Along with perhaps 2,000 caribou, 1,900 moose, and 1,800 Dall sheep, approximately 300-350 grizzly bears reside in the Park. Although there is some concern among researchers that the Park's grizzly population is declining, grizzlies are numerous enough that spotting them isn't too rare, despite the Park's 6,600 square miles. 

Sometimes no bears are visible.  And sometimes riches overflow. It seems remarkable in retrospect that on the same day the mother and yearling depicted in the last post were readily visible to bus traffic, a big adult was ambling alone up the steep hillside behind the Eielson Visitor Center in full view of all the passengers of buses that had stopped at the visitor center as well as the passengers in another bus that halted less than one hundred yards below the bear.

Apart from the pleasure of framing the bear and the bus together, the low, grazing sun nicely backlit the bear, whose coat was already light and golden. A halo formed around his head. Ground cover of green, yellow, and red leaves added color and vibrance to the scene. (The gender assumption is partly based on size and the fact no yearling was tagging along.) 

Two of the following images are just tighter crops of two of the frames. A long lens (560mm, here) helps. It also helps if the uncropped images are pretty sharp.

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Ambling uphill:

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Pausing, perhaps to assess all the humans despite their distance:  

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