Katmai National Park and Preserve

Katmai National Park and Preserve
IUCN Category Ib (Wilderness Area)
Location	Lake and Peninsula, Kodiak Island, Kenai Peninsula, and Bristol Bay boroughs, Alaska, USA
Nearest city	King SalmonNearest city: King Salmon
Coordinates	58°30′0″N 155°00′0″W / 58.5°N 155°W / 58.5; -155Coordinates: 58°30′0″N 155°00′0″W / 58.5°N 155°W / 58.5; -155
Area	4,725,188 acres (19,122 km²)
Established	December 2, 1980 Established: December 2, 1980
Visitors	82,634 (in 2007)
Governing body	National Park Service

Katmai National Park and Preserve is a United States National Park in southern Alaska, notable for the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and for its brown bears. The park covers 7,383 mi² (19,122 km²), being roughly the size of Wales. Most of this is a designated wilderness area, including 5,288 mi² (13,696 km²) of the park. The park is named after Mount Katmai, its centerpiece stratovolcano.

Park history

Established on December 2, 1980, the park is located on the Alaska Peninsula, across from Kodiak Island, with headquarters in nearby King Salmon, about 290 air miles southwest of Anchorage. Originally, on September 24, 1918, the area was designated a national monument to protect the area around the major 1912 volcanic eruption of Novarupta, which formed the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, a forty square mile (100 km²), 100 to 700 foot deep pyroclastic flow.

Attractions

Activities at Katmai include hiking, backpacking, camping, backcountry skiing, fishing, kayaking, boat tours, and interpretive programs. There are at least fourteen active volcanoes within the national park, most recently Fourpeaked Volcano, which became active September 17, 2006 after more than 10,000 years of dormancy. This park contains numerous archaeological sites which indicate a long history of prehistoric occupations from the Paleoarctic tradition up to the Thule tradition.

Satellite image of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and surrounding area.

Katmai is also well known for brown bears and the salmon which attract both bears and people. Katmai contains the world's largest protected brown bear population, estimated to number in excess of 2,000. Bears are especially likely to congregate at the Brooks Falls viewing platform when the salmon are spawning, and many well known photographs of brown bears have been taken there. The coastal areas such as Hallo Bay, Kukak Bay and Chiniak host the highest population densities year-round, due to the availability of clams and edible coastal sedge as well as salmon and other fish.

The vast majority of Katmai visitors come to Brooks Camp, one of the only developed areas of the park, and few venture further than the bear viewing platforms. Rangers at the park are extremely careful not to allow bears to obtain human food or get into confrontations with humans. As a result, bears in Katmai Park are uniquely unafraid of and uninterested in humans, and will allow people to approach (and photograph) much more closely than bears elsewhere.

Brown bears at Brooks Falls

Mount Katmai and its crater lake

Pyroclastic flow deposits in the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes

Novarupta lava dome

See also

• List of nationally protected areas of the United States
• Timothy Treadwell

External links

• Official site: Katmai National Park
• Seattle to Aleutian Islands Expedition
• Alaska Peninsula Trek

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