We awoke early to catch the 7:30am flight from Anchorage to King Salmon, AK. Because it's a small local flight with no connections, we didn't have to go through security. Mat had checked his bag for free which had our pocket knife. The views from the plane were lovely but we ended up in the clouds after about half way. We landed in King Salmon where, after our luggage was brought in, a person from Katmai Air showed up with a sign to round up all passengers heading to Brooks Camp. They drove us to their water airport where they proceeded to weigh us and all our gear to make sure the float plane would be balanced correctly. They used two planes to get us all to Brooks Camp - a smaller but slower 4 person plane and a larger but faster 10 person plane. We ended up in the later. One person was selected to sit in the cockpit copilot seat as long as they didn't take any photos during the flight, an older boy got that spot and the rest of us piled into the mid plane.
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| Float plane to Brooks Camp |
We landed by 11am where we were brought to the visitor center for a 30 minute bear etiquette presentation. After bear school, we grabbed our gear from the lodge porch where it was being supervised and headed to the campground to set up our tents before the clouds decided to open up. After the tents were pitched, we ate a quick lunch before heading out. It started sprinkling while we ate so we put on rain gear before heading out. We walked to the bridge to get to the viewing platforms but we were stopped on our side by the rangers. The bridge was closed due to a female bear sleeping next to the bridge on the far side. But, they informed us, a mama & her cub were sleeping on the beach back a little ways. We backtracked to the beach and caught sight of a spring cub curled up sleeping on top of mama. Very cute!
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| Spring cub sleeping on mama |
Back at the bridge, a family of bears was now fishing and playing in the river - a blonde mama, Holly, her 2.5 year old adopted dark cub, and her own 1.5 year old light cub. We watched them play, swim, and eat for 2.5 hrs, occasionally having to backtrack on the trail to keep the required 50 yard distance. The ranger and tourists on the viewing platform across the bridge kept us informed of the bears' locations via radio to the ranger on our side. It began to rain harder and we were getting cold and tired so we headed back to camp for a nap. Mat and I slept for 2.5 hrs and woke at 5:30pm. Heading towards the lodge, Mat & I watched a mama and her cubs swimming and catching fish, then a float plane take off, when we turned around and saw a big male meandering down beach in our direction.... yikes, time to get out of here!
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| Family of three playing next to the bridge |
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| Family snorkeling for salmon |
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| Watching bears on the beach when we turn around to see this guy coming! Time to get out of here! |
We found Berta & Gary hanging out in the lodge commons. It was really storming at this point and the lodge was serving dinner so Berta & Gary treated us to dinner in the lodge, delicious & warm. We sat next to a group of three men - Uli, owner of Uli's sausages in Pikes Market in Seattle; his son Dennis visiting from Germany; and Smiley, a Native Alaskan from Naknek. Smiley owns a river boat so the three of them boated up the Naknek river to camp at Brooks Camp for a few days. Tomorrow they are boating to Fure's cabin 20 miles away to stay and fish for a few nights. They were very nice, funny, interesting people. We hung out at the lodge while it continued to storm, occasionally venturing out to see the bears on the beach. Eventually we headed over to auditorium for the 8pm presentation on Mt. Novarupta, it was very fascinating. After that, back to camp to settle in for a night of storming rain.
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| Brooks Lodge: where campers and lodge guests are welcome to enjoy a fire, warm meal, or drink at the bar! |
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