First, I know I said I was tired yesterday but I was wrong, this is tired. I honestly don’t know when I was ever this tired before. Up at 4:45 to eat and get to the first boat to brooks falls. It was a picture perfect, “chamber of commerce” day.
First, bear school. Basically make yours presence known but don’t be annoying and stay 50 yards away. Then we made the mile and a half up walk to viewing platforms.There was only one bear eating at the falls when we arrived. That was a bit of a disappointment. But he was entertaining and the salmon were plentiful. It is hard to believe that any of them make it beyond the falls. (I will see if the video uploads. If it doesn’t I will post it separately to Facebook till I can make it work.)
Michael settled in on the platform and our guide and I trekked on down to the river just below to try trout fishing. But reported record numbers of salmon made snagging one of those easy but catching a trout hard. Not just for me but apparently for a lot of frustrated real fishermen on the river, that and the fact that we could hardly stay 50 yards away from a bear. They were everywhere. So we were constantly moving … occasionally with the current but mostly across it or against it. When the guide said, “come on we have to move up stream now, fast!” I could have laughed. I might just as well have been on Mt. Everest trying to take a step. I told him, “safe yourself. I have had a good life.”
The great news was that I wasn’t there to fish. I was there to see bears and it was amazing. Honestly, we were almost always surrounded by four to six of them. Juveniles roughhousing, a mom and a one year old cub, lots of adults and one massive, big male submerged except for his head “snorkeling” for fish.
However, the constant moving landed us way downstream where, surrounded again, we ultimately were forced to skirt one last bear by only about 20 feet. Get upon the bank. Walk back a ways to find the trail. Walk back down to camp. And book it all the way back up to the platforms to get Michael. Back down for lunch. Back up for more watching and wading. And then back down again.
Had a great dinner of king crab and scallops and halibut and then were quite happy to snuggle into our little den and collapse into sleep.
It was a wonderful day.
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