Katmai

From Wikipedia – This park on the Alaska Peninsula protects the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, an ash flow formed by the 1912 eruption of Novarupta, as well as Mount Katmai. Over 2,000 grizzly bears come here each year to catch spawning salmon. Other wildlife includes caribou, wolves, moose, and wolverines.

• Established: 12/2/1980
• Annual Visitors: 37,818
• Size: 3,674,529 acres

“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.” – Rachel Carson

Saturday July 27, 2024 – Brooks Falls – Katmai

A little background as to why we chose this lodging, The Farm Lodge on Lake Clark in Port Alsworth, AK. We planned this trip around visiting Dick Proenneke’s Cabin on Twin Lakes, inside Lake Clark National Park. If you are not familiar with Dick Proenneke…at age 51 in the 1960’s, he wanted to build a remote log cabin, from scratch, by hand – no power tools – and live off the land for a year. He ended up staying in his cabin, primarily alone, for over 30 years! It can only be reached by float plane, then and now. Bob Swerer Productions has a couple videos narrated with footage Dick shot himself, over many years. His craftsmanship, ingenuity and survival skills are impressive, to say the least!! All Dick’s supplies, like film, some food, shovels and saws, were flown in by his good friend Babe (Leon) Alsworth. The founder of Port Alsworth on Lake Clark. Babe’s grandson, Glen Jr., now runs The Farm Lodge. A property that used to be Babe’s homestead and now has 10 units for public lodging. We are here, with Sherry and Craig, our Phoenix neighbors, for the week.

We booked an all inclusive week with three meals a day, 4 small plane rides to 4 different locations, lodging and more.

Staying here is a bit like visiting our Amish friends in Ohio. The Alsworth’s are not Amish but like our Amish friends, they live a simple, down to earth existence with strong Christian beliefs. No alcohol on property (you can bring your own to have inside your cabin but not in public places) and grace is said before each meal. The is no cell service on property and the only WIFI is in the dining hall/lodge which is up several flights of stairs on the end of the property. Fine with us to be electronically detached all day. We check our phones and emails (Gary still has employees) each night but we like being unplugged most of the time, especially during outdoor adventures! We are not religious but the large family connections and sweet people here do remind us of our visits to Amish country.

Today we went to Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park to see brown bears catch salmon in a river!! OMG! We have been watching the live webcam the national park service has on their own site and on YouTube from home. Finally, we were there in person!!

We had two 4 seater float planes that took Sherry and Craig up in one and Gary & I in another. We were flown by Glen Alsworth Jr.’s son, Sasha. Zoe, a staff member and another Alsworth relation rode with us. Glen Jr. is Zoe’s uncle. Lots of the staff members (not all are family) take excursions on their days off to get off the property for the day. There’s only 150+ residents in Port Alsworth and can only be accessed, for the most part, by air.  Anchorage is an over 1 hour flight.

During the flight to and from Brooks Falls we saw beaver dams in remote streams, bear in rivers not at Brook Falls, caribou in groups on snow patches to get away from the bugs. We passed over numerous crystal clear blue lakes and saw the largest lake in AK. It is only one of two lakes, in the world, where fresh water seals live full time! And twice we saw seals on the beaches of small islands.

Please enjoy our fabulous Brooks Falls slide show!

At dinner I met Jordan, the youngest of Glen Jr.’s kids. I am guessing she’s in her teens still. We bonded over being the youngest in our families and joked that we were the best mistakes our parents ever made as both of us are roughly 7 years younger than our next sibling.

The meals are homemade and contain produce and berries from their onsite gardens and greenhouses.

Katmai Tuesday July 30, 2024

E: Note: lots of our pictures are taken from a float plane hundreds of feet above our subjects so not that clear but the true real life experience is soooo worth it!

Katmai National Preserve was designated in 1918 (it was upgraded to a National Park in 1980), after the eruption and decimation of Mt. Katmai in 1912. Ash blew 100,000 feet into the air and can now be seen on the ground as race track looking flows in the area now known as the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. The name derived from the abundance of locations where steam rose high into the air for a long time after the eruption. The glaciers under the 1912 rocks and ash are up to 700 feet in depth!

E: Today’s breakfast brought yummy choices. They offered homemade cinnamon rolls, avocado toast, bacon, scrambled eggs, yogurt with honey, a fresh fruit cup and coffee, tea, hot chocolate and OJ. As mentioned previously, we have a menu the night before which you select your breakfast and bagged lunch choices. But you can ask for anything else if you want more or change your mind. 

Our flight today took Sherry, Craig, Gary and I, with pilot and guide Carlon, back to Katmai to do wildlife viewing… which was a big success!

We saw Trumpeter or Tundra white swans in a few ponds. Both are common in this area.

The freshwater seals were bathing on the sandy islands again.

Caribou were on the embankment camouflaging themselves. As well as sunning themselves (actually getting away from the bugs) on snow fields.

We landed on Nonvianuk Lake, enjoying the multicolored, naturally polished, stones deposited there after many years of tumbling down the various colored mountains, into the lake and eventually getting washed up on shore. There was an eagle feather on the beach which I left there as you are not supposed to take anything, especially eagle feathers, from national parks.

There was a large wild fire in the America Creek area caused by a lightning strike in June of this year. Since no structures were threatened, it was allowed to burn out on its own. 

Our second stop at Grosvenor Lake brought a sighting of a Bald Eagle in a tree; a hike down the beach to view a beaver lodge; we saw a salmon swimming in the lake, and the highlight for me…all the wolf and bear tracks as well as scat (poops), I mean lots! And fresh. Maybe this morning or possibly last night. We enjoyed a bagged lunch and chatted overlooking the lake. Not a single additional soul to be heard or seen.

A Bald Eagle flew beneath our plane while we were flying over Moraine Creek looking for bears. Two bears were chasing salmon as they playfully romped through the icy waters trying to catch lunch! Many bears were on sand patches, in the very wide creek or along the grassy knolls and banks. There were rafts in a few places in the water. Carlon said they were people fishing for the salmon. The water was so clear we could see thousands of salmon swimming just under the surface!

At the end of the day we had clocked over 400 flight miles from take off at 9AM until touchdown at 4PM in our little four seater (plus the pilot) float plane. Our cabin is a long way from the float plane beach…about 60 yards!

We are scheduled to fly to Twin Lakes tomorrow! Gary and I are super excited to see Dick Proenneke’s cabin where he spent 30+ years basically alone in the wilderness. Twin Lakes and his cabin are in Lake Clark National Park which we will put on our blog separately from this post.