About Brooks Camp: Planning information I found useful

Brooks Camp:

There are no roads to Brooks Camp. One must fly there, or take a boat from King Salmon or Naknek on Bristol Bay. If flying to Katmai, there are three options: staying at the lodge for thousands of dollars per person, flying over for a day trip for $799 per person, or camping at the campground for $12 person per night (requires one to purchase tickets to King Salmon, AK for around $500 per person, then a float plane [Katmai Air] from King Salmon to Brooks Camp for $206 per person). BUT, if you are an Alaska Airlines member, you can get plane tickets from Anchorage to King Salmon using Alaska Airline miles, about 25,000 to 30,000 miles plus $25 for taxes.

Brooks Falls

I heard from numerous sources the horrors of the day trip option - flight delayed for hours due to poor weather which reduces your visit time to only a few hours; bridge to the falls viewing platform closed due to a bear jam so you don't get to see the falls; being able to go to the falls but, when you leave for your flight home, getting stuck on the far side of the bridge due to a bear jam; etc. If I am to spend the money getting over there, I didn't want such stressful time constraints but I didn't want to spend the insane amount of money to stay at the lodge, either. Camping was our choice! Fortunately we had enough Alaska Airline miles so we only paid $250 per person for the entire flight round-trip.

The flight from Anchorage to King Salmon was on a small, 40-person prop plane and took 1 hours 15 mins. There are multiple scheduled flights per day so you can determine which time of day works best. The float flight is 30 mins. If you sit on the left side of the plane flying in, you get a nice overview of Brooks Camp, Brooks River, and the falls. We even spotted few bears in the river as we flew in!

Flight into Brooks Camp

Camp Layout and Information:

The layout of Brooks Camp is quite nice. All viewing platforms are located on the South side of the river, connected by trails and roads (including the road to Valley of 10,000 smokes). The residential/camping part of Brooks Camp is located on the North side of the river and along Naknek Lake. A floating pedestrian bridge connects the North and South sides of the river, which closes when bears get too close (apparently they think of the floating bridge as a sort of play structure!) The residential part of camp consists of three sections: 

Brook's Camp: the white line on the river is Brooks Falls, the line across the river as it empties into the lake is the bridge between the Lodge/Campground on the north and the roads/trails on the south

Close up of Brooks Camp on the north shore and floating pedestrian bridge to the trails on the south

Closest to the river is the Katmailand lodge grounds. The lodge grounds is open to all and consists of The Trading Post, the Lodge Office, the Lodge Commons, and then the rooms (either small, single room cabins or the motel-style building). The lodge office and trading post are opposite sides of the same building. The trading post sells souvenirs, stove fuel (white gas, isobutane/propane, & coleman propane [$9 for our small canister of isobutane, see below about free partially used fuel canisters in the campground]), snacks, some sundries, fishing gear, and rents out canoes, kayaks, and fishing gear (must bring or buy your own tackle). The office is where lodgers check in. The Lodge Commons is a large building with a bar, a large fire pit, and the cafeteria style "cafe". Anyone can hang out at the Lodge Commons. Even the cafeteria is open to who ever wants to pay the prices for a cooked meal. They serve food buffet style at specific times: Breakfast 7:00-8:30am, Lunch 11:30am - 1:30pm, & Dinner 5:30-7:30pm. Dinner for us was $30 per person. Near the Lodge commons, there is a bath house with flush toilets and a shower. Campers can purchase a shower from the lodge for $7 (towels can be rented from the trading post). 

Indoor fire pit with buffet-style cafeteria beyond 

Bar near the fire pit

More indoor lounging near the fire pit

Beyond the lodge area is the National Park Visitor Center area. This area consists of the visitor center which is where "bear school" occurs and where campers check in. It has a tiny gift shop. Next to it is a building with clean pit toilets on one side and a food and gear storage on the other side where day trippers can safely store gear and food. Right nearby is a 3-walled covered cooking shelter with two picnic tables for day trippers to cook up lunch; the entire unit is surrounded by an electrified bear fence to deter bear interest in day trippers' lunches. Behind the cooking shelter is the indoor auditorium where park rangers give a talk every night at 8pm, topics vary each night. Beyond the auditorium is a trail that leads further into the woods to a building that fully encloses a reconstructed native living structure. A ranger led walk to the structure is held every day at 2pm.

National Park visitor center on the right, storage and bathrooms for day-trippers on the left 

Day-trippers' lunch shelter enclosed in its own bear-proof electric fence 

Day-trippers' storage building where day-trippers can store food and fuel while out exploring

Beyond the Visitor Center, and furthest away from the river (0.3 mile trail walk), is the campground grounds. The campground is quite nice: 18 tent sites with sandy places for easy pitching and good water drainage (when raining). There are three 3-walled covered cooking shelters, each with 2 picnic tables and a campfire ring outside. There is one central bathroom with men's & women's pit toilet but they are the cleanest and least smelling pit toilets I have ever seen, complete with hand sanitizer. Then there is a central little building with 2 rooms, one room has cubbies to store food & trash/recycling bins, the other room has shelves to store gear. One camper said the food storage room had issues with Voles so people tend to store their food in tupperwares.

There are multiple covered picnic shelters in the campground to enjoy meals

Campers' food and fuel storage building with potable water available. There were multiple fire pits with wood available but it was too wet when we were visiting.

We had our food in ursacks, which rodents can't chew through so we personally never had a problem. An outdoor sink with potable water is attached to the outside of this building. The other side has some metal closets to store fuel, with a shelve at the bottom for free partially used fuel. The whole area is enclosed by an electrified bear fence to discourage bears from checking it all out. It is not bear proof so don't be sleeping with any food in the tent! The fence and potable water are turned off at the end of season, see NPS website for specific dates.

Electric bear fence around the entire campground

When to see the bears:

Talking with the park rangers about prime bear viewing times, July is when you'll see the most bears. It's the month when salmon are running the Brooks River and jumping the iconic waterfall. Lots of bears crowd at the falls to eat, skinny but enthusiastic about their meals. It's also when the most people come. In fact, the Falls viewing platform has a waiting list this time of year, and then viewing is restricted to one hour (you can sign up on the waiting list as many times as you'd like). Bitting bugs can be horrific as well, be prepared!

Crossing the floating pedestrian bridge from camp to the trail side

The rangers say that, by August, the salmon have dispersed to other parts of the lakes and rivers and so the bears follow. There are no more salmon hanging out at Brooks River and, therefore, no more bears hanging out at Brooks River. In the first few weeks of September, the salmon tend to congregate again to spawn and die, and the bears come back to Brooks Camp. Only a few bears hang out at the falls, a lot of them roam around the lower river or on the beach right next to the lodge. They're all huge, pretty much at their max weight! It's neat to see the bears weighing nearly 900 lbs. They're a little bit slower and lazier though. There are way less people to contend with (hence Mat and my evening with the bears, no one else on the viewing platform). There were no bugs. The weather tends to be worse, we didn't get to see any of the mountains in the area, but the bears are definitely not deterred by the stormiest of weather!

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