20260903 Thursday, September 3, 2026; Bear Culture and Dumpling Mountain Hike

20260903 Thursday, September 3, 2026; Bear Culture and Dumpling Mountain Hike

Starting with our water taxi ride, it has become apparent that the bears of Brooks Falls have quite a cult following.  We met an older gentleman waiting at the water taxi who has been staying in one of the cabins at the Sockeye Saloon who had been making daily trips to Brooks Falls from King Salmon.  He has a camera bag rigged up like a rolling tool tote with a large monopod running up the handle.  He has been making regular pilgrimages to Brooks Falls to see the bears over the years.  He is from New York but says he’s been to the falls over 40 times to see the bears.  We saw him on the bridge again today, and we suspect we will be seeing him every day we are here, so long as the water taxi is running. 

 
We had also met a very pleasant and enthusiastic young Chinese couple who were both graduate students from MIT on vacation.  They are from Chongqing and speak very good English.  They said they are required to learn English in China during elementary school, but they credit their skills to the time spent in English immersion at MIT.  One is doing a PhD in mathematics while the other is doing a PhD in Theoretical Ecology, whatever that is.  He says it involves modeling ecological systems mathematically, but doesn’t hold out much hope that it will yield gainful employment.  Yet, he is enthusiastic and enjoying exploring America.  They are camping 2 nights in the Brooks Camp.  The camp sites are only $18 per night, but they are small tent sites and showers cost $8 in the public bathhouse next to the lodge.  

There are many people we run into all the time at the bridge, lodge, and viewing platforms. One is from Sacramento and he knows most of the bears by their designation numbers and all of the camp staff by name.  He is a professional photographer and has worked in a gallery in Yosemite.  He has been here countless times at all different times of the year.  He has the most amazing photos on his phone.  He was hoping to capture the fall colors on this trip. And there are many other individuals around the camp who have similar stories.  

Overnight, the cabin started off a bit hot and stuffy after everyone took their showers, but it cooled off a bit as the night progressed.  The mattresses and pillows were a vast improvement over the Antlers Inn, but there is little room to wiggle around in the bunk beds, and Janet managed to bang her head on the bottom of the top bunk a couple of times.  

Terri and John were up at first daylight and off to breakfast at 7 a.m.  Ben and Janet got up when they got back from breakfast and informed us that a sow and her cub were sleeping on the beach in front of the lodge, and if we wanted to see them, we needed to walk up to the visitor center and then down to the beach to see them.  They were in front of a boat anchored on shore, but just looked like large dogs sleeping on the beach at that distance.  

There was a light rain that fell overnight just enough to wet down the dust on the walkways and benches on the viewing platforms.  

After breakfast, we made our rounds, walking across the bridge, where several bears were snorkeling around, and then up to the falls.  Janet had spotted a weasel dart out of the brush and down to the water at the edge of the bridge.  

We had perfect weather again today with blue skies and temperatures in the mid-60s to almost 70 in the afternoon.  There was a single bear at the falls, and we figured out his routine, which is to sit in the “hot tub” on the far shore just below the falls and dip his head into the water periodically, hoping that a fish will happen into his lap.  Then about every 15 minutes, he will wander out to a rock outcropping just below the falls and pounce on it, hoping to come up with a fish.  More often than not, this strategy ends up with him coming up empty-handed.  All day yesterday, we only saw that bear catch one fish in the hot tub.  Today, we spent an hour or so watching from both the falls and riffles platforms before heading back to the bridge. 

 

Falls bear out of the hot tub and into the jacuzzi.

Falls bear getting in another pounce.

At this time of the year, most of the bear action appears to be around the bridge.  There were many times we could count as many as 7 or 8 bears working the mouth of the river as it empties into Naknek Lake.  Some bears will even swim out what looks like nearly a quarter mile into the lake.  

There are certainly recognizable bears like the one working the falls and two sows who have a single and two cubs, respectively.  The sow with two cubs has one very dark-colored cub and one very light-colored cub.  The dark-colored cub doesn’t mind swimming out to Mom to get some fish to take back to the shore to eat, while the light-colored cub prefers to stay dry and eat grass.  It only takes to the water when the family is moving from one area to another.  

It is apparent that Brooks Camp is like a reverse zoo where the animals are free, and the humans wander around in enclosures.  It is mesmerizing to watch the salmon slowly working their way into the river while the bears wade and swim around and under the bridge.  They are so close that hearing them breathe and hearing the crunching sounds of them biting into freshly caught salmon adds a whole new dimension to the bear viewing experience.  It’s amazing how much a bear biting into a salmon sounds like a human biting into a fresh, crisp apple.  

