Imagine watching seventeen grizzly bears (Alaskan brown bears) fishing for salmon all around you, as close as 30 yards. You are in the Alaskan coastal wilderness, standing with just four other people on a small gravel spit in a bay full of spawning salmon. Snow-capped mountains with glaciers loom all around you. You are hundreds of miles from roads or human settlement.
 |
| Grizzly sow with 2 cubs fishing for salmon at Chinitna Bay, Lake Clark National Park |
Imagine sows with cubs as well as many adult bears running, swimming, splashing, and leaping after silver salmon who are coming in towards the river to spawn. There is deep loud roaring by cubs who fight over the fish when mama catches a salmon for them. There is so much bear activity that you stand in awe and hardly know which direction to point your camera.
 |
| Grizzly sow with three cubs, Chinitna Bay, Lake Clark National Park |
A day with a few of the grizzlies of Katmai and Lake Clark National Parks was a highlight of our 3-1/2 month road trip through Canada and Alaska, which included visiting nine national parks. Virtually all the land in these two parks is unspoiled wilderness, without roads, vehicles, or human habitation. The parks are reached by air or water only.
 |
| Our plane at Chinitna Bay, glacier on Iliamna Volcano in distance. Photo by Michael Holmes, Alaska Bear Adventures |
We chose an all day (11-hour) bear-viewing trip out of Homer, Alaska with Alaska Bear Adventures, which would fly us across Cook Inlet and over parts of the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Range. We met our pilot/guide, Mike, the owner of Alaska Bear Adventures, at 8:30 in the morning. We were impressed that all the staff we met were highly safety-conscious. The only others on the trip were a couple from Barcelona. After being issued hip waders that we would wear all day, the four of us piled into Mike’s little Cessna 206 for the flight across Cook Inlet. He would decide where to land when we arrived across the water, based on which area appeared to have the best bear activity that day.
 |
| Rugged coast in Lake Clark National Park |
We were initially discouraged by the wet, cold, drizzly weather, but the weather was better on the other side of Cook Inlet, and it didn’t rain on us till late afternoon. In fact, the weather was favorable for flight seeing, so Mike extended our flight seeing en route to the bears, for amazing views of the gorgeous rugged coast of the Alaska Peninsula and mountains of the Aleutian Range. We saw ten volcanoes, more glaciers than we could count, and even flew inside the caldera of Kaguak volcano.
 |
| Glaciers in Katmai National Park |
 |
| Kaguak Volcano caldera |
Chinitna Bay in Lake Clark National Park is a popular spot for bear viewing, and several companies fly here out of either Homer or Anchorage. Circling above the bay, we could see about 25 grizzlies fishing in the shallow water of the river delta, and a few small planes on the beach, that had brought people to watch the bears. There are also two small lodges here on a small parcel of private land. Since we had a whole day, our guide wanted to give us more of a wilderness experience, in a place where we would be alone with the bears, so he flew on to Katmai.
 |
| During the late season salmon run, the bears fish the river deltas in Katmai National Park |
This is spectacularly beautiful, wild country, with rugged mountains, and many braided rivers and streams winding down to the coast, through lush green valleys, from the snow-capped peaks and glaciers we had been flying over.
In our three beach landings today, the beaches would be our runways, and the pilot timed his landings and the length of our stay at each place so the tide would be low enough to have room to taxi the plane. Some beaches have more space to land at high tide than others. Human visitors are cautioned to carefully leave nothing behind - even crumbs from our lunch - so the only mark of our being there would be the temporary tracks of the plane tires in the sand.
 |
| Great braided rivers carry glacial meltwaters of Katmai down to the coast |
At remote Haloo Bay in Katmai National Park, we felt like the only people who had ever been there. We had seen four bears from the air, but soon after we landed, one bear crossed a river, walked off and disappeared into high grass - probably for a nap. The other three bears were a family group, a sow with two rambunctious young cubs. They were a delight to watch, but the sow moved away and was soon on the opposite side of a 3/4 mile expanse of braided river with channels of varying depth running between gravel bars. We walked over uneven sand, gravel, and rocks, climbed down a river bank, and waded through several stream channels in water above our knees in an attempt to get ahead of where we thought she was headed, but she was a long way ahead, it was tough going, and Randy and I were carrying a lot of camera equipment. Our guide decided it would be better to try another location.
