Katmai National Park

St. Augustine Volcano on the way to Katmai

OMG! OMG! Roger, Judy and I had the most awesome trip yesterday!! We flew on a float plane from Homer to Katmai National Park to see the bears "fishing" at Brooks Falls. The flight took about an hour and a half - we left at 9:30am and returned at 5:00pm - so we had plenty of time to watch the bears. Roger got to sit in the copilot seat so he had a great time chatting with the pilot. It was raining (glad we had our rain wear!) when we landed but it cleared up and was sunny on and off the rest of the day.

We are camped at the very end of the Homer Spit

After our "bear safety" orientation we walked about 1.3 miles (through bear infested woods!) to the falls viewing platform. There are two viewing platforms - a lower one near the river and an upper one near the falls. The park rangers do a good job of regulating visitors - they take your name and the number of people in your party and notify you when it is time for you to go to the upper platform - you only get to stay 1 hour on the upper one so everyone has a chance to enjoy the experience.

It was as much fun watching the salmon try to jump up the falls as it was watching the bears catch them!