The second biggest part of this adventure was a fly-in/day trip to Katmai National Park and the famous Brooks Falls. This one spot draws a high concentration of coastal brown bears starting in late June with the annual salmon run as they swim upstream to spawn. The bears know this is a time to pack on a ton of calories to help survive the cold winter hibernation period.
Katmai National Park is in a remote area of Alaska, only accessible by float plane or a ferry out of King Salmon, Alaska. There are no road ways to get there. A very small lodge, visitors center, campground and food/gear storage caches make up the park. The primary reason to be here is for the bears.
A 1.2 mile trail will carry you across a bridge over the Brooks River to a dirt/gravel trail and eventually to raised platforms at the two prime bear viewing platforms: The Falls Platform and the Riffles Platform. While the raised paths and platforms are fairly bear safe, while on the dirt/gravel trail, you may very well encounter bears with only space and a required Bear 101 safety class between you and a thousand pound mound of teeth and claws. That’s okay, as long as you’re not stupid and behave in a predictable way, they won’t bother you. You’re not salmon.
During peak times, it can take two and a half hours to get to spend 15-30 minutes on the main platform. Waiting lists to get there are common. Tripods are not welcome during peak times. We went toward the end of the season which meant fewer bears, but no waiting lines either.
You can watch the bears on the live webcams provided by the park in season.
While you can get in a lottery for a lodge spot (two years in advance), or hope to luck into a much less expensive camping spot (tent only, sorry you can’t get your RV there), many people choose to be “daytrippers”. That’s the route we took.
We booked out trip through Bristol Adventures, which in turn booked us on Katmai Air for the travel. For daytrippers, the cost of the trip is the flights and the park fees, which from Anchorage worked out the $995 per person.
The day starts at 7:30am checking into the Katmai Air facility on the south side of the main airport. A six-seat private plane will fly you to King Salmon on about an hour-and-a-half flight. From there, they transfer you from the airport to a float plane base nearby. The float plane is a 30 minute trip and lands you on the short of the lake by the visitors center. It is not uncommon to see bears greeting you. Yes, one was asleep between two other float planes.
You immediately escorted to a small classroom where you watch a video on bear safety, followed by additional information from a park ranger. You will get your “bear pin” as proof you went through bear school.
From there, you are free to roam the park on your own. It’s always best to go in groups rather than being alone. We made a bee-line to the falls, wanting to spend as much time as we could. However, the bridge over the river provided many different viewing opportunities, so expect to stop a lot. There is only one rest facility about half way there. You don’t want to waste time with the bears, so go on your way out. While meals can be purchased at the lodge, you don’t want to break up your viewing time going back and forth and they only serve food at certain times. We chose to take a few granola type bars and store them in the food cache to eat while we waited on our exfil float plane.
The National Park Service attempts to identify the bears and they are given numeric IDs like 480, 747, 32, etc. Some of the bears have a bit more notoriety than others and some have official names to go with their numbers, like #480 is a 25+ year old bear called Otis. Otis has been observed by the rangers and by those watching the live web cams for years. Their behaviors, like how they fish and where they fish, how aggressive they are to other bears and who has the higher pecking order give these bears a personality.
The webcams have spawned a whole group of observers beyond the Rangers. In many cases, the community has also provided names for the unnamed bears. In particular the Parks Service won’t give the bears an ID until they reach adulthood at around four years of age. That doesn’t stop the community from naming some of the cubs.
In particular, a first year “COY” or cub-of-the year, belonging to a sow known as #910 has been named “Bead”. Bead is probably the cutest bear you will ever see. She is prim, proper, and prissy. She’s the young star and she lets you know about it.
I had hoped to have a chance to photograph both of these celebrities and neither disappointed. Beyond that, I wanted to come back with some dramatic shots as well as some shots that put the bears in their environment. Such as this photo where a bear appears to be stalking some fishermen.
Don’t worry. The guide on the left knew where the bear was and was not really threatening the fishermen. The flock of red-breasted mergansers scoot along not bothered by the deadly teeth and claws feet away.
In our case, our departure time was 4:00pm, back to King Salmon, and our private plane charter to get us back to Anchorage. We returned around 6:30 and headed back to the hotel. Our planned dinner spot was closed for the evening, but we found a great spot called the Bear Paw.