2008
Alaska Photo Tour: Puffins and Grizzlies
Sunday, July 13, 2008 Anchorage to Seward, AK
I flew to Anchorage, arriving late Saturday evening, and meeting my roomy for the next week, Kathy. We both came up here 2 days early, anticipating spending the time seeing some of the sights around the Anchorage area. The "real" reason for the trip is the Grizzlies and Puffins Photo Safari. On Tuesday morning we will meet up with the other 4 participants and fly to a lodge somewhere in the Lake Clark National Park and Wilderness, about 200 miles west of Anchorage, on the north side of the Cook Inlet and across from the town of Soldotna on the Kenai Penninsula. The lodge is situated on the beach and is only accessible by plane or boat. There are no roads in this part of Alaska. Once there, we will join our photo leader and a wilderness guide, and will spend a week photographing the grizzlies and eagles that are prevalent in the area. At some point, we will take the seaplane to the Cook Inlet, where we will make a big beach landing and proceed to photograph puffins at their nesting sites along the cliffs lining the beach. At this time of the year, the puffins, which mate for life, will be catching little shiny mackerels, or some such fish, and bringing them back to the cliffs to feed their young.
We spent Sunday touring from Anchorage down the Kenai Peninsula, with lots of stops for photo ops, driving towards Seward.
We stopped at the Wildlife Center and did a lot of practice shooting on native Alaskan animals, all behind fences. There was a nervous black bear, pacing along the fence, making it difficult to shoot, but I got lucky with one shot:
There were also a couple of young grizzlies, a coyote, caribou, elk, bison, and musk oxen. It was good practice, watching the way the grizzlies moved, and using my new lens.
We took a little detour along the way to Seward and stopped to see the Portage Glacier, taking a 1 hour cruise to see it. It was pretty enough, but there was very little calving, so a quick visit was more than ample.
We had a good seafood dinner in Seward and headed back to
Anchorage. It was getting late on a Sunday night. We hoped we
could find a store open to buy a bottle of wine, and were
surprised to see a
liquor store, still on the Kenai peninsula. It was "Mary Lou's Liquor
Store".
We made a u-turn to get there, and as I was reaching for my
wallet, Kathy asked if I had read the rest of the sign. It
said more.
Much more. Also, the parking lot was
pretty populated on a Sunday night.
Oops.
On Monday we drove to Talkeetna, in the shadow of Mt McKinley. The great mountain was socked in with fog that day, and no planes were doing flight-seeing to the south face. A 23,000 foot invisible mountain.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 The fun begins
We met the rest of our group and went over
to the little airport next
to Anchorage International Airport to
catch our ride to the lodge. We were to fly in 3 little
Cessnas, scheduled to leave at 9 a.m. The fog was still
around, and the lodge was inaccessible, so we waited around, getting
to know everyone, until 3 p.m., when there was a short break in the
weather. The flight took a little over an hour and we landed
on a beach. This wasn't a seaplane, with pontoons,
but a regular little plane with wheels, landing and taking
off on the
beach. 
We
spotted a couple of grizzlies up the beach from us.
Because we got there so late, we skipped the formalities of
sitting around discussing what we were going to see and just got going.
It was great. There are 6 of us on the tour, with
our photo guide and our grizzly guide, who towed us around with an ATV.
When we got about 1/4 mile from a couple of 3 year old
sibling bears, we stopped and walked the remainder of the way.
We approached slowly, giving the bears an opportunity to
assess the threat, and then continue their grazing in the tall grasses.
I was so surprised and delighted to see how close we would
get. One bear was slowly approaching me, and got to about 30
feet away when our guide shooed her away. We tracked down
another bear, and shot for about 2 hours before heading in for dinner.
We're staying at a lodge on the beach, facing Cook Inlet.
The Kenai Peninsula is about 30 miles south of us.
The lodge is located approximately at these coordinates:
59 59
00.37N 152 44 13.60W.
