Be prebeared, things are about to get Grizzly

Though technically Grizzlies these brown bears are the same species Ursus arctos. Grizzlies are inland and the bears we are seeing are coastal brown bears.

Day 21, September 4

We signed up with Wild Alaskan Bear Tours which meant we had to be at a small airfield by 8 am today. As many of you know…my least favorite experience is flying in small planes! Had to make a quick stop at the local Safeway to stock up on ginger and Dramamine! Arrived, had a very quick bear briefing and boarded the VERY small Toyota of airplanes (Cessna 206) with our guide Ted. Beautiful day to fly out of Homer, had nice views of the local active volcano Mount Augustine, an island in the middle of the Cook Inlet. Landed on a small beach on Katmai National Park and started the photographic hunt for bear.

Do these photos make me look fat? Katmai National Park is known for its fat bear contest. The contest runs from Sept 22 thru Sept 29. People follow their favorite bears and vote on which bear is the chunk! Check Explore.org.

We watched the bears for hours and, yes, they did get quite close. I was beginning to wonder which Italian photographer I was going to hide behind when this gal started sniffing along towards us! The salmon were making their way upstream to spawn and she was swatting at them as they came by. It was wild to watch how quickly she could move and she managed to grab two fish right out of the water in front of us. She chomped the good bits and left the not so good bits for the ever present seagulls.

Back on the plane for a thankfully, smooth flight back to Homer.

Back to Homer and we met up with Kathy and Pat who are friends of our friend Pratt. It was fun to hear Kathy and Pat’s history as Kathy has lived in Alaska since the early 80’s coming here as a young woman from the east coast thinking she’d make good money in the fish canneries – that lasted a day. She and Pat are quite well known in the local community! Even our water taxi driver knows them!

They have a beautiful home overlooking the bay. We enjoyed dinner together, watching the otters play and hoping to spot Orcas!

Another Day Just Another Glacier

Day 22, September 4

Took a water taxi over to Kachemak Bay State Park to access the Grewingk Glacier and Lake. It’s a quick trip across the bay to the drop off right at the trail head for the glacier hike. Jumped out of the boat and started hiking. Along the way we decided to take a quick detour and go see the Hand Tram that takes you across a glacier river to access the hiking trails on the other side. Quite the adventure to jump in a small basket and pull yourself across a raging river. It was all fun as the basket headed down towards the river but about mid way you really have to crank to get the basket up and back to the landing pad. Way better then some of the river crossings we’ve done around Mt Hood!

After experiencing the hand tram, we headed back across the river and up towards the Grewingk Glacier. This area has a HUGE warning sign about Tsunamis! As you walk up to the glacier and lake, you are certainly not thinking Tsunamis! The history is in 1967 a landslide sent a wave hundreds of feet in the air and it spread over 4 miles out into the bay, scouring everything in its path. It’s rare but not unusual for this glacier because of the steep slopes surrounding the glacier. As the glacier recedes the ice no longer supports the valley walls and there is a greater chance of a slide. Quickly ate our lunch on moved right on out of there!

Hiked out to meet our water taxi at pickup time. 10 mins, 20 mins still no taxi. There were two other couples sitting and waiting and we all became concerned as we were the only people left on the beach! Finally 30 minutes late our taxis showed up to pick us up. The bonus – he was late but it allowed us to see a pod of Orcas swimming thru the bay. He spent another 30 minutes following the pod so we got multiple visuals of the Orcas as they swam thru the bay – more than made up for his lateness!

Time to move on from Homer and see what adventure the next two weeks brings us!