Bears Hate Selfies

            Cheryl and I had been planning a  hike out to Novarupta since we first got here. Novarupta was a huge Plinian eruption in 1912, dwarfing the Vesuvius one that buried Herculaneum and Pompeii. It created the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, which was the whole reason for making Katmai a park (the fascination the public has with the bears didn't come until about 70 years later). The name Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes comes from the fumaroles that were visible everywhere when the valley was explored after the eruption.      We prepared. We picked everyone's brains who had been out there. We had our map ("you don't need one," they told us), and went over our gear about a thousand times. Cheryl had a list (she's much better at planning than I am), and I had dire predictions for our inevitable demise. The weather report called for cold and rain the whole time we'd be out there, but since it was our only three days in a row, we si...

     I should probably start off by explaining what a Tammy-Led Adventure is: It's exactly what it sounds like. You go somewhere with Tammy, and whatever she suggests, you just go along with.  If she says "let's walk in the river" you walk in the river. If she says "let's bushwhack through the Jurassic Park Swamp" you lose your boots in the mud. If she says "let's go that way" and that way is clearly the most difficult route, you hike up your waders a little further and you go. It's madness, but any good adventure is.     So who is Tammy? The official answer is she's Katmai's Bear Monitor. The unofficial answer is she's Tammy, Queen of the Bears. Tammy knows the bears at Katmai probably better than she knows her actual human coworkers. In fact, I'm fairly certain that while she can identify a bear at 100 yards, she struggles with which person I am when I'm more than 20 feet away. I get it. I'm neither as interest...

    In normal years, Katmai rangers lead hikes out into the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. This year, with Covid mucking things up, we couldn't, but my supervisor (rightly) decided that Cheryl and I should go and be trained to do it anyways. I literally got to go hiking for my job.  I love this place. Cheryl was fascinated. Do you know how interesting you have to be to rip attention away from the view?      Barbara was our "trainer" for the day. Let me tell you all you need to know about Barbara: She knows everything about everything, she sets the bar way too high  for the rest of us (If I end up being half as good as she is at this rangering business, I'll be doing better than 90%), and she does the most hilarious impressions of everyone here at the park. On her Valley Tours, she tells the story of the 1912 Novarupta explosion (obviously) but focuses on Captain Perry, who orchestrated the rescue and relocation of the villages here at Katmai at the tim...