Tag: king salmon

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012_KATMAI_Travel Nurse Adventure– Alaska pt. 3

The Route: Katmai National Park- Brooks Falls and The Valley of 10,000 Smokes
Days: 2

Getting There:

Ravn Alaska airlines – $608/person after fees/taxes for roundtrip flight Anchorage to King Salmon.

Katmai Water Taxi – $195/person roundtrip King Salmon to Brooks Camp. Found it easier to book over the phone as online doesn’t clearly tell if return water taxi is available or not until after you’ve already booked the first way of the trip to Brooks Camp and paid the total fee for both departure and return.

  • A staff member of Katmi Water Taxi will greet you at the airport and shuttle you to the Gold Creek Lodge. This is a stunning lodge that offers dining and lounging along with private cabanas and a dock for wildlife viewing. A great option for those unable to stay or not wishing to stay in Brooks Lodge as packages can include the water taxi to and from Brooks Camp each day. https://www.alaskasgoldcreeklodge.com/
  • Float planes are also available through Katmailand for roughly $240/person. I found the float planes to be less convenient due to lower weight capacities and unable to fly in poor weather.

Katmailand – packages are also available through Katmailand as well. A one-day Brooks Falls only trip from Anchorage is $895. This includes lunch/dinner at Brooks Lodge and discounts on items in the gift shop but it doesn’t permit one time to hike within the park or go on the Valley of 10,000 Smokes tour. There don’t appear to be packaged options for those want two days in the park to do both the Valley tour and the Falls.
http://www.katmailand.com/packages/daytrip-from-anchorage-to-brooks-lodge

The Visitor Center:

This is your first stop after the water taxi or float plane drops you on the beach. Put you gear in the gear cache and food in the food cache, both located on the right after walking up from the beach, and then go into the visitor center building on the left. Bathrooms are on the opposite side of the caches on the right.

Park rangers are stationed at the entrance and watching as people get off of the water and float taxis to shepherd you to the visitor center. You can’t enter the remainder of the park without attending the bear aware talk/video given at the visitor center. Don’t lose the pin you get at the end of the talk– they’ll make you attend the talk again!

Main bear-aware take-aways:

  • No food allowed anywhere except designated areas. Don’t allow bears to associate humans with food!
  • Don’t leave your belongings unattended. Don’t allow bears to associate humans with toys. They really are that smart!
  • Remain 50yards away at all times. This may mean that you have to turn around and try the trail again later. This may mean stepping to the side off of the trail and letting a bear pass if rounding a corner and accidentally coming close to a bear.
  • Never run! This ignites the instinct for the bear to chase you. Just stop and step to the side or start inching backwards and wait to see what the bear does. If anything, make yourself bigger to appear more threatening.
  • Hike in groups as bears find multiple people more threatening than one and will more-likely walk away than attack if startled.
  • Where you land…
  • …and adventure begins!
Things to Do:

Brooks Falls – bear viewing deck is free; 1hr viewing limit per person regulated by park rangers

  • Roughly 20-25min walk from visitor center to platform. 15-20min from Brooks Lodge to platform. Keep curving right whenever faced with a fork. You’ll come upon a sign on the right that will tell you to take the trail on the right after about 5min. All are well-maintained, wide dirt paths.
  • Note: the walk is long not because of distance but because of bear-aware practices. Don’t walk quickly! You honestly might encounter a bear and/or a mom with cubs crossing the path or in the treeline next to the path. Keep 50yards away. Plan for “bear jams” as you wait to safely continue on the path.
  • FYI: salmon don’t run much in warm water so bear/salmon activity is weather dependent.
    https://www.nps.gov/katm/index.htm
    https://www.nps.gov/katm/learn/photosmultimedia/brown-bear-salmon-cam-brooks-falls.htm
  • From Brooks Falls platform
  • Waiting, waiting, waiting
  • A fine catch!

Valley of 10,000 smokes tour – daily 9am-4:30pm. $88/person without lunch and $96/person with lunch (vegan option available). Purchase through Katmailand (aka Bristol Adventures)

  • Drive a few hours with a park ranger who tells you the history of the Valley of 10,000 smokes and how it was this location that got President Eisenhower to Katmai into a national monument.
  • Optional 3-hour round trip hike down to the valley itself. Amazing and well-worth it. Beautiful sight to see. Try to spot bear or lynx tracks along the way! Possible to do on your own without the ranger if you want to explore more paths or move more quickly than the rest of the group.
    http://www.katmailand.com/valley-10000-smokes
  • The valley from visitor center
  • Bear prints!
  • Down in the Valley
  • 3 Rivers Collide
  • Fireweed!

Fishing – though I didn’t do this on my trip, several people that I met were going on guided and unguided fishing trips. Some just waded into the water next to the walking bridge that starts the trip to Brooks Falls. The cool thing about this activity is that you could find yourself fishing right next to bears who are fishing themselves. Remember to maintain those 50yards away and be ready to break your line and/or wade out as needed!