There are no roads, and the lodge is only accessible via boat or small
plane. As we ate, we were able to view the grizzlies grazing
in
the
yard. Very cool.
After dinner we went out again and had a great treat. We located a bear with her 6 month old cub. At first the cub was very skittish, but soon became accustomed to us and began frollicing in the grass as Mom grazed. We watched and shot for a while, occasionally moving as a group a little closer to them. We were about 70 feet from them, when Mom saw a large male Grizzly ambling through the meadow. She was on alert, and junior immediately came close to her. After a couple of minutes, she took off, junior keeping up, and stopped about 25 feet from me, standing up and watching the male. Then she headed away, into taller bushes, and disappeared. We saw her head poking above the bushes a couple of times. After that wonderful show, we called it a night. The light had been very low, making it difficult to get sharp images, but it was a wonderful opportunity to study bear behavior.
Stressed mama bear (I know, it's blurry, but look how TALL
she is and how CLOSE she is!): 
Our grizzly guide: 
I asked him if he was armed with anything besides knowledge,
and he said he had pepper spray.Wednesday, July 16, 2008 Halibut Fishin'
It was a rainy day today at the lodge. While sitting around in the lodge, waiting for a break in the weather, someone asked about fishing. They have a small fishing boat, capable of holding about 6 or 7 people, and we came up with a plan to go fishing for halibut in the later afternoon. I went, along with two other photographers, and the pilot and a crew member. It didn't rain so much out on the water, as we headed about 15 miles south, toward the center of the Cook Inlet, but, as we hit the 7 mile mark, the swells increased in size and frequency. When they got to the point of having 7 foot swells, we agreed to plan B, which was to head back to the shore, a little east of the lodge. I had a great time on the ride out, thoroughly enjoying the swells, and the sprays of saltwater. There were a number of puffin pairs, flying low over the water, or resting in the water. I love to watch them. They fly like whirligigs, their wings seeming to rotate rather than flap. Puffins mate for life, burrowing their nests several feet into the sides of cliffs, or fjords., away from most predators. When the chicks are old enough to fly, they head out to the ocean, and live there until they are mature enough to reproduce, at which time they return to the cliffs of their birth.
We finally set anchor about a half mile off shore, 3 miles east of the lodge, and we all set in our fishing lines, loaded with large pieces of herring. I went out for halibut fishing and caught only a shark. We were out about 2 hours or so, and caught numerous sharks, and only 2 halibut, each of substandard size. Everyone on the boat caught at least one shark, which was pretty cool. The sharks had blue-green eyes, kind of bewitching. All of the sharks were cut loose and freed, and it appeared that we were catching different sharks each time. After about 3 hours, we headed back to the lodge, hitting lots of rain as we pulled into the beach area, protected by a sandbar. Until then I had remained dry and warm, but I sat on a wet bench in the ATV trailer that came to greet us. When we got back, we compared notes with those who selected to stay behind. They had gone out in the rain and had seen 2 mom and baby pairs, and had shot one mom nursing her cub, although it wasn't the best of photo shots. We all agreed that we had fun during the day, even thought it wasn't under optimal photo shooting conditions. Later, at dinner, we observed through the bay window, a saga of four bears unfolding as we watched. At first there were 3 bears, A, B, and C. Bear C challenged bear B, approaching it rapidly. Bear B seemed to succumb to the challenge, and headed west of it, leaving bear C in between us and bear A. Bear A became engaged, and headed toward bear C, in the middle, as bear B turned and did the same. It looked like bear C was in trouble. Bear A advanced to bear C, and soon they were face to face and nose to nose, standing on 2 legs or 4. The stood up and performed a little dance, and went back down and squared off again. They performed the dance several times, each time ending with a nose to nose square-off. We watched this for about 20 minutes, rooting for our favorites, and also wondering why we weren't out there with our cameras, recording the event. We all agreed that if we were to gear up and go out there, we would either miss the action or disrupt any further action. So, we sat and watched from the window. It was quite a sight. Bear B, escaped to the west and watched, occasionally heading into the foray, but, apparently thinking better of it. Then, along came bear D, from the east, seemingly anxious to join the party.There was more posturing and I'm sure lots of noises, and finally it ended. Bear D was the victor, with the others wandering off, with furtive glances back at the winner. Again, we at the table wondered why we were sitting inside watching, instead of outside capturing the event. Again, we agreed that our participation would have disrupted the entertainment.
