Warning… this is a long one!
Drove 84.8 miles from Keni to Homer. Left at 10am and it was 62 degrees and sunny. I stopped at a couple of areas along the way.
One area was a pull out where you could walk through a farmer’s hay field to view the coastline and if good weather see several volcanos. It was cloudy in the mountains so not a great view of the volcanos. We did see an eagle that flew over us.
The second place I stopped was a boating recreational area. It looked like it had a small campground, but mostly it was an area where the fishermen could put their boats in the water. I watched them pull a boat out of the water. A big tractor backed up into the water from the shoreline with the boat’s trailer. The boat came at a pretty fast pace from the water into shore and onto their trailer. The tractor then pulled it out of the water.
The final stop was at the “Welcome to Homer” sign. It had a beautiful overlook looking out at the bay. Homer is known for it’s Halibut fishing.
That night I drove out to the Homer spit with some folks from the group. We went to the Salty Dog Saloon and then had dinner. It is a beautiful area! At the Salty Dog Saloon people write their names, etc. onto dollar bills and then put them on the ceiling and walls of the bar. I wrote my name on the wall.
On the way back we went to look where I need to be for my bear excursion the next day and in the process of doing that we came across a Moose.
I went on an awesome adventure to Katmi National Park via plane to see the bears! This is the one thing that I really wanted to do prior to going on this trip.
And of course. it was laundry time, and I gave the van a quick rinse of the road dust.
We had good weather our first two days in Homer. The third day it was overcast in the morning and then rained from around 1 pm throughout the night. This is the first day this entire trip that we have had rain like that during the day. Typically, it has only rained at night or when we were driving and not during activities.
Katmai National Park. If you go onto You Tube and type in Katmai bears, you will find live video feed of bears eating salmon at Brooks Falls.
When I booked this tour in September of 2021, I specifically asked if there were optional excursions to Katmai and was told yes there was. This was the one excursion I was looking forward to the most.
There were 9 of us that boarded the float plane and headed off on a 1-hour flight to Katmai. We were not landing at Brooks falls, but instead because it was August, they land in the tundra area of the National Park. This is because the salmon are ending their run in Brooks and the bears leave to look for salmon and head to the area we landed.
We were given hip wader boots and also waterproof pants to put on top. I had a good waterproof jacket, hat, and gloves. You never know what the weather will be like and need to dress in layers and be prepared for anything.
We also had to bring along any lunch or snacks that we might want to eat, along with toilet tissue and a way to pack it out since there was no bathrooms in the tundra. You just find the nearest bush.
There was a couple from my RV tour that was also on this bear tour, so it was nice having someone along that I knew. We were able to share photos when it was all done.
Prior to leaving we were given bear safety information. One thing we had to do was to walk in a straight line. If we were walking side by side, we would look intimidating to a bear, but in one line it is less threatening. We were also told to always sit down when we were in an area that we were going to view for a while. Again, less intimating if we are sitting vs. standing.
I am glad I didn’t wear my own waterproof pans as we were walking through mud and sitting on the ground and actually right near bear scat. When walking through the tundra there were times were we actually had to get on our butts to slide down a small hill.
Once at the edge of the river, we sat down with our cameras in hand and watched the bears around us as they would be in the creek looking for the red salmon to eat and they would come and go.
We actually had bears come very close to us and we just sat still, and they went on their merry way. They were not interested in us.
I saw two different bear mamas. One had a set of twins, and one had a set of triplets.
I think we spent 4 hours or so sitting on the edge of the river bear watching. We moved to three different places during that time.
There were other bear watching groups that we would occasionally see and a group of men with huge cameras taking photos. Some rafts even came down the river. They were fishing for Trout which we were told follow the salmon.
On the way home we flew over a volcano! I was the co-pilot going home and had a great view looking down into the volcano.
This was an amazing experience that I was glad to have done. If I ever go back, I would like to go to Brooks Falls to see that area since I have watched the live feed on that for years.
If you don’t like photos, then don’t look below. It is hard to pick out or eliminate photos out of the ones I took on this excursion.
It will be hard to top this one! Next stop is Palmer, Alaska.