Brooks Camp A week with Brown Bears in Katmai National Park, Alaska
Our first trip during the summer of 2014 to Alaska and the Yukon allowed us the opportunity to view and photograph a few bears. We really wanted to go back to photograph and spend more time observing these amazing creatures. After doing some research, Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park, Alaska, seemed like the place to go.
Arriving in King Salmon. We had the plane from Anchorage all to ourselves. It pays to get up early and take the first flight.
The final flight from King Salmon into Brooks Camp with Katmai Air.
When we got to Brooks Camp we went through bear training with the rangers and set up camp. Shortly after we headed off like kids in a candy store to find some bears, and it didn't take too long.
There were lots of standoffs and disputes over fishing territory.
They seemed to be pretty intense.
But most of the time the disputes would end with one bear backing down before anything violent happened.
A Brooks Falls Stand Off
When there wasn't too much action going on with the adults, four cubs provided lots of entertainment.
Brooks Camp provided several up close opportunities to photograph the bears.
We were able to have several amazing close encounters with the bears. Sometimes camp was the best place to have these close encounters. Once in a while we would stumble upon a bear on a path or just off the path in the woods. The bears at Brooks Camp are pretty habituated, so there is a lot less risk of an attack, but it's always a good idea to keep your distance and make sure that you let them know you're in the area by belting out your favourite tune.
If you go out in the woods today....
This mother and her cub often hung around camp. With there being a lot of campers around, the mother felt her little cub was safer closer to us rather than with the big boars, so we saw these two a lot.
the shot
A lot of people have been inspired to travel to Brooks Falls to get that epic National Geographic shot of the bear standing on top of the falls with the fish leaping out of the water. I was able to get a few of those as well.
Brooks Falls offered opportunities to see several bears at once. There is a viewing platform at the falls which gets really busy during the day, and we would often see 10 to 20 bears at a time. Not too many places that offer this kind of viewing opportunity. The best time to see the bears was in the early evening when all day trippers who flew in for just the day went home. If you can get a camping permit it is definitely the way to go.
The noisiest bears at the falls were often three young yearlings that would fight over fish that their mother caught. They would often rip the fish from the sow's paws and run off into the woods so their siblings would not get any of their salmon.
Brooks Camp - The Ultimate Bear Experience
The experience in Katmai National Park was unbelievable and something that I would highly recommend. I am already looking at trying to get back to Alaska, but for a little bit of a different experience, in Lake Clark National Park, to view the bears along the ocean's coast digging clams and catching more salmon. There is nothing better than getting to view wildlife in their natural surroundings. Alaska definitely offers lots of opportunity to do this, you just have to be willing to stick it out in a tent, or if you can afford it, there are also cabin options in some of these places.