Brooks Falls at Katmai

After the morning of Sockeye slaying... (read the post before) I was able to hop on a plane and go with another group to Brooks Falls. I have wanted to go on this trip since last year and so excited to go. It is a park dedicated to bear viewing. With eight other people, we hit the trail, about a mile through the forest to the observation decks. At each deck there was a park ranger taking names as you get on the deck and off. I asked, "when was the last time someone didn't make it off the deck."  They said in the 80's...Yikes! It was incredible. We saw 9 bears on the falls at one time. As one would leave after catching a fish, another would pounce in and try to take it away. They would perch themselves against the current, duck their heads under water to look for fish and swat at salmon jumping against the falls. I watched them for two hours. It was like watching a sporting event, i wanted this snaggle-toothed, skinny bear to get a fish so bad and when he did, the crowd went wild. When it was time to leave, we got the the first bridge we crossed and the park ranger said we had to wait because there was a mama bear and cubs within 50 feet and we had to wait until they passed. At that bridge there were about five bears blocking the gate and because they are protected and meant to be there, we had to wait another hour until basically, they felt like wandering off. We got back to the plane and passed over some beautiful scenery. The Valley 10,000 Smokes, a range of beautiful and huge volcanoes  producing so much ash, the sky remains grey. I got back to a beautiful dinner prepared by Christina and a camera full of stories. Miss you all.

Sockeye Slamming

Today my friends at the lodge, ordered me to get out of camp and have a day off. Maybe i was getting a bit stir crazy and possibly a little crabby, i don't know, but they physically restrained me from entering the kitchen. Nice! I went with Clayton, a seven-year Rapids Camp guide and a couple of our clients to slay some Sockeye. Our limit was five each and we got those within a few hours. The fish were everywhere, they say at this point the river is at max, 3 million Sockeye. They are swimming their way up the stream to die. Clayton is such a great teacher, also. He taught me how to cast off a fly rod and what the fish are eating right now. It felt nice to land all my fish in true Alaskan style. After our catch we went back to the lodge to have some lunch and went back out to go King fishing. The wind picked up quite a bit and it made the conditions pretty difficult for that type of fishing. Hopefully, i will get to make it out in the next couple of weeks to catch a King Salmon in King Salmon. 

Fishing in Alaska!

The climbing bear. 

The Regal Eagle

Friends Fishing

"Do you trust me......?"

The Sly Fox

Happy to be Back

The New Angler

Here again..... And no surprise, Alaska is still pretty far away and still beautiful. The first glimpse of the mountains still leaves me in awe. Completely covered in snow. More snow than i have ever seen. The water was clear and a volcano was steaming as we flew into the King Salmon area. This time i felt a little less out place with my traveling attire. Last year i wore my three inch boots and my cutest outfit. (The outfit i was stuck with for three days, since my bags were lost.) 

When we got to the lodge, the guys were already on the go, building new cabins for additional staff members and a smoke house for me. We got to working immediatley and have been right back to our 14 hour days, until our clients arrived on Friday. It has been such a busy time for us, but much easier second time around.  The other night Elijah, one of our returning guides, took me and Christina on a night-time fishing trip. We pretty much saw everything on that trip that you would want to see. We saw a bear climbing up the bank, 11 bald eagles, a couple foxes and beautiful rainbow trout. The sky was perfectly clear, a bit cold, but the bugs were not bad at all. We fished a little, i had a few bites, but no takers. But, Christina caught her first trout in Alaska. For those of you who don't know Christina, she was my partner at culinary academy and came with me this year as my Sous Chef.  It is so nice to have one of my good Austin pals here. We are having a blast and cooking up a storm. The food has been amazingly fun and the response has been very positive.

Back to the fishing and my first funny/ironic story of the Alaskan Experience: Part 2. As Christina and i were fishing, we started joking about the scene from Titanic, when Jack and Rose are on the front of the boat and she pretends she is flying, "do you trust me?". Ironically, Elijah's boat sank the next morning. We have no idea how he got the hole in the boat, we didn't notice running over anything, but when we woke up, the boat was under. Freaky!

I may be getting out on a trip on Wednesday, i will try to post again this week. Miss ya!