Thanks to my sister generously offering to watch the boys for a long weekend, Matt and I finally got to go to Katmai - aka the park with all of the bears! We have been wanting to go pretty much since we moved here, but it's not the most little kid friendly park... Needless to say, I have been brimming with excitement since we booked the tickets! Camping! Bears! Fishing!
And...
My first ride on a float plane! I think you can fly straight from Anchorage, but we used our miles to fly to King Salmon, then hopped on Katmai Air for the flight over to Brooks Camp. Katmai is SW from Anchorage, down on the Alaska peninsula, but there aren't any roads into the Katmai area. So float plane and boat are the only options to get there!
The plane was only half full, so I asked the pilot if the passenger seat up front was open. He said yes, but no cameras were allowed up there. Well I was no longer interested in the seat, so Matt took it instead. I didn't get that many great photos on the flight anyhow because of the weather, but I wanted to have the option to take photos!
Finally made it to Brooks Camp! There is a lodge at Katmai run by the same people who run Katmai Air, but we opted for the *much* cheaper option of staying at the campground. It's about a 1/3 mile down a trail and is surrounded by an electrical fence. When you first arrive at Katmai, they have you watch a safety video on how to behave and what to do if a bear approaches closer than the recommended 50 yard safe distance. They also made sure to point out that the fence around the campground is bear "resistant", not bear "proof". Got it!
We walked down to camp, set up our tent and dropped all of our extra food and gear in the storage buildings in the campground. They ask they you walk around with no food or drinks apart from a bottle of water, so we have to put away all of our snacks. In the time it took to set-up and then head back to the lodge, these signs had been put up on the trail halfway back to the lodge. We both went a little bit on high alert after that!
I have been watching the Bear Webcams online with Thomas the past few weeks to show him where we were going. He was pretty worried that we weren't taking any of the "red stuff" (bear spray) with us, but I managed to convince him we would be ok. Camp is back to the right in this photo. You have to cross this bridge which is not bear proof, then walk about a mile or so to the falls. This bridge gets "closed" quite frequently due to bear activity - they made sure to show us photos of bears on the bridge to ensure we know it's not a safe place to spot for photos.
We finally made it to the bear viewing platform (which is a safe place to stop and take photos!) and the first platform we went to was further downstream than the falls. But there was still a bear hanging out in the river fishing. I was pretty sure we spotted some cubs with this momma bear, but they were pretty well hidden by the time she wandered into a good photo spot. :)
Then we made it to the main falls platform. So many bears!!! They were all very focused on the fish in the river, though some of them were making more progress than others actually catching the fish...
Like this big ole guy in the corner staring down in the water with a longing look on his face. I didn't see him catch any fish while we were there. I'm honestly not sure I even saw him try to catch any fish. But he is obviously not in danger starving to death - he has clearly been feasting all summer!
Speaking of which - the first weekend in August isn't considered the peak time to go to Katmai because the fish aren't running quite as much as earlier in July. But there were obviously still plenty of fish in the water and they were nonstop trying to jump up and over the falls. I would guess that more missed than made it while we were watching, but a few made it up! Also, since it wasn't the peak season, we didn't have to worry about waiting for a spot on the platform to watch the bears. I heard in peak season, it can be a 3 hour wait - crazy!
This guy was hanging by himself closer to the platform and he looked more like he was enjoying a day at the spa rather than trying to fatten up for winter. He was in the midst of foaming water up to his chin. He would look at us, then look at the water, then look back at us without a care in the world.
I looked away from Mr. Relaxation to watch the other bears fishing, so I was shocked when I looked back and the "lazy" bear was walking off to chow down on a tasty salmon.
I'm assuming he took the fish over to a gravel bar to enjoy his meal without having to worry about dropping it in the water. The sea gulls were hoping that he would drop a few pieces of fish that they could swoop in and steal. Steal after the bear left, of course, they were smart enough not to try and steal the fish *from* the bear...!
Also, I don't think the bear left them any scraps at all. Bears and I might agreed that salmon sushi is the best, but I draw the line at eating the bones and such.
He wandered back to his jacuzzi pool to relax in the water. This time I kept an eye on him to see how he had snagged that fish. A few minutes later, he stuck his head into the water and emerged with another fish. Impressive!
This time he decided to go ahead and eat the salmon where he was - less of a crowd than eating near the birds! We watched him do the same fishing move several times while we were there and he only missed once that I saw. A very proficient fisherman... Fisherbear?
We finally got hungry enough that we decided to walk back to camp. After watching them in the water for so long, I was motivated enough to make plenty of noise on our hike back. I was "Hey Bear!"ing all the way back to camp. Though apparently some people that we met on the plane did the same on their walk back shortly after us and they had a bear walk out of the woods and saunter up the trail to within 6' of them before turning back to the woods.
Sooooooo the "Hey Bear" must not be a flawless method. Uh-oh...