Monday, September 14, 2015

It stormed hard all night, like 'wake you up in the night a couple times' hard. But we all slept in until 9am when the rain petered out and the horizon started to look lighter. We cooked ourselves some breakfast and coffee, saying goodbye to Smiley, Uli, and Dennis as they loaded up Smiley's boat. It was 10am when we left camp & headed to the bridge for the south side. Luckily the bridge was open. We stopped at the platform to watch some bears swim about the lower river, then made our way down to the branching platforms. We happened to pick the Riffles Platform down river first. We were looking about when we noticed a bear making his way across the river at the falls so we rushed back to the turn off to get to the falls platform but by the time we made it to the platform the bear was already hidden behind some trees.

Fat bear

It wasn't too crowded so we hung out at the platform for a while. We were rewarded for doing so - that bear came out occasionally to quickly grab a fish and then retreat to privacy but another bear came around and wasn't quite as shy. In fact, he just sat in one of the pools, head down & focused on watching for fish. We watched him until 1:45pm and then headed back to fix up some lunch. On our way out, we came across some people coming in who told us that bear was doing the same thing yesterday for hours so they dubbed him "Zen Bear".

"Zen Bear" staring into the water for hours

We arrived at the Corner Platform at the bridge and were informed that the bridge was closed due to a bear sleeping near the trail on the north side. We sat and watched a mama and her spring cub swim & fish in the lower river and 2 larger single bears were further up. Eventually the Rangers organized an escort with a bear technician - a Ranger specifically training to escorts people closer than 50 yards of a bear - so we were able to get across back to camp & lunch. We enjoyed a late lunch at 2:45pm then split up, Mat & I laying down for a nap while Berta & Gary headed off to relax at the lodge commons. We slept for an hour then got up to find Berta & Gary. We found Berta & Gary at the corner before the bridge watching 2 females - 410 (the eldest bear in the park at 27 yo) and 409 swimming and eating fish.

Mama and spring cub

It was 5:30pm but we decided to cross and go back to the falls. We're glad we did because there were 4 bears there fishing! We sat & watched, pretty soon it was just our group and two other people watching three bears: Zen Bear (who sits in the corner and stares at the pool for hours), Barley Bear (who is omega and has similar mannerisms to Barley Dog), & Spa Bear (who sat in the jacuzzi and occasionally caught a fish). Mat lost his umbrella through the view-deck platform but Berta did not want him to retrieve it with all the bears around so we left it lying in the grass next to the river.

"Barley Bear" sitting awkwardly and giving a submissive, self-soothing yawn

"Spa Bear"

We continued to watch the bears and eventually Berta & Gary headed back to camp with the other two people around 7:45pm. That left Mat & I alone with the entire Brooks falls platform and three fishing bears all to ourselves. Soon after everyone left, a HUGE bear came down, disturbing the harmony of the three bears. Zen bear ran off and never came back, Barley bear quickly climbed above the falls and waited for Big Boy to settle, Spa Bear just watched but didn't move. Funny to watch little Barley Bear, sitting awkwardly on rocks and watching Big Boy. Spa bear didn't pay him no mind, although he moved reluctantly when Big Boy came over to inspect the fish ladder. Barley Bear was eventually let back in to fish by Big Boy's allowance.

"Big Boy"

We eventually gave up around 8:30pm as it was starting to get dark in earnest. We walked past a mama and two cubs settling down in the forest not too far off the trail as well as another bear crossing the road ahead of us near the bridge. No one was around and we crossed the bridge back to camp without issue. We found Berta & Gary at the lodge and headed back to camp. We started walking down beach for better views but came across mama & spring cub settled in the grass so we back tracked and took the trail to camp. We cooked our dinner at 9 pm and went to bed, extremely content with our day. Weather was mostly overcast with occasional sprinkles of rain, highs mid 50s.

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