[You may view a map of Katmai National Park and Preserve in PDF format here.]

We awoke early before the alarm, all excited to go bear viewing. Had my normal breakfast, and J called to confirm that the bear trip is a "go." There were nice pink clouds to the east. We didn't have to attend the pre-flight briefing for the bear trip again, so we left at 8:30 in the Jeep.

We got to the Emerald Air Service facility on Beluga Lake around 8:40 for the bear viewing trip to Katmai National Park and Preserve with Ken and Chris Day. Ken and Chris are wonderful people and are featured in the IMAX movie Bears. We had plenty of time to put on our hip waders which Chris had set aside for us, while she was finishing the briefing for the other participants. We chatted with Ken after he finished warming up their de Havilland DHC-3 Otter on floats. One of the other women participants was wearing a Marmot PreCip jacket like I just ordered. We boarded the Otter, then took off at 9:27 headed to the west.

We went through some rain with low visibility in the middle of Cook Inlet. The rain stopped and the visibility improved by the time we reached Mt. Augustine, an island volcano, but the top of it was covered by the cloud layer. (You may view this map from the Alaska Volcano Observatory / Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys.) We flew by Crosswind Lake, our intended destination, at 10:42, and we kept flying low to look for bears. The salmon run was much smaller than usual this year, and the berry crop is almost non-existent, so the bears are having a hard time right now. The heavy rain over the last week or so has washed a lot of the salmon and salmon carcasses downstream, and the bears were starting to disperse a lot earlier than they usually do.

We touched down on Crosswind Lake at 11:00. (View map.) It's in Katmai National Preserve which forms the northern section of Katmai National Park and Preserve, and is due north of the Battle River Wilderness Retreat and northwest of the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary. We walked along Moraine Creek to where we had seen a bear from the air, and it was just turning off of Moraine Creek into a small tributary on the far side and out of site among the brush. We sat on the bluff overlooking Moraine Creek and had lunch. We could see just enough of the bear's back to tell that it was resting — not too exciting for viewing and definitely not exciting for photography. Chris took most of the group upstream to look for bears, and Ken took J, another woman, and I downstream to look for bears. We came upon a young brown bear working its way upstream and we got into position to photograph it from water level. We enjoyed photographing it as it made its way by us along the far shore, then we started walking upstream to try to get ahead of it again.

The bear that we had been watching while eating lunch had gone back to Moraine Creek and was heading upstream too. We crossed a small tributary, and my left boot took on some water through a crack that was forming above the top of the ball of my foot. :( Fortunately, the lead bear stopped and waded out into the creek to go fishing, and it started making its way back downstream to where we were (left).
We left and headed back downstream to look for more bears. My left boot took on even more water through the crack near the ball of my foot. :( Another bear was working its way upstream, and we got into position to photograph from water level. It paused to eat two salmon that had become stranded on the shore, then it headed upstream out of sight. We waited for the next bear, then noticed that the bear that had just left had turned around was heading downstream again. It took a detour through the tundra, and gave us the opportunity to photograph a bear in a slightly different environment than we've had so far (left).
After it returned to the far shore, it started chasing a salmon (left). It's always great to get some good action.

The bear headed off into the tundra as a very large bear started heading upstream. Ken said it might be Kara, the bear I met in 2001. (You may read more about my close encounter with Kara the brown bear in my blog entry for September 5, 2009.) After the bear moved on upstream, Chris and the rest of the group joined up with us, and we started heading downstream and back to the airplane. We came upon a large bear on our side of the creek, and while we were nice and close to it, we were up on a high bank so the photography wasn't very good.

We got back onboard the Otter at 3:52, then taxied around the lake to warm up the engine. We took off at 4:06.
We landed on Beluga Lake at 5:11.

We returned to the RV around 5:35. I downloaded images from today, then showered.

We had dinner at 7:01 of Bertolli Roasted Pork & Cavatappi Pasta and a salad. We both really liked the Bertolli, a flavor we hadn't had before. Well, J wasn't too fond of the pork itself, so I ate most of her pork which was just fine with me. Had mint chocolate chip ice cream and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. There was a spectacular sunset right outside the RV. It looked like something more appropriate for the Carribean than Alaska!

I had some Aalborg Akvavit while working up a blog entry.