I didn't take my camera out of its case today, but it was, nonetheless, a really fun day. There was late night entertainment provided by the bears again. I watched 4 bears, marching west together in a rectangular formation, and a 5th bear coming from the south, as they forced a 6th bear to retreat to the northwest. Lots of drama outside the lodge's bay window.
Thursday, July 17, 2008 Clamming Bears
This
morning we went out at low tide, going about 1/4 mile into the bay, to
observe bears going clamming. I heard that digging for clams
is
something that the local bears just started doing a couple of years
ago, and they teach it to their cubs. It was drizzling and the
bears looked pretty soaked, but we stayed dry and warm.
Lot
of mom grizzlies dragged their kids out for this event, and the cubs
tried to have fun, but it was tough. Mom just kept clamming
and
clamming and clamming. We're guessing that the bears can
smell
the clams, as they were having a pretty good day of digging.
They
would dig about a foot deep and pull them out, then slurp on them,
sometimes using their lower arm as a serving tray.
The cubs watched and sometimes mimicked Mom, but frequently just got
tired and hungry and huddled together for a nap. The leftovers went to
the ever present gulls.
The food at the lodge has been great. Our lunch today consisted of clam chowder, with freshly caught clams, and halibut sandwiches, with our catch from yesterday. The chefs are fantastic.
This afternoon the weather turned beautiful and sunny, and we headed out on a bear hunt. We became engrossed with a sow and her cub, shooting for a while and pretty happy it. One of the guys, Mike, headed to the bushes to take care of his business, and soon after we heard a very loud growl/cry. I thought it was Mike, messing with us, but he had returned. The sow we were photographing became extremely agitated, staring at the bushes, and popping her jaw. You don't want to be around a jaw-popping grizzly. It's a sign that they are very upset. We heard the noise from the bushes again. She surprised me by taking off, her cub following at her side, to the bushes, after first pausing by us. I had expected her to head away from the noise. We were west of her, and the bushes were northwest of us, and she passed by us very closely, popping her jaw all of the while. She ran to the bushes, but did not venture in. She stayed a few minutes, and then she began to wander off and returned to feeding in the grass. A while later another sow and cub emerged from the bushes. Apparently something had disturbed the cub, and he was the one making the noises, and the mom we were watching was off to his rescue. Almost. Things settled down and we continued to shoot these bears for a while.
Distressed bear:
These were taken within seconds of each other, as
she
jumped up and rushed to the rescue, popping her jaw. She was
about 10-15 feet from me, and extremely upset, when I got these
closeups.
Our hosts had set some fishnets along the coastline in the morning, and they were heading out to reap the rewards, hopefully lots of salmon, for dinner. They had invited me along for the show, but I was still out with the group shooting bears, so they brought the little boat, or skiff, around the creek and up towards where we were shooting. For some reason, after all of the talk we had heard about staying close together in a group, our guide sent me, alone and defenseless, to walk upstream, past the patch of bush containing unknown danger, to meet the boat. I'm pretty sure this was so that the waves created by the boat would not disturb the reflections of the bears in the water. I walked along the stream, slightly nervous, watching the bushes to my right, and trying not to move too quickly to attract attention. I turned back to the group and some of them were watching me.
I hoped that if something happened to
me that they would at least get the picture. The bastards.
A little earlier, someone had asked our guide what we should
do
if we are alone and encounter a bear. I couldn't hear the
answer.
