The last few days have been absolutely awesome. Definitely the highlights of our entire trip so far.
On Monday, we hired a water taxi to take us out to the glacier spit trail head on the other side of Kachemak Bay part of the Kachemak Bay State Wilderness Park. Our planned hike was to go up to the hand operated tram, check it out then hike across the peninsula on the Glacier Lake Trail to, of course, Glacier Lake. From Glacier Lake we were to hike down the Saddle Trail to Halibut Cove for a 3:30PM pickup by our water taxi. Planned distance was around 8 miles.
The hike up to the tram was extremely hot. Never would have thought that in Alaska. On the way down to Saddle Trail, Mallory started overheating. We stopped constantly to give her water and let her lay in the shade of trees to cool down. I got a little panicked as I could not carry her down (64 pounds now). We kept her going, but we skipped the section up to Glacier Lake. Once we got back into the forest, she got better and we were able to make the steep accent up and over the Saddle.
Lunch was on boulders right on Halibut Cove while we waited for our pick up. The hike was still awesome with spectacular views from the top. I think next time we leave Mallory at the RV.
Yesterday was the ultimate high point so far. I think I posted earlier that we were taking a floatplane out to Katmai National Park on the 2nd of July. I was actually mistaken as we booked for the 3rd.
There are not enough adjectives to describe our day. We flew on Bald Mountain Air Service. We were lucky enough to have Gary Porter the owner as our pilot. This was our first trip out to Katmai, and our first ever floatplane.
We could not ask for better weather. Crystal clear skies and calm winds. However, we were a little anxious that we would not see many bears. When we purchased our trip, the gal told us they move from flying from the Katmai Wilderness Lodge and the Hallo Bay Wilderness Camps on July 1st to the Park Headquarters at Brooks Falls. It gave me the impression that the bears "move" from the former locations to Brooks Falls. I learned from Gary that that is not true. The activity increases at Brooks Falls when the King Salmon start running. So we took off from Beluga Lake to Katmai.
The views on the way down were amazing. We landed in Naknek Lake and tied the floatplane up on the shore by the Visitors Center.
We were told in advance we had to go to "Bear School" prior to heading out on the trails. Being that this was one of the first days planes were flying into Brooks Falls and the fact that it was such a spectacular day, there were over a dozen planes all coming in at the same time.
This caused a backup at the limited capacity during "schooling" We had to wait for one and a half classes before we got in (They split the class into two parts; a movie and a lecture). We came in at the start of the movie and had to wait for our lecture. The gist of the class was; never run, talk in normal voices as you walk down the trails, and if a bear comes down a trail, get the hell out of the way.
So off we went. The area is setup so that you cross a bridge over the Brooks River then hike over to a lower platform where you put your name in for the upper platform. They actually use the vibrators as you see in restaurants. Lawrence party of 3 for dinner please. All of the platforms, bridges and elevated walkways are controller by gates to keep the bears off of them.
Immediately as we approached the bridge, we saw our first Grizzly. We got our names on the list and viewed from the lower platform. Straight away we saw two more at the foot of the falls.
We got our call to allow us over the the upper platform. Within minutes more and more bears started coming in and fishing. We actually got to see live the famous fish in mouth image you see on nature shows all of the time. See my pictures below. It was just bear after bear coming in and fishing.
There was this younger bear that found a sweet spot called the whirl pool. We watched him catch and eat at least 8 or 9 Salmon before this huge bear came in and chased him off. The big guy must have been in some sort of a fight as he had scares down the left side of his neck.
After our 1 hour allotted time, we left the upper platform and took a last peak from the lower platform. We decided to go back to the visitors center where we had to store our lunch in a food cache. While hiking back, a mom and her two cubs started down the trail right towards us followed by two 3 year old juveniles. We froze on the trail to see what they were going to do. I took several shots while the mom and two cubs walked off to our left and the two juveniles walked off to our right.
We made it back to the bridge when all hell broke loose. There had to be 15 bears that decided to hang out in the river and our walk around under the bridge. The park service closed the bridge down with us on top of it. We heard this might happened, but really never thought it would.
There were several juveniles, two moms with two sets of cubs, and a bunch of loners.
After nearly 45 minutes, the bears moved back enough that they let us off of the bridge. We made it back to the Visitors Center ate lunch and then headed back to the bridge to see if it was still active.
Here we go again. We got back to the bridge, and a very large bear was in the water that I wanted to take a picture of. The bridge was closed again so I walked next to some 8 foot tall bushes to take my pictures and out comes another juvenile literally two feet from me. Off course I jumped back with panick. A park ranger about a 100 yards behind me yelled "don't run". I cannot describe how bad I wanted to run. I slowly backed up saying softly "hey bear", "hey bear". I got back to a group of about 10 people all trying to get across the bridge. The ranger backed us down the trail very slowly as this bear kept walking towards us.
All of a sudden the bear started running down the trail towards us. The park ranger yelled "get off the trail!". We all jumped off, me having to drag Heather into the woods. The bear ran by us. We looked back up the trail, and a huge bear was coming after the smaller one. The ranger took us back farther near one of the lodges. Another ranger who seemed a little more seasoned told us to stay where we were at. He was going after the large one to keep him back and may have to use "augmented procedures". He took out his bear spray.
He came back to our group that had grown to around 15 people and lectured us about not yelling. I and everyone else did not remember yelling, but as the juvenile passed we all simultaneously chanted "hey bear". I guess we got loud.
He did not have to use the spray, but did move him toward the beach and away from the trail.
At this point it was 10 after 3 and our scheduled departure was 3:30PM, so we decided to head back to the visitors center and beach. Well would you believe it, the large bear came all the way up the beach so we hung back until he moved up into the woods about where our plane was beached.
We got back to the plane, and Gary let me ride along side him in the co-pilot seat. It was a return trip of views, mountains and volcanos. Wow!!
We got around 10 miles from Homer, and Gary decided to start texting someone. I thought "texting and flying", "there should be laws".
Then all of a sudden, the engine shut down. Gary dropped his phone on his lap and started switching switches and levers. The engine started up, and he picked up his phone and asked me if I had cell service. All I could do is say to myself "who the hell cares, what the "blank" just happened?". But instead I just said "yes".
We landed without incident, and when we got off I asked what happened. He told me we ran out of fuel on that tank and he just switched to another tank. Wow!!! We are still alive.
Bear count this trip now stands at 49. I think we may beat our 54 total in 2014. Woohoo!
Lunch time view from Halibut Cove
Trip to Katmai National Park:
Bear School Graduation Pin
Lunch time view from Katmai
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