Brooks Falls – Kenai NP

Brooks Falls at Kenai NP is a unique location to observe brown bears in the wild. Not only they have the largest concertation of brown bears in the world but at Brooks Falls, the bulls tolerate the nearby presence of other bulls when feasting on the Salmon trying to jump the falls.

We took a flight very early in the morning not sure about the weather. Katmai NP is notorious for unfavorable weather. The trip is amazing with views of the Cook Inlet and the many volcanoes and snow capped mountains of the Alaska peninsula.

It was cloudy when we took of and the pilot was not able to land on Naknek Lake initially. He landed on a nearby lake and we waited for about 30 minutes for the weather to clear.

Sure enough the weather cleared and we proceed to Brooks fall ahead of the other tourist float planes that were still waiting in Homer.

This allowed us to beat the crowds and really enjoy our stay at Brooks Falls.

We finally “landed” at Naknek lake and we could see already many bears on the beach and at the lake. From the “landing” spot we walk about 1/4 mile to the park headquarters where we were briefed about bear safety.

All food must be stored in a food cache and any food can only be consumed inside an electric fence guarded area. As we were eating our snacks we saw a brown bear strolling 50 ft from on the same beach we walked a few minutes earlier to arrive at the ranger station.

You are free to roam through the park as you wish but you must realize that you will not having rangers following you. You will do this on your own.

The “safest” is to walk through a trail that connects the ranger station to three nearby wooden platforms. The first on a small pond and the other two at Brooks Falls.

Between platforms you will occasionally will share the path with bears being bears, sleeping, playing, nurturing or just taking a stroll

On the first platform we saw several bears. A couple of juveniles were playing in the water taking a break from eating salmons. A mom walked under the platform following her two cubs into the pond.

We left the first platform to follow the trail to the second group of platforms. A ranger returning to the station warned us of a bear a few feet ahead of us. We did not see it on our way in but we met it on our way back.

The final platform next to the falls has a limit of 40 people at one time and no one can stay for more than 30 minutes. However, since were ahead of the crowds for a couple of hours we could enjoy the spectacle for way more than an hour before we were asked to leave. We put our names back on the wait list and entered again for another 30 minutes.

Seeing those magnificent creatures in the wild doing what they normally do, not bothering with our presence just a few feet away and even sharing the space with anglers on the river is something we will never forget and certainly will return in the future. There is the occasional scuffle between bears for spots along but other than that they get along well and are only concerned with eating as much calories as they possibly can.

The salmon run was so intense this year that bears were only eating the brains and the skin since they are the parts of the fish with the higher fat content. Innumerous fish carcass lay on the margins and will be eaten by the bears later once the salmon run ends.

During our return to the first platform we noticed a bear standing behind some trees next to our path just 10 feet away from us. He was staring at us waiting to see what we would do. When we saw him, we stopped and slowly and nervously walked back a few steps. The bear noticed that we stopped and like any well educate bear in the rules of the right-of-way on a four way stop proceeded since the was the first to stop at the intersection……

The two juvenile brown bears were still playing on a nearby beach

By 4pm we returned to the beach to board our plane. A lot more planes were stationed on the beach and we were glad our pilot took a gamble and decided to proceed to Brooks Falls with unfavorable conditions.