Darn! My ride arrived, and off we went. They had
set two
fishing
nets along the coast about a mile from the lodge. The ride
was
extremely
rough, and I was holding onto my camera like it was more
precious than my own body. I got banged up a bit, bouncing on
my kneed and elbow, and then we finally got
to the nets. The nets are about 50 feet long, kept afloat by
numerous little buoys, and anchored at one end. Between the 2
nets, we captured about 17 big, beautiful salmon, a crab, and about 5
throw-aways of dubious heritage. We had some lookie-loos
watching us from the shore. The ride back to the lodge was
again fast and furious and very bumpy, but this time I stood near the
back. Much better!!
Dinner! Wow! Pecan-crusted grilled red salmon, less than 2 hours from the sea. I had seconds. How often can you get a second serving of really fresh salmon? Dessert was a surprise birthday cake for me. I'm officially old enough to collect social security.
Friday, July 18, 2008 More Bears and Puffins
It was a beautiful sunny morning and we spent several hours in pursuit of a sow and her 2 six month old cubs, along the beach digging for clams at low tide. The clams were plentiful , and she was feasting. The cubs were probably a male, with a darker coat, and a female, with a light blond coat, although their coloring can change as they mature. When we approached the bears, we walked slowly, in a group, to her side and then behind her, so that we were further out in the bay. As she worked her way across the beach, she would walk towards us and then past us. Then we would move again, past her. The cubs tagged along and tried to imitate mama, digging little holes in the sand. Mama was ambidextrous, digging with either front paw, pushing down to her elbow. Occasionally she'd let one of the cubs share in the bounty.
After an hour or so, one of the cubs became tired and cranky, and began whining. "I'm tired. I'm hungry. When are we going to go home?" He'd bellow, and mom would put up with it for a while, and then he'd push her to her limit and she'd turn and rush him and scold him and grab him by the scruff of the neck.(These 4 shots were taken within one second).
Tough love. He'd hang back for
a while,
grumbling, and then start howling all over again.
Finally,
they moved to a spot of beach that was a little higher and dry, and the
cubs curled up together for a nap, while mom continued her clamming.
Mom continued her feeding, not realizing how far away her
cubs
were, and when another bear approached, she roared, calling her cubs.
Once the intruder left, mom rolled onto her back
and
allowed the twins to nurse. She put her rear feet in the air
and
hung onto them with her front legs, cradling the young'uns.
This
lasted less than 10 minutes, and then they all headed back to the
mainland, presumably for an afternoon nap. 
After lunch, during high tide, we piled into the boat and headed for Puffin Island. It was an absolutely gorgeous sunshiny afternoon, and the water was fairly calm. The island is very small, maybe a few acres, but is tall, with enormous cliffs. Birds everywhere! Puffins, cormorants, gulls, and other stuff. The puffins are black, white, red, and orange, and nest along the cliffs. They mate for life. As I understand it, puffins live on the sea except during mating season. I learned a few new techniques about how to use my camera for shots of flying birds, and spent quite a while burning film on them. I also shot puffins on the cliffs, but my lens wasn't quite close enough for them. It was a lot of fun watching them, flying in an out of their nests and over us, and sometimes landing in the sea.
We had prime rib for dinner, a break from our usual fresh seafood meals. We've certainly been treated well at the lodge. The meals have been wonderful, and the staff has been great. We've had fresh halibut, salmon, clams, and crab in salads, dips, soups, and as entrees. We've also had magnificient appetizers, such as delicious stuffed jalapenos, and rich desserts. And always some type of fresh bread. Wonderful!
Saturday, July 19, 2008 Fishing
I confess I'm getting a little tired of bears. This morning the group was getting ready to go hunting again, when I heard that 2 people were going fishing. I have never tried that before, so it seemed like the appropriate time to try it. We went out to a stream nearby and I was taught how to cast and how to bring in a fish, and how to keep a fish low and give it some slack if a bear is interested. There are some salmon in the stream but we didn't catch any. I did, however catch 2 fish called Dolly Vartons, or "Dollies", not to be confused with Dolly Parton. I didn't know when I started whether I'd like fishing, hate it, or just tolerate it, but it was pretty enjoyable when I caught the fish. One came right after the other, and then.... nothing. Not quite so much fun then. When I returned to the lodge, I was asked if I had been fly fishing or spin fishing. I have since learned that I was spin fishing.