Dumpling Mountain – 4mi to the summit; 8mi roundtrip. 1.5mi to the first overlook. This first overlook is beautiful and enough. Venture to the summit if you have time or a broader view of the water and landscape.
https://www.hikingproject.com/trail/7044247/dumpling-mountain-trail

  • Narrow path; overgrown
  • Vista from the Overlooks #1
  • Vista from the Overlooks #2
Places to Stay:

Brooks Camp – $18/person, entrance fee included

  • Food and gear caches
  • Designated eating sites
  • RULES:
    • Not allowed to bring anything food related except plain water while outside of designated eating areas
    • Cannot fly with bear spray or buy onsite
    • Cannot fly with fuel, lighters, or lithium batteries; these you can rent onsite
    • Can rent bear canisters onsite
    • Can buy food water onsite & Brooks Lodge
    • Keep electric fence gates closed at all times to attempt to keep bears out of the campsite.
  • Electric Fence
  • 2 Cubs
  • Don’t get too close!
  • Mama bear

Brooks Lodge

  • Lodging — details can be found on the website.
  • Buffet Restaurant
    • Breakfast Buffet $17
    • Continental Breakfast $12
    • Lunch Buffet $24
    • Lunch Soup & Salad only $18
    • Dinner Buffett $40
    • Linch Soup & Salad only $20
    • Coffee, tea, bread, and dessert included in each option listed above
  • Entrance to Brooks Lodge

Backcountry camping

  • As long as your tent is set up outside of a 1.5mi radius of the campground and lodge, you’re golden.
My Personal Experience:
  • Saw a mom and her three cubs on the beach while walking to Brooks Campground right after finishing the bear-aware talk. They weren’t kidding about bears being everywhere!
  • Very little bear activity at Brooks Falls platform itself due to unusually high temperatures over the last few weeks in Alaska.
  • A woman almost fainted from a mixture of low blood sugar and heat while at Brooks Falls and had to be wheel-chaired out.
  • Encountered a bear walking along the beach essentially passing no less than 30yards away from me to continue parallel to the pedestrian path. A tourist was nearby. I was sure this was going to end in that stereotypical way when dealing with certain tourists as he inched closer and closer with his camera… Luckily, it did not. We both survived and no antagonizing of the bear occurred. Whew!
  • That same tourist immediately turned around when I informed him that the Brooks campground was half a mile away from the Visitor Center. Apparently that was too far.
  • Too bad for him, because he missed some serious action that occurred on that walk to the campground:
    • Bear #1 chased away bear #2 on the beach literally right next to me as I was walking along the trail to the campground. Maybe 20ft separated me on the trail from them on the beach to my right. My heart was pounding. At first, all I heard was multiple legs running and several grunts and I could see nothing. Once I could make out through the tree-line that there were two bears running in my general direction on my right I thought they were both running at me. Once bear #1 stopped running and bear #2 kept walking past me, I came to understand that bear #2 was not wanted there. Only problem was that after bear #1 had scared off bear #2, it promptly turned around and went back in the direction that I was going.  So here I was, on the trail roughly 20ft to the left of a near bear-fight with one bear ahead of me and one bear behind me… :/ Continuing toward bear #1 was the only way to the campground and turning around back toward the visitor center meant heading toward bear #2! So, not knowing what to, I just hung back, kept my distance, ensured that bear #2 was still walking away, prayed that neither of them noticed me, and then slowly continued forward to the campground. My only thought was that I needed to get behind the electric fence that deters bears from entering the campground and there I would be safe. Well, turns out that the one bear was actually a mama bear protecting her cubs whom she had perched in a tree right next to that electric fence!
  • Able to catch a video of a young bear absolutely failing at fishing. His technique was far from stellar! Check out my Instagram post for the video.
  • The Valley of 10,000 Smokes was fascinating to learn about and amazing to witness in person. The hike was not very technical but very rewarding with amazing views and a chance to go down right to the water. A path branches off to the right that allows one to see where the three nearby rivers combine. We spotted bear and lynx tracks throughout the hike and even some semi-fresh bear skat! I was taught by a member of the group that one can approximate a bear’s width/height by measuring the width of the bear’s front paw print and then adding an inch to that. A dollar bill is exactly 6in and a handy trick to help with measuring.
  • Plenty of bears on the beach, swimming in the water, and wandering near the bridged walkway on the way to Brooks Falls. One even walked right underneath where I was standing!! Good thing I caught that on video!
  • Hiked to the first overlook of Dumpling Mountain. After experiencing how close these bears are willing to get to humans on the trail, I was very nervous to hike alone. Listened to a podcast with several people talking to give bears the illusion of a pack. If it didn’t deter them it certainly helped my psyche! Trail is easy to follow but not greatly maintained or very wide so wading through tall plants is required.
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008_VALDEZ_Travel Nurse Adventure– Alaska pt. 2

The Route: Anchorage-Mantanuska Glacier-Valdez-Anchorage via Glenn Highway (route 1) to Richardson Highway (route  4).

