Today’s main activity is a flightseeing trip with Alaska Bear Adventures. After a little phone tag confusion our tour is confirmed for a 12:45 meeting time for a 1:45 departure. We arrived on time and got fitted for hip waders. We received a tour and safety briefing from the nice employee and then watch a safety video. The briefing explains that the guide will take us as close as 50 yards from a bear and the bear may choose to come even closer. The bears here are never hunted and don’t see people as food. The bears have been closely observed by tours for multiple generations and are used to us being there. If we follow the rules, bears won’t be interested in us. Yikes, that sounds scary.
We are taking this tour on a Cessna 206 with two other tourists from England and our pilot/tour guide Matt. We loaded up in the airplane and departed the Homer airport. The flight followed the coastline North before turning West across the Cook inlet toward Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. Our destination is a beach near a big tidal flat. Our bush plane landed easily on a gravel beach and we all deplane. We could see about six Coastal Brown Bears from the plane and followed our guide out into the tidal flats. Its pretty nerve racking at first walking on foot toward huge wild bears. The bears here are feeding on clams buried in the sand of the flats. As briefed, we walk until we are about 50 yards from one of the bears. We kneel down and wait while the bear walks by us only 10-20 yards away. WOW! We observe this one female bear for quite a while before walking back near the plane to observe some other bears. There are about 10 bears visible from this location though at a pretty good distance. After observing these bears a while we jump back in the plane and head a very short hop away to a different bear viewing area. This new area is part of the National Park and we can’t approach the bears as close as before. Again, there are about 10 bears in a beautiful meadow mainly grazing on grass. The bears are super close but it is fantastic to see these magnificent animals in their natural, unspoiled environment. Our guided explained that a little later in the season the Salmon would be running and hundreds of bears will gather along the river to catch fish. That happens later in the season.
On the flight back we circled the Iliamna Volcano and the glaciers were spectacular. There was steam boiling off of the mountain near the peak. The site seeing from the airplane was really superb. Finally we returned to the Homer airport around 5pm. What a great experience. We rescued Maverick from the coach and headed back into town. We ate at the Boardwalk Fish and Chips. The food and view were good though the food a little pricey.