2019 Alaska Trip - Day 84 - Last Day At Brooks Camp, Katmai National Park, Alaska

We got up early this morning, packed up our tent and all our gear, and I got a cart to haul everything up to the Lodge Dining Hall. We were flying out at 2:00 p.m. this afternoon, but we were still required to have everything on the porch of the Dining Hall by 9:00 a.m. as they fly the "checked" baggage back to King Salmon as they have room and weight capacity on the float planes.

After breakfast, Linda was content to hang out at the Dining Hall around the fire while I made one last trip to the Falls.

On the boardwalk just before going through the gates to the new bridge, a sow and cubs had left footprints.

We had gotten used to bears being in and around the Dining Hall, cabins, and Visitors Center, so we were attuned to keeping our eyes open and nothing much surprised us at this point.

From the viewing platform at the far end of the new bridge, I watched this solo sub-adult meander around the bridge support posts.

The posts substitute for scratching trees on occasion.

Also at that end of the bridge, the bus was preparing for its daily tour to the "Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes". It's a ranger-led tour on a Brooks Lodge bus. It runs daily at 9:00 a.m., and costs about $90 per person for 46-mile bus ride. I've heard good things about this 7-hour tour, but it didn't intrigue us enough to go.

Today, there was a slight delay boarding the bus.

Before I left the bridge, this sow was hauling in a salmon for the family.

You really do get to know the bear's idiosyncrasies when you spend a few days. This bear always seemed to carry her fish by the tail.

By the time I got to the Falls, there was already a good size group on the platform.

It was still fairly early, and the least active time for the bears at the Falls. I didn't take many pictures and I didn't stay long.

I made a quick detour to the Riffles platform where there were three bears.

And Ranger Naomi was getting ready to do a live feed.

The live feed was delayed by bears holding up her sound and video guy, so I worked my way back toward the Lodge.

These two sub-adults were play-fighting in a field along the trail.

Crossing back over the bridge, another pair of sub-adults was wrestling in the water.

Often these youngsters acted just like big, playful dogs.

This one was by himself, and it just walked around the lower river on his hind legs. I'm not sure if it was looking for danger or somebody to play with.

I rejoined Linda, and someone came in asking if anyone scheduled for the 2:00 flight wanted to take the noon flight. We figured we'd seen enough bears and took the earlier float plane to King Salmon.

We boarded the plane, and I took a couple shots of the beach from the water and the air.

The village of King Salmon was nestled between the airport and the Naknek River ....

which would serve as our "landing strip" in the float plane.

Again, the landing was smooth and, again, I wished all our flights were on float planes.

We were way early for our 5:30 Alaska Airlines flight to Anchorage, but Katmai Air allowed us to hang out in their building which was far more comfortable than the tiny King Salmon airport.

And thus ended one of the most memorable experiences of our lives. These things can always go either way, so I tend to keep my expectations low. But we were extremely pleased with our time at Brooks Camp. Our timing was good, our weather was good (except for the first night), and the number of bears was unbelievable. But I was most surprised by the fact that we just walked around with North America's second largest predator (behind only the Polar Bear) based on a half hour of "bear school". And that made the whole thing even more exciting and intriguing. It is truly a unique place on this earth.

And I'm so glad that we did it the way we did it spending four nights at the campground. We spent less than the cost of a day trip for two, and we had much more time to watch bears, especially in the evening when there was more bear activity and fewer people.

So, we hope you enjoyed tagging along with us. I took over 2,000 pictures, and it took a long time to go through all of them. In the end, I kept over 1,000 and it was difficult to decide which ones to include in Journal entries. At least one day, I included nearly a hundred photos.

We appreciate your patience as it was tough to take time out of our great Alaska adventure to share this experience. But if any experience needed sharing, this was it.