On the other side of the bay, Pavlov was smoking just as it had for several days. Almost every three minutes it billowed puffs of smoke. I could see plumes drifting from left to right after emanating from two different vents. While I lived at Cold Bay, an Air National Guard aircraft crashed into the side of Mt. Pavlov. At about eight thousand feet, it was the highest mountain in the area. Apparently, the plane crashed at such a height that it would have missed the other mountains in the area.

Just as he wrote “The Flaming Bear” about Shishaldin, author Harold McCracken wrote “The Biggest Bear on Earth” about valleys on another Alaskan mountain. That mountain was Pavlov. McCracken spent months living with those bears over one hundred years ago. How better to learn to know your subject? Mt. Pavlov is a show-off. I jumped at a chance to capture her vanity.