20260905 Saturday, September 5, 2026. Leaving Brooks Falls

20260905 Saturday, September 5, 2026. Leaving Brooks Falls

There was an intermittent drizzle and a bit more wind this morning, although the waves were not breaking on the beach as they were yesterday.  Terri and John got out early hoping to catch a classic bear walking down the beach as the sun rises photo, but the cloud cover was much too heavy.  

We got things repacked into our suitcases as Terri and John had breakfast in the lodge.  We had granola bars and dried mangos for breakfast while we packed, and then had some coffee and tea in the lodge.  The lodge usually has a nice fire roaring in the fireplace in the mornings, but in the evenings after dinner, when it would seem to be a natural thing to do to wind the evenings down, they don’t burn a fire.  The campers must really appreciate the fire in the mornings.  We can tell it is mostly campers around the fire because all the electrical outlets in the living room area are filled with mobile devices being charged.  

After breakfast, we wandered around looking for wildlife.  Janet found a new bear at the falls with a collar on it.  The ranger said it had been fitted with a radio collar because it had been caught going through the garbage dump at King Salmon, and just happened to wander out to Brooks Falls on its own.  

Ben had wandered back to the beaver ponds and was rewarded with as many as 4 beavers actively feeding near the middle of the lake.  They dived down and came up with what looked like milfoil which they held up to their mouths with their tiny paws as they munched on it.  

Ben got the rangers to put on a video about Father Hubbard’s exploration of the Valley of 10,000 Smokes, and it was a bit hilarious as it was quite not politically correct or technically correct, but it reflected the views of people in the 1940s who had filmed it.  In an opening scene, they were sailing to Katmai on a boat when they spotted a pod of killer whales who they described as cold-blooded killers who killed for sport and were headed straight for their ship, likely wanting to make a breakfast of the dogs on deck.  And the Captain took a few shots at them with a rifle from the ship’s deck.  Then in a later scene where they are hiking through a ghost forest left by the eruption, they were making sport of knocking down the dead and bare trees.  They said it was Mt. Katmai that had erupted, but it was in fact Novarupta that erupted from the valley floor.  It was a bit cringey, but such was the state of the world in the late 1940s.  

The water taxi arrived and docked down the beach past all the sea planes, so we had to carry and drag our suitcases quite a long way down the beach to the boat.  We had fortunately found they had hand carts which we had used to transport our suitcases from the cabin down to the gear cache building by the ranger station and boat loading area, so that had saved some wear and tear on the wheels.  

The water taxi ride back to King Salmon was quite bumpy as there was a moderate chop on the lake.  For Ben, it was like he and his buddies were heading out in their boats in marginal weather to get to the fish, and for these guys, it was just another day in the office.  Janet asked the pilot why he seemed to be slaloming the boat from side to side, and he explained it was to try to smooth out the ride by riding in the troughs between the waves as much as possible instead of bashing through every one of them.  

We had rescheduled the water taxi to an earlier departure to give us more time before our outbound flights, and it was a good thing we did that.  There were only 5 passengers on that earlier water taxi, and the airport terminal was empty when we arrived.  As it got closer to our flight departure time, the tiny terminal got very crowded and busy.  

We said our goodbyes in the King Salmon terminal before boarding started because Terri and John had a tight connection to make to their flight to Seattle, and then onward to Philadelphia. 

The plane heading from King Salmon to Anchorage was a smaller regional jet instead of a 737, so luggage space and seating were tight.  The flight was nearly full.  

Upon arrival in Anchorage, we were greeted by very friendly ladies from Princess and Holland America who were organizing and sending off arriving passengers to various hotels and cruise ships.  We got on a bus with a large group of Chinese tourists who were staying at our same hotel, the Hotel Captain Cook.  One of the couples spoke pretty good English, while most of the group spoke exclusively Chinese.  

The Hotel Captain Cook is located in the heart of downtown Anchorage, and is supposedly one of the oldest and nicest hotels in Anchorage.  Our room was quite spacious compared with our Brooks Lodge cabin, but had an odd bathroom layout, and the fixtures were certainly showing their age.  But the shower valve did a perfect job of modulating water temperature so it was easy to find a perfect temperature, unlike the one in the Brooks Lodge cabin which dispensed either ice cold or scalding hot with very little between.  

The weather in Anchorage was perfect on our arrival.  It was much nicer than it had been in King Salmon and Brooks Camp.  Once we had our suitcases and chargers set up in the room, we headed out for dinner.  Ben had his eyes on a place called the Whisky and Ramen, but Janet wanted to check out a place in the mall’s food court that had cheap but good food according to Google reviews.  Since the mall was on our way to the Whisky and Ramen, we checked it out.  Unfortunately, the place Janet had picked, called Joy’s, offered sandwiches and meal combos, but they consisted of sandwiches with a tiny bag of potato chips instead of French fries.  Fortunately, right next door in the food court was a deli that did sell sandwiches with French fries.  Janet ended up with lamb gyros while Ben had a Reuben.  Neither was great, but they were under $17 and came with fries that were hot and fresh.  

We did circle back to the Whisky and Ramen, which looked very upscale and was very busy and popular.  We would have probably had a half-hour wait there, but for $23-$25 for a fancy bowl of ramen, it would have been a step up with nice table service instead of food court DIY table wiping and clearing.  

Janet headed back to the hotel while Ben checked out some of the 101 Coastal Trail, which runs parallel to the railroad between Anchorage and the waterfront, very much like Seattle’s Burke Gilman Trail.  Ben also saw the Holland America and Princess rail train roll past the Anchorage Railroad depot on its way to Whittier and Seward. 

Back at the hotel, Janet saw one of the hotel’s bars, The Whale Tale, had burgers with fries for $19-20, so we could just have well had stayed at the hotel, but we did have an excuse to walk around downtown Anchorage during a very nice early evening.  

Tomorrow, our luggage has to be by our doors at 6 a.m., and we will board our tour coach at 7:45 a.m. for the 5-hour ride to Princess Denali Wilderness Lodge.