So we took to the air and flew on to land at another beach, at Big River, also in Katmai. Here we saw another three bears from the air. Two of them were this sow with a cub, who would have been born last season and was about 1-1/2 years old. They gave us our best photography of the day. Mike had seen the two bears walking down a stream towards the beach and predicted where they were likely to come over the bluff near where he landed the plane. We walked towards that spot along the beach, in single file which Mike said would make us look less intimidating when she saw us moving towards her.
 |
| Grizzly sow and cub, Katmai National Park |
Just as he said, she soon raised her head above the grass at the top of the bluff, just ahead of us, and Mike had us drop to a kneeling position which he said she would recognize as a submissive gesture. She checked us out as we crouched on the sand, and apparently decided we weren’t a serious threat. The two bears walked around us in a big arc, making almost a complete circle around us. The image above and the series below were taken in a kneeling position from a single spot on the beach as the bears moved around us.
 |
| Grizzly sow and cub, Katmai National Park |
 |
| Grizzly sow and cub, Katmai National Park |
 |
| Grizzly sow and cub |
The two bears came down to the beach one more time, then disappeared into the brush over a bluff. Observing and photographing these bears was a thrilling experience for us, but Mike was disappointed that he had not found us more bears. So he decided to take us back to Chinitna Bay in Lake Clark National Park where he was sure we would see many bears.
 |
| Grizzly sow and cub |
It was nearly an hour’s flight back to Chinitna Bay where we circled again over the bay and the river delta, spotting 17 bears on the sand and feeding in the shallow water. We arrived at high tide, and Mike said that as the tide went out, the bears would come closer and closer to us, as the water and therefore the salmon would become more concentrated in the river channels, and the bears would move out closer to a gravel spit where he positioned us.
.jpg) |
| Grizzlies fishing for salmon, Lake Clark National Park |
So we hung out in the cold for a couple of hours, as it started to drizzle and the tide ebbed, exposing more and more of our gravel spit. We ate lunch in view of one of numerous glaciers on Iliamna volcano, watched salmon jump, and six seals fishing. The presence of all the salmon seemed promising. We watched the gulls and a few shorebirds.
 |
| Glaucous gulls, Lake Clark National Park |
 |
| Plover, Lake Clark National Park |
 |
| Sanderlings, Lake Clark National Park |
The wait was worth it. More and more bears kept appearing in the bay, until there were 28 that we could see and count from where we were standing. They would emerge from the woods and make their way towards the water from all directions. At one point we had the opportunity to photograph this single young grizzly as it walked then galloped across the meadow towards the water.
.jpg) |
| Grizzly bear, Lake Clark National Park |
 |
| Grizzly galloping across meadow towards the water |
Before we knew it we were surrounded by seventeen bears within a few hundred yards of us, with some much closer, all of them intently and actively fishing for salmon and seemingly paying no attention to their human observers.
 |
| Grizzly runs towards a salmon, Lake Clark National Park |
There were two sows with two cubs each, and a third sow with three cubs. One of the sows had young cubs, born this year and kept more to herself, away from the other bears; the other cubs were about 1 1/2 yrs old, much larger, and followed their mama out when she fished with the other bears. The cubs, however, had not yet learned to catch their own fish.
 |
| Sow and two cubs fishing in Chinitna Bay, Lake Clark National Park |
 |
| Two cubs having a discussion over who will get the next fish |
 |
| Grizzly with salmon, Lake Clark National Park |
The sounds were amazing. Mama would catch a salmon and give it to one of the cubs, who would then fight over it with huge, threatening-sounding, deep roars, for several minutes. If we had been alone and had heard that sound in the woods we would have been terrified! Then mama would catch another fish and give it to another cub. The bears without cubs all seemed to be fishing individually. We knew there were at least another 11 bears on the bay, but they had moved farther away and were not in range of easy viewing. Gulls were everywhere, waiting for scraps after the bears feasted on their salmon.
 |
| Just missed the fish! |
 |
| Grizzly sow with three cubs fishing, Lake Clark National Park |
 |
| "Mama, I want that one!" |
 |
| Grizzly sow with three cubs fishing, Lake Clark National Park |
We watched the bears for a magical hour, and it was one of the most amazing wildlife experiences we have ever had, on a truly unforgettable day.