In the afternoon we went bear hunting again. We saw only solo bears, no cubs. I was surprised that a sow, when noticing a boar ambling down the stream near her, laid down, trying not to be seen. The other encounters I've seen also included cubs, and the sow would run away. When he was safely past, she got up, but he saw her, and she said, "oh, shit" and stood her ground. He charged her and then they both said hello, and he walked away.
After dinner I went spin fishing again. I'm getting pretty good at casting a line now. I was dropping it with precision, into the "honey spots", but not catching anything. My guide decided that we should go to the other side of the stream and fish further down, so we trekked on over to the other side. I was casting beautifully, dropping the line within inches of the bank, when there appeared a very large golden brown male grizzly. We asked him to leave, but he looked around, and then he sat down on the bank. He looked like he was waiting for me to throw the line and he would bring in the catch. It was hilarious. No camera. I had debated, knowing that I would regret not taking it, and had left it. But....if I had brought it I would not have crossed that stream and we wouldn't have seen the bear there. Then, along came a friend of his, and they both waited for me to catch their dinner. We decided to walk up stream and ignore them, hoping that they would leave, and it worked. They grew bored very quickly and moved on. We returned to the spot, but were unable to get a bite at all. Oh, well. Fun to see that bear sitting there.
Sunday, July 20, 2008 Dancing bears
What a beautiful, fun day! Breakfast included the fish caught yesterday. There's something about the smell of fish in the morning. Kathy called it right when she said that it's good that none of us are pregnant. I and one other in our group tried the fish. It actually tasted pretty good, but NOT for breakfast. The people at the other table cleaned off the platter, though.
This morning I selected fishing over bear shooting. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Our guide, Taylor, took Mike and me out to the stream for some spinner fishing. I immediately caught a Dolly Varton, a beautiful 20 inch fish, but threw it back. I had my sights set on salmon, and there is a 5 fish limit per day. Dream on. That was it for me in the morning, and Mike only had a couple of bites, but no catch. I've gotten pretty good at casting the line, but not so great at catching fish. I learned how to do fly fishing today, also. I always wondered what those fly fishermen were doing, swinging the line back and forth and never going into the water. Well, now I know. You gently ease the line out with each cast, until it reaches the target area, and you let it drop. Then you bring it in and do it all over again. We decided to come back after lunch, before the rest of the group set out for the afternoon bear hunt. The area we went to in the afternoon was a 1/2 mile hike from the lodge, and then we took a canoe across Silver Salmon Lake to where the Silver Salmon River flows into it. This was even more beautiful than the area surrounding the lodge. We rowed through a 1/2 mile or so of lily pads before we got to our landing site. Absolutely breathtaking. The lake's permimeter has a thick layer of vegetation, all woven together, forming a squishy mat. I was surprised as I walked on it, thinking at first that I was on dry land. It's pretty sturdy stuff, though. I later learned that it is called a "bog". I caught another Dolly right away, and sent it back. It appeared that it told all of its friends about me, and I only got one other bite the rest of the afternoon. We could see fish following our lures, and saying, hasta la vista, baby, and moving on. Sometimes there would be 2 or three following the lures, but no bites. Our guide, Taylor, switched out our lures, changing colors and changing to flys, but nothing worked. We had a great time, anyway, but missed the group's afternoon bear hunt. On the way back to the lodge, we saw a couple of otters, and we witnessed a seagull dive bombing a Bald Eagle perched high in a tree. At first we thought the gull was after the eagle's young, but we couldn't see a nest up there. Then we decided that the gull must have a nest nearby and is trying to protect it. There are a couple of very, very small rocky islands in the lake, and she may have nested on one of them. Either way, it was pretty risky behavior for the gull. The eagle just sat and enjoyed the view. Or, maybe it was hoping to catch a sea otter.
