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 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 on a 737 jet 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
We had fun, and did things that will be engrained in our memories forever. One of the things we did, besides backpack and look at bears, was "Volcano Sledding." What's that you ask? Well.....check out the video and you will know:
Action Video
To view the above Quicktime video, right click on the above image, select the "save
target as"
option, and
download the video stream to your computer. Its 3.5 MB, so it will take a while depending
on
your connection speed. For a DSL connection, download time will
be a little over a minute.
Still, its a great show of scouts in
T230 "volcano sledding"!
The Expedition Contingent for this trip consisted of sixteen scouts and ten adults, in six teams, that worked together sharing this incredible adventure and making it the great success that it was. Like any trip in scouting, it's the people that make the trip, and we had some great guys and consequently we had a great trip.