Katmai Bear Eats Fresh Salmon

After lunch, we took a hike up Dumpling Mountain, which is about 1.5 miles from the end of the campground.  Yesterday, we showed the Chinese MIT students our cabin, and today they got to show us their REI tent in the campground.  
The campground is surrounded by an electrified fence, but Janet was able to determine that at least one gate was not actually electrified when she tried touching the wire.  The rangers say the bears generally respect the fence, but sows with cubs are the most likely to wander into the campground as the cubs can sometimes slip under the wire.  

Campground Electric Fence

Typical Campsite

Camp Sink, Gear and Food Cache building

Designated eating area

Food and Gear Cache Building

Pit Toilets for Campground

The trail to Dumpling Mountain was not very well maintained, and in many places, it was like a well-worn game track that was quite narrow and deep, like a trench.  There were a few muddy stretches, and as the trail began ascending the mountain side, it got quite steep, and the footing got tricky.  Janet ended up turning around about halfway up because her knees couldn’t bend enough to make the ascent in the steeper areas.  Ben, Terri, and John continued to the overlook at the end of the trail.  The trail didn’t get any better, but Janet had nearly gotten through the worst of it before she turned around.  

We saw a lot of bright red berries along the trail, and as we ascended in altitude, the vegetation did show fall changes with more leaves turning color and mushrooms appearing on the forest floor.  We broke through the tree line and were eventually rewarded with a sweeping view of Brooks Lake, Naknek Lake, and the glacial moraine separating the two.  

We could see the river connecting Brooks Lake to Naknek Lake and the bends where the Brooks Falls were, although it was difficult to pick out the exact location of the falls.  We were able to see bears closer to the bridge on the banks of the river even from that distance. 

 

We weren’t able to clearly see into the Valley of 10,000 Smokes because there is a small mountain blocking it from being visible from the Dumpling Mountain overlook.  We did work up quite a sweat on the hike, which turned out to be a little over 3 miles round trip from the ranger station and with 830’ of elevation gain.  We did earn our evening showers today.  

The remainder of the afternoon was spent watching bears from the bridge and taking naps before dinner.  

Bald eagle flys off with a salmon.

Dinner featured pork loin and salmon with broccoli hot entrees with a fancy rice pilaf. 

 

After dinner, we returned to the bridge for bear viewing before Terri and John turned in for showers, and Ben and Janet relaxed in the lodge with tea and hot chocolate. 

This was interrupted by a lynx sighting just outside the lodge.  Ben was able to snap a picture of the back of its head as it skulked through the woods between the beach and lodge.  

Lynx near lodge.

The cabin was quite hot and stuffy after Terri and John’s showers, with the interior temperature over 78 degrees inside.  We managed to figure out how to open the windows of the cabin.  There is a catch on the inside that holds them closed through screens, but to actually open the windows, they have to be pulled open from their frames outside.  They will also have to be manually pushed closed from the outside to reverse the process.  

A weather system is supposed to move in tomorrow, so we are supposed to see some rain.  Hopefully, it won’t be too much to keep us from enjoying the bears.

20260902 Wednesday, September 2, 2026 Arrival Brooks Camp, First Bears

20260902 Wednesday, September 2, 2026 Arrival Brooks Camp, First Bears

Although the mattresses and pillows were lumpy, we managed to get a decent night’s sleep at the Antlers Inn.  While rustic, it certainly served its purpose for us on this trip. The weather today looked perfect with scattered clouds across a blue sky, little wind, and a temperature in the mid-50s. 

 
We checked out of the Antlers Inn and dragged our suitcases back across the road to the Sockeye Saloon.  Janet had headed up the dirt road a bit before the rest of us and saw a pair of red foxes walk across the road ahead of her as they headed from the woods towards the lake.   

A Mercedes Sprinter van came to pick us up in front of the Sockeye Saloon for the water taxi. This 15-passenger van was full, so we had to clamber into the last row after Tetris-ing our suitcases into the back of the van.  

It was a 15-minute drive from the Sockeye Saloon to the shores of Naknek Lake where the Katmai water taxi was waiting for us.  There is no dock at the loading spot, which was a stretch of sandy beach on the shores of Naknek Lake.  The water taxi is a large North River aluminum boat with a drop bow like a landing craft.  A ramp drops down from the front and passengers walk aboard while the bow is beached.  

The Katmai water taxi had comfortable seating and we had perfect conditions on the lake for a smooth and quick trip.  The boat was able to cruise at 37 mph with no chop on the water.  The lake shore was largely wild with snow-capped mountains rising behind the forested shores in the distance.  The ride took about 45 minutes.  

The lake shore at Brooks Camp was lined with sea planes as we disembarked the water taxi and were herded into the ranger station for Bear School.

