In the Heart of Bear Country- Lake Clark, N.P.

The next day we had such a wild and action-packed day on our trip to Lake Clark N.P. that we don’t know where to begin. It all started with our arrival at the Soldotna Airport for our 0730 departure on a Natron Air bush plane.

Our plane to Lake Clark

Jane was nervous about the flight, but kept her comments to a minimum after we had “the talk” the night before.

Jane's world

We were flying over with another couple from Fargo, ND and Capt. Larry had lots to talk to them about since he lived nearby in Minnesota.

High over the Cook Inlet

The plane left promptly at the departure time and the pilot was so smooth in handling the plane that Capt. Larry was quite impressed. Jane was in her own little world, kind of like crossing the Gulf of Mexico on the boat trip! After we got over the Cook Inlet, the mountain scenery on the eastern shore was spectacular.

Landing on the beach

We approached the park and heard the pilot announce that we would be landing at the north airport runway. He banked sharply to the right as he descended and Capt. Larry figured that Jane was having a private moment in her panties.

We're all smiles back on the ground

Capt. Larry was looking for an airstrip when he realized that the plane was going to land directly on the beach and the pilot was just being cute. Bush pilots have a way of cutting the engine while the plane is still rolling which didn’t amuse Jane. We came to a stop and our greeting party had to fire up their 4-wheelers to catch up with us.

Alaskan Homestead Lodge

We got out and loaded our bags into the ATV caravan and headed out to Alaska Homestead Lodge in beautiful Lake Clark, N.P.

The "caravan" from the beach

We found out the Alaska Homestead Lodge is really first class accommodations and are priced starting at $650/night/person (we think that includes the airfare), and of course is all inclusive as there is no place else to eat. You can check out their website at this line- http://alaskahomesteadlodge.com/index.html . We were delighted when we were upgraded (again!) to the Eagle’s Nest. This is a room above an old trapper’s cabin that has a private balcony, bath (yes, that is a luxury in Alaska!), and a beautiful view of a meadow and eastern shore of the Cook Inlet. We were delighted!

The first order of business was to load back up in the four wheelers and head out for some bear viewing. Bear viewing has become the number one attraction for the businesses and lodges in Lake Clark, N.P., because so many exist.

The caravan to the bears

We jumped in the ATV-caravan and Capt. Larry immediately knew she wasn’t prepared for this. She had all of her jewelry, make-up, and good clothes on and we had to wait on her to appear while she fixed her hair!

Our first encounter

Off we headed across the meadow to a spot where our guide “Bear” (yes, really, but his name is Barrett Hedges) had sighted a big old sow earlier. Along the way we ran into a fairly big (650-700 lbs.) male that made us stop and take pause. The bears are breeding this time of year and the males are particularly aggressive (nice to know).

Getting a leeeetle close!

The male finally wandered into the tree line, so we parked the ATV and headed out on foot to find the female. Jane muttered something about not having the right shoes….  We found the old girl and watched her as she slowly made her way in our direction.

The ranger and the captain

It was obvious (to Bear, anyway) that she wasn’t upset by humans and she exhibited no aggressive behavior. The first time you do this you start to get uneasy, especially when they get within 25-30 yards of you and you know they can cover that distance in the blink of an eye. We spotted many more bear that morning, and while we were viewing, the park ranger came up with our backpacks that we had left in the ATV. She warned us that bears love to chew on polyester and the backpacks were not safe in the ATV. We asked her if she had a Passport stamp for the park and she indicated that she did. She said that she would bring it over later so we could collect it.

Lunchtime

It was the first time we got delivery service on a national park stamp. Capt. Larry posed with her and thanked her for getting the stamp for us. She is one of 8 park rangers on a park that covers 4 million square miles and was a real sweetheart. We continued to watch the bears. There were males and females, but no cubs. What is interesting is the variety of color that they exhibit.

A big (~700 lbs.) male print

Big males tend to be dark brown, and the females have a variety of almost blonde coloring. We chased all over the meadow and Bear was really good at spotting them for use. It was lunchtime and we returned to the lodge to enjoy our first meals. We met a German couple from northern Germany and struck up a great conversation with them.

Dark male mating a lighter female

We also enjoyed the company of the couple from ND. We headed out for some afternoon bear viewing, not something Jane really wanted to do, and were rewarded by a male chasing a female for quite some distance. We followed to see how it would turn out and when they felt they were far enough away, she stopped and he mounted her and they began mating.