Days: 3

The trip to Valdez was enhanced by the presence of a friend from home joining me and my co-worker. The goal: to create a “real” Alaskan adventure, seeing and doing as much as we could on a short amount of time. Don’t worry: we succeeded!

First stop: Glacier View to hike on Mantanuska Glacier. Though I had seen quite a few since my arrival here in May, many visible from just the highway, walking on one was a new dynamic. Though access to this glacier is 24hrs and $30/person entrance fee if venturing on your own, we chose to pay for a guide with Mantanuska Glacier Adventures so that we could pay the entrance fee, rent micro spikes, and learn about glaciers from a guide all in one. An added bonus is that tour guides know the good places to go, where not to step, and get quote unquote exclusive access to certain areas as the trail marked for solo hikers is marked specifically to try to maintain safety and so doesn’t venture to every corner. Needless to say, we got our money’s worth. Our guide, Michelle, was awesome– knowledgeable, funny, and friendly. She made us feel like rock stars while we posed for photo ops and, due to our ability, she took us farther/deeper into the glacier than she does most groups. Starting out it seemed like we were walking along a dirt path to get the the glacier. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that we were walking on a layer of ice miles deep with rocks and sediment from high up in the mountains dusted across the glacier– there only because the movement of the glacier took it along for the ride. Some areas you can even scrape your boot across the surface and see the sheet of ice below. The micro spikes were a must as we hiked. I couldn’t imagine doing it without. We traversed the mud and rocks and eventually made our way into the blue ice where we saw admired mulans (vertical well-like shafts where water enters from the surface and acts as a drainage system), threw rocks down deep crevasses, and drank from a glacial waterfall. We ended with a short wade out to mermaid rock for one last photo shoot.

  • View from the Road
  • Crevasse
  • Walking on a sheet of blue ice!
  • Mermaid Rock

The drive to Valdez was equally impressionable. The mountains of Wrangell- St. Elias National Park is in the background for the majority of the first part of the drive. The road twists and turns and eventually narrows a bit. We eventually came across Worthington Glacier falling seemingly onto the highway ahead of us. A few turns later we emerged through Thompson Pass into a wide clearing of mountains and a ridge jutting out to the right. Purposefully, there is a pull-off immediately after emerging. It is well worth the stop– this clearing was both majestic and picturesque.

  • Somewhere in the Mat-Su area
  • Worthington Glacier
  • Thompson Pass
  • Thompson Pass

The next milestone along the drive was Keystone Canyon. What a wonder!! Waterfalls galore with one powering down right beside the road, it’s mist able to reach out (Bridal Veil Falls). I am a huge fan of waterfalls, so I was in heaven. In the same location is the historic site where they started to build a railroad in 1906 that ended unsuccessfully due to a gunfight.

Finally, we made it to Valdez, and, after a quick dinner at Fat Mermaid we called it a night to prep for the next day: wildlife glacier cruise. With few options as far as tours go, we went with Stan Stephens’ Columbia Glacier tour ($109+taxes/person). A cup of Kaladi Brothers joe in hand from a cute cafe called Latte Dah (I see what you did there!), we were ready to go. Starting out warm but on the chilly side, we saw otters almost immediately. Next came porpoises playfully skipping along our boat and sea lions relaxing along the coast. Then we caught a bald eagle perched on top of an iceberg. As we neared the massive Columbia Glacier, the air felt frozen and the water filled quickly with icebergs that eventually turned into an ice barrier through which the ferry couldn’t pass. We were so grateful that we brought layers! Temperature aside, the view was magnificent. Columbia Glacier is the second largest glacier in North America. NBD!

  • Sealions sunbathing
  • Porpoise!
  • A Whale’s Tail
  • Otters
  • Bald Eagle
  • Columbia glacier
  • Columbia Glacier up-close

The evening was spent in town getting dinner at Nat Shack, ice cream at Northern Treats, and drinks at The Boardroom where we were pleasantly surprised by the shenanigans of a live rock band at 10pm. Before that we visited the Maxine and Jesse Whitney Museum to learn about and admire the collection of native art and artifacts. Though the town is small and follows suit with the majority of other towns in Alaska, it was pleasant enough and we enjoyed ourselves plenty.

The drive back to Anchorage was equally eventful. We stopped at the Solomon Gulch Hatchery and learned about salmon migration and the incubation of their eggs. Next we hiked Valdez Goat Trail, also known as Bridal Falls Trail, which branches from the Pack or Wagon Trail. An easy 4mi roundtrip trek along the Richardson Highway, this trail features 2 outlooks and a massive waterfall at the end and is a must see for anyone looking for a shorter hike near town. Next we stopped again at the portion of Thompson Pass that overlooks the valley from a rocky vantage point. We had to get the photos that we didn’t get on the way down!

  • Solomon Gultch Hatchery
  • Valdez Goat Trail
  • Waterfall at the end of the rainbow

Though held up slightly by traffic, the rest of the ride to Anchorage was smooth and sunny. We had such amazing luck on this adventure– even spotting 3 moose on the side of the road. Truly, a must-do drive for anyone visiting Alaska.