One with the Bears: Day 5

Friday, July 8, 2011

Today was our last full day at Brooks Camp. I was really sad to see it come to an end. It was seriously one of the best weeks/experiences of my life! We slept in until lunch...whoops! When I went to brush my teeth by the fence, there was the sow with her yearling cub right on the beach next to our campground. That was a great way to start our last day! After lunch we went fishing, but it turned into us getting pushed around by bears. It's worth giving up a cast or two if a bear is coming your way! After we were jammed by a bear for a good while, we decided to head up to the falls for one last time. We stayed up there for a few hours, but after the freezing wind started blowing, and the salmon stopped jumping, we said our goodbyes. This trip was a wonderful experience, and I was so blessed to be able to share the memories with my wonderful dad! Hopefully, this won't be the last time we go live with the bears! Tomorrow we head out of the wilderness, and back into reality. I'm sure there will be at least one more bear story tomorrow to top off the week. Can't wait!

Fishing with bears! The two bears across from me were the love bears.

I sure wouldn't want to be that salmon.

This picture makes me laugh every time I see it. This bear has swag.

These two bears were bickering over a scrap piece of salmon, when all of a sudden this eagle came down and took it!

So much for arguing over it!

This salmon was lucky...he went right in between these two hungry bears!

I am so thankful for this guy, and I'm also so thankful that we now have all of these memories/stories to look back on and remember the best trip ever! Thanks for sharing it with me, Dad!

One with the Bears: Day 4

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Today we did the Valley of the Ten Thousand Smokes day trip. I should mention that the sow with her three cubs joined us for breakfast today. They ate grass right outside our window while we ate our breakfast! Talk about cool. We began our trek around 9 am as we headed to the valley. The drive was about an hour or so until we finally arrived at the visitor's center. My dad and I decided not to do the 3-mile hike because it was chilly, super windy, and raining. It was still so interesting to see the valley and learn about the eruption. Novarupta erupted on June 6, 1912, around the same time as the Titanic, so it was not as popular of a news story. It had such an impact on the world though. People living in Juneau, AK, about 750 miles away from the volcano heard the blast over an hour after it erupted (http://geology.com/novarupta/). Even Africa was affected by it! Once we got back to camp, we drank some hot tea to warm up, and then we went fishing. I caught a nice salmon which escaped my line due to an unexpected pile of logs underwater (totally my fault). My next fish was the biggest one of the week, but it was snagged in the gill. Finally, I hooked one in the mouth! I was so close to reeling it in...until the ranger stationed at the corner yelled down to us that someone had seen a bear sneak through the woods towards the beach. The woods are right behind us as we fished, by the way. I thought to myself, 'I bet it's somewhat far away and probably heading the opposite direction towards camp.' Boy was I wrong. I looked back to see if I could see it, and there it was about 25 yards away, headed our way! My dad cut my line, and then we turned, grabbed our backpacks, and started walking TOWARDS the bear in order to get out of his way. The bear and I actually had a moment where we acknowledged each other. It was SO unbelievably awesome! By the time we passed it, we were probably 10 yards away from him. Crazy! Like father, like daughter I suppose. It sure was exciting! Can't wait for tomorrow.

This is actually a picture I found online exactly where we were at the Visitor's center! This is overlooking the smokeless valley.

This was taken at one of the stops on the way to the valley. So beautiful.

This was the fish I snagged in the gill. So pretty!

This picture was taken directly before the sneaky bear came out of nowhere, and we had to cut my line! That was my favorite bear story of the week!

My dad caught this salmon after dinner in the rain. Talk about a true angler!

We didn't make it to the falls today, but I took these two pictures from the bus while we waited for everyone to pile on for the valley tour.

Anywhere you went, there were bears. And I loved it.

