49.4

Coastal brown bears are the biggest in the grizzly bear family. They can weight over 1000 pounds. Yet they are extremely agile. They can sprint at a speed faster than Usain Bolt in the 100 meter race. No human can outrun them. No human can out swim them. No human can climb a tree faster than them. Even a regular gun cannot kill them even with many shots. If a grizzly bear charges at you, all you could do is to appear to "stay calm", slowly walk away while facing them, and pray for the best. Under their seemingly fluffy hair, it's pure muscles. People have seen a brown bear killed a 1500 pound adult moose with one single smash. Here, at the remote Katmai National Park of Alaska, which could only be reached by float planes, I was with a small group of "crazy" photographers led by master photographer Chas Glatzer, sitting quietly at a river. The water reached my chest, I was wearing a chest wader and I was freezing. But I wasn't sure the uncontrollable shivering of my body and my teeth was due to the ice cold water or the fear of facing the mighty animal in front of us. This wild grizzly bear was walking past us. All of a sudden, he changed direction. He looked at our direction. And he began to sprint towards us. One jump, two jump, and his 4 feet were almost air borne. Then with all his mighty power, he leaped into the sky and pounced down with his two extremely powerful arms. He was pouncing for a sockeye salmon which swam near us. He was totally oblivious to our presence. And I still almost shitted my pants when I saw him approaching at lightning speed thru my viewfinder. The speed was so fast I couldn't even see clearly before I hit the shutter on my camera. And there, I witnessed one of the craziest wildlife moment in my life. I hope you enjoy it. Please let me know how you feel. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Note: This is a wild bear, no bait, no setup, not captive. The bear was doing his own thing in the wild.