We only made two reservations at the beginning of the year while we were planning our summer in Alaska – one was camping reservations in Denali and the other was a not inexpensive bear tour in Katmai National Park. These two points have anchored our entire Alaska trip.
We were very disappointed when low clouds and rain prevented the small plane from leaving Homer and landing in Katmai National Park on the day of our scheduled tour, but what was devastating was when they said the tour couldn’t just be rescheduled, it was cancelled. We were supposed to end up in an area of Katmai National Park called Brooks Falls. You may not have heard of Brooks Falls, but if you like wildlife, you’ve probably seen plenty of National Geographic type photographs of it with bears standing in the water catching salmon as the fish attempt their treacherous upstream journey.
Due its popularity, the Brooks Falls tour sells out early and was sold out for the remainder of the season. The tour company did their best though and booked us on a different bear tour still within the Katmai National Park. We had a full week to wait in rainy Homer for the new tour, but that turned out great as we were able to fit in some additional time with family (blog post here).
The night before the tour, I slept like a child on Christmas Eve, excited for the big event. What I was not excited about was them asking for my wader shoe size when we arrived at their facility the next morning! The Brooks Falls tour brochure looked like pleasant boardwalks overlooking (from a safe distance) feeding bears and now I’m supposed to know what size waders I wear? Oh no.
Waders and frown on, I was loaded into the back seat of the Cessna 206 near the luggage. With father/daughter duo in front of me, Doug rode shotgun. I couldn’t help but get over myself once we took off. The scenery was fantastic and the beach landing was impressive.
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Our safety briefing was essentially two rules 1) never be closer to the bear than our pilot/guide is and 2) if the pilot/guide sees any kind of aggressive or disturbing bear behavior and asks us to get tight, our group of 8-10 should immediately get as close as humanly possible to appear as one large mass to the bear.
After that, we were off and wading…well really just lugging fairly heavy boots down the beach. As we rounded the corner we saw our fist coastal brown bears (grizzlies) a good sized mother and a cub that was incredibly curious about us. Like a carnival groundhog it would drop its head to eat the sedge and then pop back up to look at our group. It was adorable!
This same mom and cub walked right in front of us before crossing a small stream to put a bit of distance so that she could roll on her back to breast feed. I don’t think anyone of us was expecting to see bears like this. It occurred to me at this moment that I’ve been using the term “bucket-list-item” all wrong. These are exclusive access, once-in-a-lifetime immersive experiences and we were getting just that!
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As we continued to walk and yes, we did eventually have to wade across several streams, we started to notice bears all around us. The cubs were playing or trying to keep up with mom. The bears were feeding on salty green sedge, digging for clams, or chasing and pouncing on flat white flounder in the river beds. One bear just wanted a warm sandy beach to lie on. We actually ate our lunch, downwind of the sleeping giant by about 50 yards. Most of the time we were 50-100 yards away, but that’s still pretty close when you figure that an adult female can weigh between 400-700lbs, an adult male can weight 800-1200lbs, they can run for short distances up to 35mph, and can maintain a speed of 25-28mph for as long as 2 miles!. To put that in perspective, Usain Bolt, at his best, has speeds just under 28mph. Additionally, while a German Shepard has a bite force of about 230psi, the grizzly has a bite force of about 1000psi. We are walking around and don’t even have bear spray (it’s not allowed on the tour).
Without binoculars, we saw that first mom and cub, a mom with 2 cubs digging clams, a mom with 3 cubs eating sedge, the sleeping adult bear, 2 adults chasing flounder, and one more mom with 3 cubs. There were many more in the distance. Two of them looked like large males aggressively chasing each other who eventually tired themselves out. In any case, we saw about 16-18 bears during our tour in their natural habitat, just doing things that bears do. Phenomenal.
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We have no idea if the Brooks Falls tour would have been better. What we do know is that this tour surpassed all expectations. There’s not much more to say except Alaska Bear Adventures (we are not paid by or affiliated with this tour group) delivered a magical day filled with memories we’ll never forget!