One with the Bears: Day 3

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Today we ate breakfast and then just hung out in the lodge while looking through our pictures. We then went up to the falls until about 2:30. It was pretty crowded so we hung out and played Gin until it was our turn to go to the upper platform, which is the more popular one. A few boars were fishing, but not too many...so around 2:30 we headed back to the Lodge. We ate a snack and then I went to store our food in the food cache, and when I came back I went to the bathroom (there IS a point to this). When I opened the door to leave the bathroom, I was greeted by Ranger Imes telling me to stop. I assumed there was a bear near the bathroom so I shut the door...why I did that? I'm not sure. I kept looking out the window, but I couldn't see anything. Finally I saw my dad outside coming to my rescue. Turns out there was a sow with her three spring cubs about 25 yards away from the bathroom! You're supposed to be at least 100 yards away from a mom and her cubs. Now the camp knows me as the girl who was stuck in the bathroom, and my dad as the guy who reeled in Divot! We went back up to the falls after that for about three hours. The bears must have known the salmon would be jumping because by the end of the night, there were at least TWENTY bears! That was unbelievable. And the cherry on top was seeing a sow with her yearling cub just down the beach from us when we were walking back to camp. These creatures are amazing. I also think I saw the three-year-old baby that I photographed as a cub just two years ago! I recognized my baby! Tomorrow we head out to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. Can't wait!

These are the four bears who trapped me in the bathroom! Alaska makes everything a little more exciting!

My dad shot this awesome picture of the upper falls. I think I counted 12 bears in this picture alone! Just down the river there were 8-9 more bears!

I really love this picture. This bear was just snoozing right under the walkway to the platforms. We stopped to take pictures of it, and let's just say if I would've jumped off the walkway, I may have been able to snuggle with the bear for a few seconds right before he realized it.

This was one of my favorite shots from the trip. They say the salmon jump out of the water to check and see where the bears are before making their way up the falls. This salmon unfortunately jumped right into the bear's mouth! Talk about bad judgement.

This is my baby bear from two years ago! The picture below is the one I took two years ago when we came to Brooks Camp on a day trip. The bear was just a yearling then. The picture above is the three-year-old that I saw at the falls this year! You can kind of see some similarities, especially in the face.

This was the momma and her yearling cub we saw on the beach. The cherry on top of a great day!

One with the Bears: Day 2

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Today was an exciting day...shower day! After the exciting moment of cleanliness, we decided to go fishing again. My dad and I each hooked a few salmon, but we never reeled any in all the way to the shore. We probably would have if Divot the Bear hadn't been "napping" on the spit across from where we were fishing. Divot is the bear who has learned what it looks like when an angler has a fish on...pole bent, water splashing, excited faces, etc. You get the point. So here is the story about Divot and my dad. Divot was laying down on the spit across the river. Ranger Imes, who is a bear technician, gave us the "okay" that we could fish with her asleep across from us because she was more than 50 yards away. He also warned us that she might be interested in a fish if we get one on. So my dad casts out and hooks a salmon. I figured it'd be better if I sat this one out. He catches a fish and Divot doesn't even flinch. Unfortunately, this fish escaped the hook and so my dad casted out again. This time, he hooked a fighter. Once the fish splashed about three times, here came Divot! My dad cut his line, I was freaking out (a bear was kind of chasing us, after all), and Divot didn't even get the fish in the end. Talk about exciting! My dad is a legend. After fishing for bears, we went up to the falls. On our way up, we saw a sow with her cub asleep about 25 yd off the trail. Personally, I'm glad they were sleeping! Once we got to the falls, we were greeted by a lot of bear bickering: roaring, jaw chopping and even some fighting! A few salmon were jumping, but not too many. It's amazing how these bears tolerate one another so close together. Once we got back to the lodge, we downloaded some pictures and visited with our friend Bryan who works at Brooks Camp. He showed us some pictures of the valley he'd taken on his hike earlier that day, and he was great to talk to! He's a real mountain man! So far we've met people from Russia, Germany, Australia, Hawaii, the Netherlands, and all around the U.S. Everyone is so sweet and so fun to talk to! I can't wait to see what tomorrow holds.

This is Divot. She looks so innocent, but she's real good at putting on a fake nap.

