Katmai National Park, Alaska - July 11th, 2022
Katmai National Park and Preserve is remote. The only way to access it is by plane or boat. The most popular destination inside the park is Brooks Camp. The most popular activity at Brooks Camp is to view the coastal brown bears at Brooks Falls. We had a reservation for a bear viewing trip with Bald Mountain Air from Homer, Alaska.
Monday was our Bald Mountain Air flight over to Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park and Preserve. We were excited to go. Our alarms were set for 6 am. We ate breakfast, made sandwiches to take with us and added them to our backpacks that we had packed the night before. We arrived at the Bald Mountain Float Plane Dock at 7:50 am, about 40 minutes early. We were the first ones there, even before the pilot showed up.
As the others arrived, we learned more details about the issues that Bald Mountain Air was having. One of the couples originally had their reservation cancelled. Bald Mountain has two planes that fly over to Katmai National Park from Homer and one of their planes is out of commission because they can’t get a part needed to repair it. So they cancelled half of the reservations for the rest of the season. However, a couple who originally was scheduled to fly with us came down with COVID, so Bald Mountain contacted the couple who had their reservation cancelled. They lucked out, but they felt a little bad because they are traveling with another couple who also had their reservations cancelled and will not get to go. We also felt fortunate that we were part of the half who were allowed to go. Hopefully those who had their reservations cancelled were able to find another operator with openings to reschedule a trip to see the bears.
Once everyone arrived, the pilot gave us a briefing on the flight, Katmai National Park, and bears. Basically, what to expect on our trip and how to behave for our safety along with a little history. Then we all loaded onto the plane.
The plane was a DHC-3 Otter float plane. It holds 10 passengers, with one of those passengers sitting in the co-pilot seat. The plane is pretty roomy, with each passenger sitting next to their own window to enjoy the view. Ann was grateful that the windows were clear, making it nice to take pictures and video from the plane. However, the skies were rather cloudy, so there was not a lot to take pictures of on the way over during our one hour and 15 minute flight.
Keith was a little concerned how he would handle the plane ride. He chose not to take any motion sickness medicine and he had no problems. The ride was pretty smooth most of the way. There was a little turbulence when we reached the mountains on the other side of Cook Inlet and again when we were getting ready to land in Naknek Lake. The wind was pretty strong and the water was pretty choppy, but our skilled pilot had not issues landing the plane. However, we were paying attention as he tried to keep the plane level. Once the floats touched the water, things seemed to smooth out again, despite the choppy water.
The pilot hopped out and pulled the plane, tail first, onto the beach. He warned us ahead of time that we would need to slip on boots that go over our shoes to keep our feet dry when we get out of the plane. However, the water conditions were good enough that he could get the plane close enough to the beach that we could use a step stool to reach the beach without requiring any boots. That made unloading the plane much faster.
Our pilot led us from the plane over to the Katmai National Park Visitor Center. Everyone was required to go through “Bear School” to learn the rules. After donning face masks, our group entered the visitor center to watch a short instructional video. The mask rules had changed just a few days earlier. That’s the first time we’ve had to wear a mask in months. After completing our training, we each received a bear pin souvenir.
No food is allowed beyond the visitor center. There is a food and gear cache to use while you go to the falls. The only thing you are allowed to carry on you is plain water, no flavored drinks of any kind. A picnic area for eating food is next to the visitor center. It is surrounded by an electric fence. The park service wants to make sure that bears do not ever get a taste of human food, so they will not associate humans with food, keeping everyone safer.
We decided to eat our packed lunch first before heading over to the falls. The bears may not be eating human food, but other critters have figured out there is food in the picnic area. We spotted a mouse in the corner of the shelter and later saw a small squirrel finding crumbs on the ground.
The types of bears at Brooks Falls are called coastal brown bears. Brown bears and grizzly bears are the same species, but, in Alaska, they are differentiated by their geological location and diet. Coastal brown bears have access to marine-derived food sources and, as a result, grow larger than the inland grizzlies. Coastal brown bears can be 7 to 10 feet in length and weigh over 1000 lbs.
To trail to get to the falls is about half a mile long. First you take a bridge over the Brooks River. There are gates at each end to keep the bears off the boardwalk. One of the rules is not to stop on any of the walkways along the board walks. You can stop at the viewing platforms though. The idea is to keep the people in predictable areas and to make the bears feel comfortable walking under the boardwalks, keeping their stress levels down. They depend on reaching the river to feed on the salmon for their survival.
As we crossed the bridge, we could hear a couple of cubs in the trees making a racket, probably fighting with each other. However, they were out of sight. We could see a couple of bears a good distance away in the river.
After crossing the bridge, it wasn’t long before we met a juvenile brown bear heading down the trail towards us. We kept our distance, talking calmly as we backed up the trail. Eventually we had to step off the trail into the woods a little ways along with another group of people to let the bear pass by.