All visitors to Brooks Falls are required to attend Bear School, which consists of a pre-recorded video presentation explaining a bit about the bears, their habits, and the importance of minimizing the possibility that the bears will come to associate humans with food in this particular setting.  Brooks Falls is unique in that normally solitary brown bears (grizzly bears) converge at this spot to feed every late summer and fall on spawning salmon.  With a plentiful supply of salmon in the river, there is little need for them to see humans as food, but once a bear starts associating humans with food, trouble begins.  There are strict rules about food handling at Brooks Camp and Lodge.  Food can only be consumed in designated shelters, and all food must be stored in designated buildings.  No foods, snacks, or drinks other than water are allowed outside of these areas.  This includes no foods in backpacks or clothing when walking and hiking the area.  

In general, bears are given the right of way, and humans must stay at least 50m away from bears and not do anything that would cause them to detour around humans. This includes on paths in the camp and to the falls.  

There are elevated walkways that have bear gates on either side to keep bears out, and there is an electrified fence around the campground and designated eating and food preparation sites.  However, they do emphasize that these electric fences are not bear-proof.  They are intended to persuade bears to avoid these areas, but won’t stop a determined bear.  

The only other rule is if you encounter a bear, DO NOT RUN!  This may trigger a predatory response in a bear that would otherwise prefer to ignore you and have you slowly back away and give them the right of way.  

At the end of Bear School, graduates get a souvenir pin, which is unique for each season, so they can be a collector’s item.  

Following our graduation from Bear School, we headed to the Lodge to check in.  We were able to get into our cabin pretty much right away.  Our cabin was right next to the Lodge Dining Hall and public bathhouse, so it was very convenient.  

The cabins are tiny, and prefabricated PanAbode Lincoln log structures.  These reminded Ben of Music Camp, which had the same sort of structures.  There are bunk beds on either side of the entry.  Towards the back, there is a single sink, fiberglass shower enclosure with shower curtain, a tiny toilet room with a door, about the size of our RV’s toilet, and a tiny desk next to an electric-powered kerosine furnace and water heater.  The bedding appears to be a step up from the Antlers Inn, but we’ll have to see after our first night’s sleep.  

There are two movable ladders to access the upper bunks, but these will have to be positioned after the front door is closed for the night.  The overall square footage is probably the same as our RV with the slide-out.  There are two shallow drawers under one bunk bed and open space under the other, which is only tall enough for our suitcases to be slid under when open, but then they can serve as drawers as well. 

 

It will be especially handy being just 50’ from the dining hall where we can sit comfortably either at the dining tables or around the fireplace in the evenings instead of being stuffed into the cabin.  

There were some accessible electrical outlets, but it is a good thing we brought multi-tap mini extension cords, which we use on cruise ships where there are generally extremely limited electrical outlets.  With cameras, phones, and watches that all need to be charged, there never seems to be enough electrical outlets.  

There is no internet connectivity at Brooks Camp unless you bring your own Starlink set up.  A cabin two down from ours had brought their own mini-Starlink dish which was set up on the front porch.  There is no Wi-Fi in the lodge.  The water taxi did have Starlink Wi-Fi, so that was our last internet access upon arriving at Brooks Camp and Lodge.  

Once we were squared away in the cabin, we headed out to see bears.  There is a bridge just beyond the Lodge dining room and office that leads to trails to Brooks Falls.  The falls are about a half-mile walk from the Lodge.  We were fortunate to see bears from the bridge.  They were snorkeling for salmon which could easily be seen spawning up the river under the bridge in large schools.  An occasional salmon could be seen digging in the gravel, while others would occasionally jump out of the water and splash.  The vast majority of the fish looked like sockeye salmon, which have bright red bodies with dark green heads.  There were a handful of coho salmon mixed in with the sockeye, but the sockeye were certainly the main species spawning at this time.  

We then headed to the falls where there was a single bear fishing, tucked under a ledge on the right side (far side from us) in a spot some people called the hot tub.  From that spot, the bear would occasionally wander out into the current immediately below the falls chasing salmon, but there were actually extremely few salmon that were actually jumping the falls.  The bear would then circle back to the hot tub and hang out for a while before making another circuit.  We did watch it finally catch and eat a fish, but it was not terribly proficient in catching them.  There were quite a few people on the viewing platforms, but there was never any issue with finding space to photograph.  

There were two viewing platforms, including one overlooking the actual falls and a second platform a few hundred yards downstream called the riffles, where bears frequently fish.  There was a second bear even further downstream of the riffles that seemed more proficient at catching fish. 

Brooks Falls viewing platform

Riffles Viewing Platform

After spending a couple of hours watching and photographing the bears, we headed back to the lodge and cabin for lunch.  Lunch at the lodge is offered between 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. as a buffet.  The full buffett was $45, but you could choose to just have the hot selections for $26, salad for $14, soup $5 or dessert $4.  We snacked on things we had brought with us with the intention of splurging on dinner since we weren’t very hungry.  

