On 31 July 1916, Dr. Griggs led the forth National Geographic expedition through the Katmai Pass and saw, for the first time, the unexplored valley. Griggs wrote, "I can never forget my sensations at the sight which met my eyes...and looked down the valley, for there, stretching as far as the eye can reach... were hundreds - no thousands - of smokes curling up from its fissured floor. It was though all the steam engines in the world, assembled together, had popped their safety valves at once and were letting off surplus steam in concert." One thousand steam vents reached 500 feet (150 meters) in the air. Such marvels inspired explorers on the next year's expedition, and inspired these quotes from others in the expedition: "I felt like a boy at a circus, for I couldn't take time to study the attraction before me because I suspected something more captivating farther on." "The meager picture of the previous year...had not prepared me to face such a spectacle of awesome magnitude. I had pictured the Valley as large; the actual view dwarfed my wildest imagery to insignificance." "You may build in memory, but never reproduce the scenes which lie beyond Katmai Pass. They seem too big to be a part of the rest of the world. They do not connect up with the little things which are built into our lives."
In July 2005 and again in June 2009 the scouts in Troop 230 had the opportunity to travel to the remote wilderness of the Katmai National Park, and explore the Valley of 10,000 Smokes for themselves. Getting there required taking a flight from Anchorage to King Salmon, and then a float plane flight from King Salmon to Brooks Camp. Enjoy the images, and feel the richness of the journey. For those that went, it was truly, without exaggeration, an adventure of lifetime....
Our trip was really a two part adventure. We flew into Brooks camp, and spent a total of three days camping there, viewing the multitudes of bears and doing our best to stay out of their way. We also went deep into the Valley of 10,000 smokes, and that was the highlight of the trip and was so awesome that it left us spellbound. You can click on one of the images below to see the pictures from these separate journeys:
Valley of 10,000 Smokes
Brooks Camp - Home of the Bears
Alex's Pics