Throughout August in the lead up to coming here every day I would log onto the live bear cam feed online before starting work each day and then having a quick look at what was happening between patients. August is said to be unimpressive yet every day I would see at least 3 bears at the Brooks Falls camera. I booked for the month of September as that has better bear viewing and as I logged on to bear cam in September bear numbers seemed to have doubled or tripled and the bright sunshine was obvious. My first afternoon here was bright and sunny and I made the most of it knowing that the forecast for the next 2 days was for rain.
The walk from the lodge to Brooks Falls takes around 20 minutes. Walking alone has me at a disadvantage and I follow the rangers advice that human noise is a deterrent and I talk mindlessly out aloud to noone as I go there. I arrive at Brooks Falls around 1 in the afternoon and there is one massive bear at the far end of the falls. Finding a nice front row spot on the platform I enjoy watching this well fed guy bide his time before wandering to his favourite pool and catching a large deep pink salmon in his mouth and wandering to the shallows to eat up. I watch him repeat this ritual over and over again. Secretly I was a bit disappointed that there was only one there but what the heck, I had never seen one in the wild before so I was not going to be greedy.
Grizzly bears are crepuscular animals, are active around dawn and dusk, but this park with its high food environment changes those rules. The wild salmon run from the sea upstream to spawn before dying. The peak months here are July and September in those months bears are here feeding all day. My log on time for bear cam in Sorrento was 9am which is 3 pm here. Come 3 pm the number of bears here had increased to 7 and the bears were all over the place, mainly fishing but wandering over and under the falls, jostling for position. Wow, what a show, under brilliant sunny skies the camera got a real work out.
Eventually after over 3 hours of bear watching and sated, I determined to make use of the brilliant sunshine and do the walk up Dumpling Hill to get the panoramic view of the lake and the mountains. Walking solo, through the forest past lots of smelly bear scats and in the late afternoon it is anxious couple of hours of chatter and song up and down the mountain but the views and pictures more than make up for it.
