, one of the coolest parts of the park is the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. It is the site of the largest volcanic eruption in the 20th century. It was 30-times larger than Mount St. Helens and dropped 700 feet of ash! And you can walk on it!!!!
I should also note that Katmai is high on my list of National Parks because I won $10,000 from Bear Naked Granola. Seriously, I'm not kidding.
The bus that takes you out to the valley
This pano will give you a little sense of the verdant green that surrounds the ash and pumice covered valley
Walking out on the valley
There is not much growing out there
This much ash.
This is Jen and Vanessa. We gave them our sweet Meridian Line 'Be Dareful Out There' shirts, I cannot emphasize how lucky we have been to meet and interact with incredible people throughout this trip!
That time I won $10,000....with this photo. Thank you Bear Naked!
Obligatory bear photo, this sow was about 8-yards away. We were in the visitor's center, luckily