There was a cultural site visit at noon, which we attended.  This was a walk from the campground to an ancient Native dwelling site about a quarter mile out.  We learned that there is evidence of dozens, if not hundreds, of dwellings carbon dating back to about 4000 years.  These were semi-underground houses constructed with a pit for the floor and timber-supported walls and roof covered with sod for insulation.  A central vent allowed smoke from cooking and heating fires, while an underground entry vestibule created a cold trap to keep the inner dwelling comfortable.  A model dwelling was recreated at one of the archaeological excavation sites.  It is an impressive structure.  This was enclosed in a building to protect it from the elements. 

The park ranger who led the presentation is very knowledgeable in the local flora and fauna.  He pointed out some of the many red berries growing in the area, including high and low bush cranberries, which tasted a bit like tomatoes, something called a watermelon berry, which, as the name implies, tastes like watermelon, and a wild raspberry. He also pointed out two highly poisonous plants, including a red berry indistinguishable from the high bush cranberries but with different leaves.  This Baneberry is highly toxic.  

Baneberry tastes like DEATH

Watermelon berry tastes like watermelon

Just ingesting 1-3 berries can cause severe stomach pain, drooling and vomiting, while eating 6 or more can lead to cardiac arrest.  He also pointed out a wolfsbane, which reportedly was used to hunt whales because of its extremely potent paralyzing poison.

Monk’s Hood aka Wolfsbane can kill a whale.

The ranger gave us a bit of history about the Novarupta eruption of 1912, which was the largest volcanic eruption in recorded North American history.  There were four native villages in the proximity of the eruption, but because stories of the last epic eruption 3500 years earlier had been handed down through oral history, the villagers needed no convincing by geologists that their villages had to be evacuated just days before the eruption.  They had experienced a several-degree increase in temperature and tremors in the days before the eruption.  

Despite the catastrophic severity of the eruption, which was 30 times the energy of Mt. St. Helens’ eruption, not a single life was lost.  The eruption hurled ash miles into the atmosphere and buried the entire valley in ash, killing virtually all life.  This area is now a national preserve called the Valley of 10,000 Smokes, which remains largely barren even more than 100 years later.  

Valley of 10,000 Smokes- NPS Photo

The native villagers were not allowed to return into the national preserve that was created by Congress after the eruption.  This had caused some political issues that persist even today.  Alaskans are generally opposed to the federal takeover of nearly 25% of Alaskan land.  

This eruption did create a distinct geological record so archaeologists are easily able to identify things that happened prior to the Novarupta eruption, and the geological record also shows where other eruptions have occurred since the last ice age.

In 1950, Ray Petersen established several fishing lodges in the Katmai region, including Brooks Camp.  Part of the controversy involves developers like Ray Petersen being allowed to build these fishing lodges while native villagers were never allowed to return to their lands.  During construction, archaeological artifacts were uncovered, leading to the study and identification of dozens of structures that had been destroyed and buried by the Novarupta eruption.  

It took nearly a generation for descendants of natives who had lived in the area since the end of the last ice age to make a successful claim for property rights, although they ultimately did grant the land to the National Parks with a proviso that their ownership and history be acknowledged.  

We made another trip out to the falls later in the day, but most of the bears seemed to be hanging out on either side of the bridge where the river meets the lake.  This must be where the fish are thickest.  We did see the bears catching plenty of fish there, and you could see as many as six or seven bears in the area, including sows with cubs.  John caught a pair of bears getting into a bit of a fight or dominance display, but nobody seemed to get hurt.  

Dinner at the lodge was a little confusing, but they have a multi-section buffet divided up into hot entrees, salads, soups, and desserts.  You could pay $52 for the full buffet, or less for just one section of the buffet on a sort of à la carte system, so if you only took food from the hot entrees, it was $32, salads $12, soup $8 (one bowl only), and dessert $4.  You can only make a single trip to the buffet (no seconds) so it pays to heap up your plate. The hot entrees included steak with mushrooms, salmon, potatoes with Parmesan, and roasted Brussels sprouts, so Janet and Ben just got the hot entrees and heaped up their plates.  The food was well prepared and tasty, and served with lemonade, iced tea, coffee, or water. 

There was a second ranger program in the evening which discussed the impacts of the National Parks and Federal government on the local populations.  It was a bit of dry politics of Congressional land grants mixed with guilt and sociology.  It was not nearly as interesting as the earlier cultural program, but at least the Federal government is trying to acknowledge some of the harms it has dealt to the native populations.

We wound up our evening with another trip to the bridge to watch the bears for a bit. The wind did pick up in the evening.  We stopped in the lodge for hot chocolate, and then showers and bed.