Day 8. I can’t contain my excitement. This day is one of the biggest reasons we’ve ridden our asses off for days…today we see bears. Not just any bears…the coastal brown bears of Katmai National Park.  Katmai is the 4th largest national park and is home to Brooks Camp. Brooks Camp is a fishing camp with six or so cabins and ranger station accessible by sea plane only out of Anchorage.  There are more bears than people and the bears always have the right of way. Brooks is the bears’ home. The Brooks waterfalls are world famous and the subject of many documentaries on the bears.

After the 2 hour flight with our bush pilot Mark,  our seaplane lands on the beach at Brooks Camp.  Immediately we hear that bears are on the beach. My heart is pumping.  We head for restrooms and to bear school…yes bear school. Every visitor to Katmai must go to bear school to learn safe interaction with the bears. This training would come in handy later (I’m foreshadowing, ya’ll).  After school we head to a picnic area surrounded by an electric fence. While we’re eating our delicious lunch provided by Rust’s Flying Service we hear about a bear jam on the bridge to the falls. It’s common for bears to nap on the bridges and on the trails and when that happens the bears have right of way. They stay put and the humans have to deal.

Our pilot tells us to head back to the plane and he’ll fly us to the other side of camp and land on a beach there. It’s a 2 mile walk to the falls but we are assured of getting to the falls this way. We eagerly agree and soon we’re just high enough to clear the treetops and splash down again. I’m ready to see bears!

We walk to the falls and put our name on the list to get on the viewing platform. There’s only 40 people allowed at a time and you can spend one hour out there at a time.  The wait was long so we walked to the ripples, just down from the falls where sows and cubs fish for salmon. After that short hike, we decide to hike to the bridge and pit toilets about 1.3 miles away. We had barely gotten off the platform when we were surprised by a sow and her 3 two year old cubs. Yikes! We remained calm and talked to mama in hushed voices watching her every move. Each time we took three steps back she came two steps forward. One of the cubs came around her to say hello. Mama was not happy but soon the cub realized mom was not happy so he rejoined his family as she walked beside us and up the trail.

Katmai is an amazing park and well worth the time and expense to get there.