We just wrapped up our 2026 Alaskan Brown Bear Photo Adventure. After a rough start with the weather, we traveled by floatplane, boat, and car to photograph Alaskan brown bears up close and done in a safe and ethical way. This turned out to be an exceptional year for cubs, we photographed many cubs of the year and witnessed the rare sight of five cubs playing together: two mother bears, likely sisters, one with triplets and the other with twins. The close encounters, dramatic light, and playful family dynamics made this trip particularly rewarding us all.

Our first day was at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, where we watched salmon leap through spray as they fought upstream to spawn.

Our second day we headed down to Homer, Alaska to take a boat to Chinitna Bay in Lake Clark National Park. The crossing of Cook Inlet was less than ideal, but the views in the bay were breathtaking: rugged mountains, glassy channels, and endless sky. As soon as we arrived we spotted a mama bear with two cubs on the beach, and over the next hours we came across two more mother–cub pairs before the scene swelled into a spectacle of roughly two dozen bears fishing in the shallow waters at a distance. Adding to the drama, dozens of sea otters were rafting together in the inlet during the crossing, a quiet, buoyant congregation that felt like a private encore to an already unforgettable day.

On day three we headed over to Crescent Lake in Lake Clark National Park, where the water glowed a striking "Gatorade blue" from glacial flour, ultrafine rock dust ground by massive glaciers as they slowly moved over bedrock. When that microscopic sediment washes into the lake and scatters sunlight, it produces a vivid turquoise hue that makes the landscape feel almost unreal. The shallow, clear water and surrounding shoreline also create excellent opportunities to photograph bears at eye level from a Jon boat, as they rush through the water to catch fish, making for dynamic, close-up wildlife images framed by that luminous blue backdrop.

Although the bears were the stars of the Alaskan adventure, there was no shortage of other compelling photographic subjects: an intimate encounter with a moose and her twin calves, several striking encounters with bald eagles, one of Alaska’s most iconic residents, and close-up shots of loons and common mergansers gliding across glassy water. We also found a harbor seal that had swum up the river into the lakes to pursue spawning salmon, adding an unexpected marine element to the freshwater scenes and rounding out a week where every frame felt like a discovery.

On our final full day we took a peaceful float down the Kenai River as it connected to the Russian River, drifting past braided channels and alder-lined banks while watching eagles perch. The confluence revealed how the two systems interweave, freshwater currents, gravel beds, and side channels shaping where salmon stage and spawn, so every bend seemed to concentrate life around the seasonal run. Along the banks, we looked for bears, while kingfishers darted for surface strikes; beneath the surface, trout and juvenile salmon used calmer backwaters as refuges. Floating there made the dynamics of the ecosystem tangible: currents dictating movement, substrate and flow creating habitat, and a tight web of predators and prey all converging in the single, immense purpose of the salmon run.

Guests arrive on these adventures chasing the perfect photograph of Alaskan brown bears, but they leave having gained far more than a single image: friendships forged on damp boardwalks and small planes, shared laughter over early-morning sightings, and quiet conversations beneath endless northern skies. The camaraderie built while watching bears feed along the riverbank or framing a shot through mist becomes as enduring as any print, and the lessons learned about patience, respect for wild places, and attentive observation stay with them long after the trip ends. What began as a solitary quest for a great photograph transforms into a collection of memories, faces, stories, and moments, that travelers carry home and revisit for years to come.