A park created for a volcano, kept for the bears

Katmai was established in 1918 for a reason that has almost nothing to do
with why people come now: to protect the **volcanically devastated region
surrounding Novarupta and the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes**, left by one of
the largest eruptions of the twentieth century.

Today the park also protects 9,000 years of human history and important
habitat for salmon and thousands of brown bears. A landscape alive
underneath your feet, filled with creatures that remind you what it is to be
wild — and the bears are what most visitors now travel for.

The park has outlived its founding purpose without losing it. Both are still
there.

Getting there, which is the hard part

Katmai is on the northern Alaska Peninsula, north-west of Kodiak Island
and south-west of Homer. Park headquarters is in **King Salmon, about 290 air
miles south-west of Anchorage**.

**Unlike most national parks in the United States, Katmai is almost
exclusively accessed by plane or boat.** There is no drive to the entrance, no
car park, no queue at a gate. That single logistical fact shapes every visit
and explains why a park with thousands of bears is not overrun.

The weather

Katmai sits **between the stormy north Pacific and the even stormier Bering
Sea**, which makes the region a battleground between weather systems.

Be prepared to encounter all types of weather on any visit. On average,
wet and cool conditions dominate in spring, summer and autumn; winters are
drier and colder.

*Location: National Park & Preserve, Alaska. Source: U.S. National Park
Service.*