BEARS

I had heard about bear viewing from a friend, but it never really appealed to me.  For one, bears make me extremely nervous (though not as nervous as sharks) and two, the trips run about $600.  My friend's pictures were mind blowing though.  I could not believe how close she was to a mama and her tiny cubs, who of course were standing up on their hind legs being super silly.   I later learned that the bears in Katmai National Park have been viewed by tour groups for the last 25 years.  Since they can not be hunted in the park and there are no people living anywhere near there, they do not associate humans with danger nor do they associate us with food.  We are just other creatures in their landscape.  It still wasn't too interesting.  I could fly to Hawaii for that price.

This spring, the Disney Bears movie was released with a bit of excitement and pride in Homer as Disney used a local company for their flights, guides, and as a base of operation for the filming in Katmai National Park.  I love silly documentaries à la Endless Summer, so I wanted to see the movie anyway.  The kids and I all loved it, and at the very end, during the credits, there were clips of the camera crew so you could really see how close everyone was to the bears.  It was nutso.

Flash forward to a sunny May day.  The Homer Spit is reopening for business, including our favorite restaurant.  James & I decide to meet Brian on the spit for lunch one day while Kate is in school.  I have a little time to kill, so I head into AK Wild Salmon and buy t-shirts for my nephews' upcoming birthdays. Then, I stroll into a bear viewing place to inquire about a locals rate to kill more time.  I have heard many of the companies keep a standby list for locals.  If the plane is not full, they will call you last minute and you can go for a reduced price.  I was thinking maybe 1/2 price.  I still wasn't sure that I wanted to spend the money since I've already seen brown bears.  Side note: We ran into a mama and juveniles last summer at the Russian River and I felt lucky that none of us had our faces eaten off.  The owner of Alaska Bear Viewing and K-Bay Air said it's all based on weight, but that she would love to put a local resident and/or Coast Guard personnel on the trip if the plane wasn't full.  So, I left her my phone number and my weight.  I didn't even lie a little bit about my weight as I did not want to have the plane go down on account of me.  Two weeks later I got a call late at night.  She said if I could be at the airport by 7:30am, the trip was free.  That's right FREE.  The ship is out, so I pawned the kids off on a friend and then proceeded to experience some mind blowing sh#%.

Admittedly, I was a little nervous about the flight.  I knew the airplane was small and that we were flying over very remote areas.  There is still snow on all the mountains here (June 2) and I read Alive.  Enough said.  In the end, their safety spiel put me at ease (a little).  There was room for 6 passengers including pilot and two planes were venturing off this morning.  I ended up sitting in the co-pilot seat (so cool) next to Jared, a Michigan resident and Western Michigan flight school grad. We didn't talk much as I wore earplugs and he a headset, but that was okay because the scenery was spectacular.  I had been thinking only of bears, but the one hour flight, my first in a bush plane, proved to be equally amazing. 

We took off and flew over the Homer spit and across Kachemak Bay.  We flew along the coastline so I could see the Native communities of Seldovia, Port Graham, and Nanwalek as well some of the bays we have been exploring by boat as a family before flying over the Barren Islands.  We also flew next to Mount Augustine island, a uniquely situated volcano that makes up part of our amazing view from Homer and finally over to Katmai National Park on the Alaska Peninsula.   The park and preserve itself is over 4 million acres and is about the size of Wales.  We flew right over Mount Douglas, one of the park's 18 volcanoes.  

Crater lake at the summit of Mr. Douglas

I feel like I need to mention that I took all of these photos because they will continue to blow your mind as you read on.  I expect National Geographic to be knocking on my door very soon. 

We also flew over several glaciers before making our landing on the beach in Hallo Bay.

This is another bay with similar terrain that we flew over before arriving in Hallo Bay

We flew a few passes over the beach and grassy area before landing. I spotted 3-4 bears and the pilots talked and decided where to land and start our trek.  We headed out on the sand hoping to see two different bears dig for clams.  These brown bears are eating clams and vegetation this time of year and are waiting for the salmon to run in July and August. 

Mama and cub clamming at low tide

As we got closer, we were super excited to see the bear had a cub with her.  Our guides recognized the bear and the mama from the Disney Bears movie.  Unfortunately, when the movie ended happily that both cubs had survived, that was not actually the case. She only had one in tow this year.  Kate and James are sure the yearling cub is Scout, the more curious of the two.  Who knows?  We walked to within about 30 yards and knelt down in our hip waders to watch them sniff, dig, and eat clams.

So tired

I had our guide take the next two photos so you can get a little perspective on how far away we are from the bears.

After a 20 minutes or so we decided to walk a little further to watch another bear dig for clams.  This bear was a little bigger, and we were a little closer.

After watching this one for a while, we headed back to the beach for a snack.  I know eating near bears seems crazy, but we were told not to pack any seafood and that the bears wouldn't recognize any other smells.  There were 11 of us sitting on driftwood eating our snacks when the mama and cub started walking in toward us.  We could hear the cub making little snorting noises and the guides said they were probably coming in so the cub could nurse. Cubs stay with their mom for 3-5 years and nurse the entire time. 

Our guide had to stand up so that the bear would walk around him and give us at least a couple feet of distance.  Luckily, I was number 11 in the lineup, so the furthest away in our group, but check out this guy snapping photos in the front.

Mama bear walked around a bit,

checked to see the coast was clear of predators.  She was completely not phased by our group as I'm sure she was looking for wolves (we saw tracks) and male brown bears.

Eventually they started climbing the bluff in front of us, munching on celery grass and whatever else on the way up.  I could hear them crunching.  The cub played with some sticks and seemed to like making the rocks tumbling down the bluff.

This oddly yellow photo taken with my phone shows the bears climbing the bluff and our group watching.  When they got to the top, a well protected place where no one could sneak up on mom, she laid back and the cub nursed.  We could hear him purring loudly for the first 5 minutes.

They stayed on the bluff resting and relaxing until we decided to head back to the plane and they were still there as we sped down the beach for take off.

A fox ran past us on our way back to the plane.

  

The flight home was even more amazing than the flight over as the sun was shining bright and the ocean was a magnificent turquoise.  There were a few islands we flew over that could have passed for Hawaii.

Kachemak Bay State Park was incredible from above.

We landed safely back in Homer by 2pm.  The co-pilot seat was fantastic!