Bear With Me

My love of coastal brown bears led us to apply to the lottery for hard-to-get permits to view bears at McNeil River State Game Sanctuary run by Alaska Fish & Game. We won permits on our first try, borrowed some camping gear, bought hip waders, and just as the Summer Solstice arrived we boarded an Alaska Airlines jet for our much-anticipated bear adventure!

We had three checked bags each, plus lots of camera gear in our carry-on bags – it’s a lot of gear for less than a week in the hinterlands!

We flew about 700 miles up to Anchorage, then drove 220 miles down the Kenai Peninsula to Homer. It’s a beautiful drive.

Turnagin Arm just south of Anchorage
Homer Spit looking across Kachimak Bay

From Homer, we took a charter float plane for the 100 mile trip across Cook Inlet to McNeil. Just getting there was an adventure, especially since we were very constrained on weight (people and gear) on the deHavilland Otter.

The west coast of Cook Inlet is a windy, rugged expanse, without the dense forest that we’re accustomed to.

The camp at McNeil River is a tiny cluster of cabins perched on the exposed shoreline, and the only place to land is in a shallow lagoon behind a sand spit, only at high tide. As our pilot told me, landing isn’t too bad – it’s taking off again that’s the tricky part since there’s not much deep water to maneuver in.

Camp and outgoing group waiting on the end of the spit

We were told to fly in our hip or chest waders, and as soon as we landed everyone instantly teamed up to hold the plane in position and form a bucket brigade to unload our gear and load up the outgoing group’s gear… making sure not to confuse the two piles. It all happens very quickly – the tide waits for no one. Notice the distance from the end of the sandy spit to the camp in one of the photos above – we had to schlep our tents, sleeping bags and pads, food and camera gear with help from the rangers and some wheel barrows. We were greeted by a pair of mating bears on the spit – Welcome to McNeil!

Some ugly weather (30-35 knot winds and rain) was predicted for the next day, so we hurried to set up our tents so we could head out to see bears right away. The rangers helped everyone place heavy rocks on all our tent stakes, and they had us choose spots close to the short alder hedge for some wind protection.

We weren’t sure what to expect, but we took a long hike through waist-high grasses, ankle-deep mud, cross a few slippery streams, and climb a muddy hill to get to where the bears were. Part-way up the muddy hill we had to stop for a while since there were some consorting bears about 20′ up the hillside from us. We didn’t see much because of the tall grasses, but a we were rewarded with close encounters of the large, furry kind. Fantastic!

We’re incredibly lucky to be able to see brown bears as we travel on ADVENTURES down in southeast Alaska, so we’re spoiled compared to most people who come to McNeil. But at the time of the season we’re at McNeil, we’re getting to see a lot more boars (males), bigger bears, and a wider variety of behaviors. I promise – there are many more bears to show you. That first day was as exhausting as it was exciting. After a couple of too-short hours watching bears and meeting our eight other compatriots, we trudged the two miles back to camp. One of the rangers had kindly started a fire in the wood stove in the cook cabin, and we inhaled our dinner at 10pm.

Cook cabin

Tomorrow… horizontal rain or not, we’re going back out to the bears!

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