Pecking order at its finest: ears laid back, yawning, and foaming at the mouth. Those are all signs of agression.

And again, there's some pretty intense agression right there. I think there was even some roaring between these two!

I thought this picture was so funny! These two bears were fighting over who got the scraps of a salmon. Obviously the first one got it, and the second bear looks so sad!

This was my favorite shot of the day. If you look closely, you can see the salmon actually IN the bear's mouth!

Meet Bryan. He was one of the many cool people we met at camp! He and his coworkers would go into the Naknek Lake and pull the float planes to shore, tie them off, get the luggage and people out, and then we all got to visit! Talk about an awesome summer job!

One with the Bears: Day 1

Monday, July 4, 2011

Today was our first full day at Brooks Camp (not to mention it was an exciting one)! After we ate a great breakfast, we decided it was a good idea to go fishing for Red Salmon (Sockeye). My dad caught about a 9-pounder, which he let me reel in, and after that I caught a 8 pounder and then a 5 pounder...by myself! did I mention that we were chased off of our fishing spot FOUR different times by bears? Okay, okay...not chased literally, but the bears would get close to the spot we fished at (called the spit) so we'd have to move back to maintain the 50-yd distance. Now I can say I've fished with bears! After dinner, we headed up to the waterfalls for the second time that day. I forgot to say we had our first unexpected bear encounter on the road back to the campgrounds. We were walking along and suddenly there was a big bear about 45 yards away coming towards us. We said "Hey bear." (they told us to do that in the informative video) and she went on her way across the road. We started walking again, but the ranger at the platform yelled for us to turn around. Just then another big bear made its way across the road! Alaska is exciting. On our way back from the falls on our second trip, we had three...and a half...more bear encounters. I should mention that the hike to the falls is totally wild. It's just you and the bears in the woods for about a mile and a half! As we left the platform to head back to camp, there was a huge boar right ahead of us. We waited for him to cross, and made our way on past...until he decided to turn around and come back. We stopped and waited for him to cross again. Once we finally passed him, he was just sitting in the woods watching us walk by! It was awesome. Then we took about 60 steps and ran into a blond sow. We figured they were the two "love birds...or shall I say bears." They had been mating earlier at the falls. He was following her through the woods, and she was leading him on. Typical girl! Then we made it down the trail to the road. We only got held up once by a bear on the road. It went on its merry way once we saw it. And finally, we made it back to camp! All in all, it was an amazing day filled with awesome adventures. I can't wait to see what tomorrow holds!

The Lodge is where we ate every meal and the place with the tent sign at the top is the campground we slept in. You'll see the Naknek Lake and we fished right next to the little bridge across from the Lower River Platform. We took the Brooks Falls Trail to the waterfalls to bear view. That's where we had a lot of bear encounters because not only is it a human trail, but it's mainly a bear trail!

The point from where we fished!

This was our dinner for one night.

The "love bears" that we ran into on the trail.

This was one of the platforms by where we fished.

My favorite shot from the falls on this day!



One with the Bears: Intro

Some of you are probably wondering what on earth the title of this entry is about...well, let me tell you! I lived for a week amongst brown bears at Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park, Alaska. You probably think I'm crazy (I would too if I were you). My dad and I decided to have a father-daughter bonding time, and what better way than by living with bears for a week! So we flew out to Brooks Camp on July 3, 2011. I decided to keep a journal throughout the amazing week, and now that I'm back I think I will transform the journal entries into blog entries...in case any of you care to read them. I believe there are 6 or 7 days...so I think that will wind up being 6 or 7 blog entries, full of fishing stories, tons of bear encounters, and probably lots of stuff you don't care about. Also, I'll try to insert some pictures along with the stories for a more visual effect! Everyone loves a good picture book, right? Anyways...here we go! Hope you feel just as adventurous as I did!

I found this book at the Barnes & Noble a few days before we left for our adventure. It described my feelings about the trip perfectly! Also, for some reason, I decided to YouTube bear attacks the day before we left. Needless to say, it was a terrible decision on my part.