Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My ! (7.16.15)

Well, not Lions and Tigers … but BEARS, OH MY !!

We have looked for and found bears in random places … beside the road, along a beach, in preservation parks, and distantly in Denali. Kris wanted bears up close. After some research (a year ago), she learned that a great place to observe bears in their natural setting is at Brooks Camp, in Katmai National Park. We called in January to book a three day stay for the middle of July (prime season for bear viewing because that is when spawning salmon are swimming upstream). The lodge was fully booked, but accepting reservations for 2016! Well, that wouldn't work. So we booked a one day trip to Brooks Camp from Anchorage.

Brooks camp is a commercial site located within the Katmai National Park. There were not many people there (it's hard to get to – more on that later), and the National Park Service has many rangers positioned throughout the area, managing the bear viewing process, for bear and human safety.

To get to Brooks camp, we started at a small flight service terminal near Anchorage airport at 6:30 a.m.. They rolled the plane (Piper) out of the terminal, loaded it up with supplies for the camp, stuffed the 6 booked passengers and their backpacks in, and took off. It was all very nonchalant.

  The weather was questionable.

  The pilot was a native (First Nation) Alaskan who had been flying since before he even had a drivers license. He grew up in Katmai area and knew it well having flown the area many times. After a 1.5 hour no visibility flight, the pilot dropped out of the clouds executing a 'corkscrew' descent, to land on a dirt airstrip. Kris white knuckle it in the co-pilots seat.

We took a van to a lake nearby to pick up our second flight – a pontoon bush plane (1957 DeHavilland Beaver), which would take us to Brooks Camp. There were sheering winds, making the flight rough and technically challenging. But the landscape we were flying over was really interesting !  The land is wet a boggy - like walking on a sponge. 

 Due to the wind speeds and direction, we could not land at Brooks Camp, so we landed on a nearby lake, and were bused the rest of the way, getting our first sighing out of the van of a mother brown bear and babies (she had three this season) along the way. Kris again got to sit in the co-pilot seat for the flight.

 When we arrived at Brooks camp, we were required to take a 15 minute orientation course, run by the national park rangers, regarding bear safety. All visitors, including repeat visitors, must complete the program. We ate our sandwiches in an electrified fenced area, stowed our gear (they have bear proof sheds for gear and food), donned all the rain gear (it was raining), put the camera in its 'raincoat' and headed out on the 1.5 mile often bear infested trail to the viewing platform.

It was a beautiful walk, and we did not see bears until we got to the viewing boardwalk and platform. Several times during the day, the rangers alerted people to bears on the trail. The boardwalks and platforms have multiple locking gates so that the bears cannot get up onto them. From there, we were above the bear area, and they moved about freely below us.

 

When we got to the bear viewing area, it was raining pretty hard. Good thing the bears didn't mind. They were perched on the waterfalls, and down the river, fishing for salmon. Coastal brown (grizzly) bear are much larger than inland bears due to access to salmon. The abundant fish are a rich food source for them. They reach weights of 1000 pounds. As we watched them fish, and watched the natural interaction between the bears, we came to some conclusions. One – they look a lot like dogs. As it turns out, they are closely related to dogs. There is a clear hierarchy with the senior bears around the waterfalls, and the younger bears (3 years old) relegated downstream.

Senior Bears

 

Young bears

There are also different fishing methods. There is the stand on top of the falls and catch the fish as they jump up. Why the bears don't slip and tumble in is a mystery to us. There is the stand at the bottom of the falls and catch the fish out of the froth as they fight their way upstream method.  There is a stand on a rock so the fish doesn't see me method.   And then the stand in the flats and grab or chase the fish as they swim by method. We saw all four methods work.

 

 

 No matter the fishing method, once a fish is caught, the bear takes the fish to a shallower area to eat it. They tear off sections, completing the process in 4-5 bites. Then the gulls come in to pick at the remains. Some bears were clearly more skilled than others. A bear eats about 10 fish a day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were a few face-offs apparently over fishing position. When a bear moved away to eat a caught fish, sometimes another bear would move into the vacated spot. That usually didn't go well for the invading bear.

One bear, a very large senior male, was pestering other bears this spring which ended in a kerfuffle where he lost a whole ear.

There was a mother and three first year cubs. She was quite lean and did not appear to be very good at fishing. We never observed her catch a fish The group moved back and forth from the river, to the forest where there were berries and other eats.

 

 

We saw a young bald eagle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weather did improve as the day went on, in that the rain stopped, but it got windier. We were facing a two flight return trip. The first flight, another DeHaviland 58 year old pontoon plane, was pointed in the right direction by hip wader wearing attendants.   Even the pilot wore hip waders for the flight.  That was NOT reassuring !

 That one half hour flight took us to King Salmon, landing on the water and pulling up to a dock right at the airport terminal. The bush plane to King Salmon never went higher than 800 feet off the ground. There was something very strange with the sky and ground colors. The sky was stormy and turbulent, and the ground looked like the Caribbean. It was really beautiful. Kris had yet another white knuckle co-pilot seat.

After a lengthy delay, the last flight was a larger REAL 30 passenger commercial plane back to Anchorage which arrived about 10:00.  We were 'home ' by 10:30, exhausted (4 rough flights, hikes, rain, wind and fabulous bears). It was an extraordinary day. It took Kris 36 hours to get over the Dramamine / Bonine hangover.

Next post: Valdez  (probably not until next week - we'll have bad service for a while)

For those of you are bear picture junkies …. more pictures: