Alaska the Great Land and Last Frontier!

Vast and wild...over twice the size of Texas and nearly as wide as the continental United States. Alaska is over 1400 miles long and measures from east to west 2700 miles wide with almost 35,000 miles of coastline. Of the 20 highest mountains peaks in the United States Alaska has 17 of them. Alaska also boost over 5,000 glaciers and millions of acres of wilderness protected parks.

The Coastal Explorer travels and anchors in some of Alaska's grandest scenery along the Katmai National park's coastline. The park is located on the Alaska peninsula, across from Kodiak Island and about 300 miles south west of Anchorage. There are no roads, people or towns here just wildlife and untouched wilderness.

Katmai National Park is famous for volcanoes, brown bears, fish, and rugged wilderness and is also the site of the Brooks River National Historic Landmark with North America's highest concentration of  prehistoric human dwellings (about 900). 

Katmai National Monument was created to preserve the famed Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, a spectacular forty square mile, 100-700 foot deep, pyroclastic ash flow deposited by Novarupta Volcano.  There are at least fourteen volcanoes in Katmai considered "active", none of which are currently erupting.  

The park also includes glacier-covered peaks, crater lakes, a coastline with dramatic fjords and waterfalls,
 dense marsh lands, and heavy forests with a variety of wildlife, notably moose and grizzly bears. The number of brown bears has grown to more than 2,000.

Miles upon miles of unexplored bays lie home to the coastal brown bear. Melting snow and rain from the high mountains drain into unobstructed rivers as they weave their way to the ocean providing a watery path for the spawning salmon, the process keeping the food chain in order. It is a blessing to know there still is regions this wild.