I just finished a week long fishing trip to the Kenai. I had pretty good results with the fishing (limited out on both halibut and silvers). Now I am planning next year's trip. I stopped by a shop that offers a bear watching trip. Has anyone been on one? I had heard about the lottery system to go to McNeil Falls (1 of 5 gets a chance to go to the game preserve to see the bears). The place I looked at goes to Katmai National Park on an all-day trip from Homer. The pilot is also the guide and they have been doing this for several years. The cost is roughly $540 per person. Just wanted to know if anyone had done a trip like this. Thanks.

Katmai is a magnificent and amazing place. I think that a day trip really doesn't allow you to see enough- often daytrippers are restricted to the first, less active, viewing platform so that they won't be trapped by a "bear jam." The trip to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes, site of the 20th century's largest volcanic eruption, is well worth it (as is the backcountry hiking through the ash).

The NPS has a good campground at Katmai - only 8 bucks a night. Just be sure to reserve online well ahead of time.

I am planning on going to Katmai NP next July and camping at the campground. You can not reserve the campground until early next year but I will do it as soon as I can. I am using frequent flyer miles to get me from the lower 48 to King Salmon so I only need a $165 round trip flight from King Salmon to Brooks Lodge. That greatly reduces the cost and the freq flyer also allows a stop in one direction in ANC. Actually a great deal for using miles, considering ANC-King Salmon would cost +-$400 round trip on its own.

There are day trips from Anchorage and Homer to Brooks Lodge but I really wanted to spend more time there. Plus, this way I will be able to take the Valley of 10,000 Smokes tour as well.

Write to the Katmai NP office in King Salmon. I did and they sent a lot of really nice information.

I am really excited about the trip and it is 10 months away!

Great replies.

We are looking at going to Brooks Falls June 1 or 2 on a day trip:

http://alaskatours.com/wildlife/bear...ooks_falls.htm

Any one know if we are likely to see some bears feeding in river then?

I had no idea FF miles could be used for the ANC-King Salmon flight, which looks to be the pricey part as fti posted.

We have no Alaska air miles, but vaguely recall reading some other miles can be used for AS redemptions. Anyone know which ones?

Hi all...
Being that I haven't posted in this forum before, I hadn't really trained my mind to check here, so this reply is four long weeks since Ozstamps' questions were asked. I'll have to go to remedial mind training - again. Anyway, I'll throw in my one cent on this question.

Most bears don't congregate in large numbers at Brooks Falls until the last few days of June and much of July. I've been there three times, but I'll bet others here have been there much more often, so I hope others can chime in if I have anything in error. Since it is a bit of money for this traveler, I've tried to ensure not arriving at a time when only few bears would be at Brooks. Of course, there's always the chance that only a few bears will be at Brooks, since the number of bears depends in large part on the quality and timing of the salmon runs.

If you are still wondering how many bears may be there June 1-2, you can try the Katmai National Park web site. See www.nps.gov/katm I have also called their King Salmon park office on a couple occasions to ask detailed questions about salmom runs, prime bear time, etc. Their phone number is listed at the bottom of the front page of the Katmai web site. I see you can also e-mail them. My guess is there would be a few bears wandering around Brooks June 1-2, but the park service people are the ones to ask.

Also, last year I tried to use NW miles for Anchorage to King Salmon, but I was never successful. I remember asking the folks at WP about this route, but don't really recall why they couldn't find anything. I can say that most daily ANC-AKN flights are operated by Pen Air, and from what I can tell, only one per day by AS. One would have thought there would be some availability on that one flight, but maybe I was asking for dates that were already taken.

riftime