Cooling down after mating!

The old bear was really something as this went on for over 25 minutes. When he was through, he got down and wandered off while the female lay down prostrate in a stream cooling her belly. She was smokin’! We thought that would be the highlight of the day, but it got better. Bear spotted a female that he said was “ditzy” with a couple of yearling cubs.

Mama and 3 month old cubs

The talk of the camps was that the day before she tried to cross the deep, fast flowing, Johnson River. Her young cubs followed, but immediately got into trouble as they were no match for the stream conditions.

Nursing her cubs

One of the guides witnessed that one of the cubs almost drowned until she came back and rescued it. We the three of them were on the other side of the river again as we approached. She acted like she wanted to cross, but the cubs would have not part of it. As we got opposite of them, she lay down and we got to see something else many don’t. R

Whose out there?

ight there about 40 yards away she started nursing both cubs. We watched that for a while and then the bears settled down for a nap. We waited a long time waiting for them to get up before moving on. We got to a new spot and here comes the three bears we’d been watching.

Bear at work

Guess they wanted to pose some more. This was where our guide, Bear, revealed his true colors. He whipped out his camera and lens making Capt. Larry really feeling inadequate. He hadn’t said anything up to now, but everyone was quizzing him. Turns out he graduated with a degree in photography from the Carson-Newman College in eastern Tennessee.

The kids horsing around

He considers himself a professional bear photographer (that’s all he wants to photograph) and has the credentials to back it up. He won the 2010 National Geographic Photo Competition with an awesome shot of a bear charging toward him, which he says was actually after a salmon (yeah, right!). This shot beat out 14,000 images that were submitted for the grand prize competition. You can check out his website and see some of his beautiful photography at this link- http://www.bearheadphoto.com/ . We all took several pictures of the bear cubs fighting and interacting. It was quite a revelation and something to watch him at work. He gave Capt. Larry some pointers, Millette!

We headed back toward the lodge and noticed 3 bears out in the tidal flats. It was low tide (semi-diurnal tides with a 27-30 foot tidal range!) and they were digging for clams. This time of year bears emerge from hibernation and will eat anything.

Digging clams for lunch

They prefer salmon and meat, but not much of those food sources are available so early in the year. They are opportunistic eaters eating mostly sedge grass, but will dig for clams if they can get them. Interestingly, the bears along the coast are considered brown bears and not grizzlies which are found further inland.

It's what's for dinner!

Brown bears are larger because of their almost exclusive diet of salmon, while grizzlies eat other meat sources and don’t grow as large. In any event, the bears we saw were very large. We stopped while Bear disappeared over a sand dune.

Some lodge decor

He came running back and announced that a male, he referred to as “big daddy,” was chasing a female. Sure enough he had no sooner made in back to the ATV when here comes the female on a dead run or lope with the male in hot pursuit.

Jane in the bear door

Both of them were oblivious to our presence which we considered a good thing! We returned to the lodge and started to get ready for dinner. On the way back we stopped by to check on the lodge’s success with a set net, much like a gill net, which they used to catch salmon for dinner.

A stamping ceremony

We learned that they can catch an unlimited number of fish for personal consumption two days a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays which expands to daily when the season is in full swing). The lodge owner, James, only had one fish to show for his effort, but he promised that it would be on the table for dinner tonight.

A wonderful dinner

After a welcome shower (riding the bear trails can be quite dusty due to the lack of rain they’ve received) and some before dinner drinks, we settled down to a salmon, pasta, and salad dinner that was absolutely delicious. We interacted with the cook staff.

Where does a 700 lb. bear go?

The chef was from Las Vegas and the assistants were local, and we had a great time until we were interrupted with male bears chasing female bears through the yard. It was fun to watch these antics and we watched until we realized that we were just plain weary of anymore bear watching. We tried to stay up and enjoy our beautiful and balcony, but all of that bear watching totally exhausted us. We turned in for the night and immediately fell into a restful sleep.

The next morning we arose to a delicious breakfast of eggs, sausage, and blueberry pancakes. Compliments to chef. Bear drove use to the beach to wait for our plane. The plane arrived on time and we boarded and took off from the north airstrip (the beach). We arrived back in Soldotna, picked up our car and headed toward Seward, the next leg of our adventure.

Bear and Jane