Copying what I wrote from the ITAP page:

I was on a trip up to Alaska with Natural Habitats to photograph grizzlies. They do an absolutely fantastic job and our guide, Brad Josephs, is seriously one of the coolest and most professional people I've ever met. Check out his web page for some pretty amazing footage. Anyways this was our last day in Hallo Bay. The light was some of the craziest golden hour I've seen as it was almost the summer equinox so we decided to stay out even longer for that day. The usual thing to do was to see a bear munching on sage grass and try to position yourself so that the bear will go in front of you at a later time. I can't remember exactly why but I want to say it helps the bear not feel threatened. On this particular instance we saw a mother and her two cubs eating sage maybe 100 yards away at our 2 o clock so we positioned ourselves so they would pass in front of us going right to left. However, we were in for a treat as this bear wandered up from a river bank at our 9 o clock and passed directly ahead of us. I can try to dig up the shot, but this bear got so close that our telephotos were pretty much useless. Definitely the coolest experience of my life. At 23, I have a lot of time to try to top it.>

For the trip I brought my 6D, 70-200, 24-105, then rented a 7D mkII and the 100-400 mkII. I absolutely loved the combo of the 7D mkII with the 100-400 mkII. It was able to nail shots I had no idea I could possibly get. And it was very easy to hand hold so that was a big plus for me.