As we approached the falls area, we entered another gated boardwalk. Several bears passed underneath us. The boardwalk reaches a gathering area where the boardwalk splits. One goes to the Riffles Platform, just downstream from Brooks Falls. The other goes up to the Falls Platform. Underneath the gathering area, a mama bear was nursing some cubs.
The number of people allowed on the Falls Platform is limited to 40 people. A ranger manages a waiting list and limits people to 30 minutes on the Falls Platform. We added our names to the waiting list and received our pager. The Riffles Platform is large enough to accommodate everyone, so we hung out there while we waited for our turn on the Falls Platform.
You can see the falls from Riffles Platform and there were bears in the river near Riffles Platform as well. Ann was glad she had her super zoom Canon Powershot (paid link) because she could zoom in on the bears at the falls. There were about three or four bears near the falls and about two or three bears closer to Riffles. The number of bears in the river varied as some would come and go from the woods along the bank. Our beeper went off after about a half hour or so of waiting. Believe it or not, Ann had already stopped taking pictures for a little while to give her arms a rest.
The 30 minutes on the Falls Platform seemed to go fast. However, we felt like it was a fair amount of time. You could see the salmon constantly trying to jump up the falls. Surprisingly, it seemed like a very small percentage of them actually made it over the falls as most of them fell back down below the falls. We’re not sure how many tries each salmon makes before they are successful.
We could see a big, old bear sitting on the far bank near the falls. At first glance, it didn’t look like he was doing much, just relaxing by the river. His gaze was directed down into the water. Then we noticed he would swipe his paw down into the water, pulling up a fish. He would munch on the fish, then wait for another to pass by to repeat the process. We realized that he was the one with the experience, spending the least amount of time and energy to snag a fish. He was the master. The younger bears, further downstream, would spend a lot of energy, splashing around and trying to pounce on fish, and would spend a lot more time to catch a fish. The younger ones will have a harder time putting on enough fat before winter comes.
After our time on the Falls Platform, we went back to the Riffles Platform for about half an hour. A mama bear with two juvenile cubs wandered over to the river bank. Mama sat down to watch while the cubs went into the river to try to catch fish. The one cub caught one right away and carried it back onto the bank and into the trees. After trying half-heartedly to get his own fish, the second cub approached his sibling to get him to share. The first cub was not willing to share. Mama got up and went over to settle the dispute. The second cub gave up, dejectedly laid down and started munching on grass.
Then we were ready to head back to the visitors center. On the way back, we had to wait at the end of the boardwalk for a bear to cross the trail before we went out the gate and onto the trail. At the bridge across the river, we spotted another bear entering the river in the distance. He seemed to sense our presence and turned his back on us.
Back at the visitors center, we retrieved the rest of our food along with our food garbage from the food cache. We both had one granola bar left, so we sat in the picnic area again and had a snack. Then it was time to head to the beach to get back on the plane. From the time we finished our bear school until the time we needed to be back at the plane, we had about four hours on our own to eat and visit with the bears. This seemed like an ample amount of time. We didn’t feel rushed and we didn’t get bored.
The weather was cloudy and cool while we were in Katmai National Park. Most of the time we had our puffy coats on along with our rain jackets, gloves and hats. It drizzled rain most of the time we were there. Even though it wasn’t exactly a hike, it was close to a mile of walking, and you definitely can’t say we didn’t encounter wildlife, so we counted it as hike number 27 of our 52 Hike Challenge - National Park Series.
On our flight back, the smoke from the wildfires had rolled in. You could smell the smoke inside the plane. Our pilot decreased our altitude to get us below the smoke layer. Visibility still was not great. However, our pilot flew us around the Augustine Volcano at a pretty close range, first circling it in one direction, then again in the other direction, so everyone could get a good view of it. You could see the cloud of steam rising from the active volcano and spilling out over the cone. Very cool!
It was almost 5 pm by the time we returned to Homer. We were exhausted. It’s not that we had exerted ourselves physically, but it was probably due to the emotional stress, with all the excitement of seeing bears close up and being so mentally alert to stay safe. We’re pretty sure our adrenaline levels were elevated that day. Since we didn’t feel like cooking, we asked our pilot for a restaurant recommendation. His favorite place to eat was Alice’s Champagne Palace. He described it as a rustic bar and grill in the old town area of Homer. It sounded perfect, so that’s where we went. We both had the pulled chicken BBQ sandwiches topped with slaw. They even had sweet potato fries, Ann’s favorite. The food was delicious and the prices were very reasonable. Thank you, Ricky!
Was the weather perfect for our excursion to Katmai National Park? No. Was it worth the expense to fly over there? Most definitely, yes. For Ann, being a wildlife photographer, it was the highlight of our whole Season Four.
Check out our related video: Katmai National Park, Alaska
(Ann)