The briefing time for the days activity starts at 9. The film crew want to get as much filming time as possible so the departure time is set at 10:30. Eating breakfast, preparing snacks and lunch and assembling the gear for the day fills the time. The sun is out and and we are ready to go see bears. We are joined by the 3 folks that arrived last night. Doug from Fairbanks had been here in the 80’s. He is now in his late 70’s and wanted to see the bears once again, Kelly and Kevin from Anchorage are excited to do a repeat trip. Once you get a permit, one can not apply for the following year.
There is a small pond behind the camp and the Iris is in full bloom. the staff tells us that when the Iris bloom the Chum will start their run up the river. Last year was a week run, but it did correspond with the bloom of the Iris. This year the Chum seems to be much stronger and the Iris is in full bloom. It is a later bloom and corresponds with a later Chum run.
We say good-by to the people that are heading back to Homer.( Later we learned that their flight to n Homer had been canceled. They were flying back to Canada and were on a time schedule. Fortunately one of the other participants that was leaving had a flight coming in. He lived in Palmer and was able to give them his flight and schedule a flight for the next day.) Flights in and out of McNeil can be unpredictable with weather and other events (think earthquakes) so one is told to bring along extra food if your stay is extended.
The tides are in our favor as we wade to the other side
The packs of the film crew are quite heavy. The iPhone not so much. We arrive to the site about noon and do the same procedure as yesterday. Braveheart is once again on the trail so we wait for him to slowly lumber off.
Early indications are that we are going to have another day of great bear viewing.
There are more bears in the rapids than yesterday at this time and more are coming up the river and down the surrounding hills.
Notice the bellies on these bears. We noticed them enlarging over the time we were here. Some bears were catching between 7 to 10 fish that we observed. At an average size of 10 pounds…that is a lot of fish!
As we look down river to check out the approaching bears. one large male walks slowly by our pad.
The film crew are also getting some good and close up shots.
There biggest decision is which way to aim the cameras
And what to record
The log is right below the gravel pad.
Right below the lower gravel pad Lax and her two cubs show up. Most of the bears at the falls are male. The staff think that the cubs with Lax are around 3 1/2 which is the upper limits for the cubs to be kicked out from Mom.
The bear dynamics changes when the mom and cubs set up their fishing place. Lax is very protective of her cubs and the large males give her a wide berth and let her have the fishing hole.
The female cub on the right is interested in fishing, however the male cub is interested in resting his chin on Mom or sister.
Here is another chin resting photo.. As the days progressed the female cub had several successful fishing forays, but the male not so much. He did enjoy eating the fish.
At times the upper falls had quite the gathering of bears.
As did the lower falls. The lower falls seemed to have more of the middle aged bears.
It as interesting to see how close they fished. It reminded me of combat fishing in Alaska. When a bear grabbed a fish, he would just back up and head to shore to devour it.
It was also interesting to watch the different ways the bears would take their fish to eat them. Some would head up a hill to eat. This would avoid another bear trying to steal it. Some would eat their fish in the shallows.
The younger bears always took breaks to play. One interesting combo was an older bear that seemed to tolerate and enjoy playing with younger bears. This was unusual behavior as most older bears would quickly put a younger bear in its place if they got too close.
I called the bear on the right Uncle! He liked playing with the younger bears.
The film crew really wanted to fly a drone over the river, but Beth the manager thought that would be too obtrusive so they figured out a way to do it with a piece of equipment that they carried out.
Finally in order for us to do a reasonable crossing of the lagoon, it was time to retreat.
The tide was out and there were bears clamming in front of us. Most of the bears are females with cubs.
The images of bears were strong in our thoughts as we headed back for another quick dinner and thoughts of getting to bed ASAP..
Total bear count today was 54!