Dinner tonight: fresh baked halibut, linguine in a freshly-caught-clam sauce. Amazing. During dinner, someone looked out the bay window and saw that there was more bear drama going on. Four bears, a male and 3 females, were together in the field and appeared to be playing, a little kinky foursome. The male and one of the females were making out while the other 2 females played. The couple was coupling and necking and hugging. Then, the other females decided they wanted him for themselves, so they marched over and drove off the other female. Later the bears were wrestling with each other. What a place!. None of the people at the lodge had ever witnessed 4 large grizzlies together at a single time for any purpose. I filled a compact flash card on that one.
Later, there was an incredibly large, orange, full moon rising over the Cook Inlet. It was fantastic. Unfortunately, it was just aobut impossible to get a good shot, as there was such a contrast in the light and dark areas of the sky. However, Photoshop could fix it - combine the two to make a single photo that more resembles what was actually seen by my eyes. In lieu of that, here it is:
Monday, July 21, 2008 Leaving the lodge
We awoke to a dreary, rainy morning, after having enjoyed several glorious days of sunshine. We were supposed to fly out of here around 10 a.m. and return to Anchorage, but the rain caused a short delay. I had such a wonderful experience, owing to the chefs, David and Andrew, for cooking my fish and baking a cake, as well as their amazing meals and good company; Taylor, who dedicated about 8 or 9 hours teaching me to fish, including on Saturday night; Oliver, who took me halibut fishing and also to retrieve the salmon from the nets, providing some pretty fun boat rides, as well as taking the group to Puffin Island; and Drew, our bear guide, who led the group to some spectacular bear sightings, up close and personal, and even trying to align us for the most scenic backgrounds. I felt like I received exceptional service from all of the staff with whom I interacted. The lodge is owned and managed by David C. Kudos to him for assembling this wonderful staff. I really hated to leave.
Being in such close proximity to wild bears was pretty damn exciting, with a couple of high adrenalin moments. Generally, we approached the bears silently and slowly, never directly towards them, but slightly around them. After shooting from one site, we'd usually pick up and move a little closer, and then closer again. Sometimes we'd settle in a spot that we hoped the bears would wander close to. We only encountered one bear that directly approached us, coming directly towards me and about 15 feet away, and Drew had to wave and yell at it to send it away. The cubs were always curious about us, often standing on their hind legs to get a good look, but always staying close to mama. With the exception of the show last night, all of the times we saw adult bears together, they were siblings.The sows with cubs always took the cubs and ran when anywhere near a boar. The sows without cubs generally took a low profile when around boars. In between these types of encounters, the bears ate and ate and ate. Grass and clams. Great fun! This was even more fun than I had imagined.
We got back to Anchorage in a little 4-seater Cessna, flying at about 600-800 feet for most of the flight. Lots of bears down there clamming in low tide.
I'm staying here for 2 more nights and arriving home Thursday morning. Top priority this afternoon is to take a long overdue nap. Then, back to editing pictures. I have at least a thousand photos that I have yet to see for the first time. Hopefully, I'll start uploading them soon.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 The Party's Over
I
fly home tonight. This has been the most fun I've ever had in
a
single week, and I hate to leave. This was truly a "once in a
lifetime" experience. Alaska feels like home to me.
Of
course, I'm sure I wouldn't feel the same way during the long winter,
but for now, it's great.
So, the question of what do you do when
you are alone and you encounter a bear? First, you should be
making noise, so that you don't surprise the bear. Second,
don't
turn around and don't run. Stand as tall as you can and face the bear.
If the bear begins to approach you, take a step towards it
and
yell at it. If it's a female,or a juvenile male, this should
discourage the bear, and you should walk around it. If it's
an
alpha male, you may be out of luck.
Yesterday I drove down to Homer, on the northwest edge of the Kenai Peninsula. My agenda was to shoot Bald Eagles on the beach. I first stopped in Ninilichik, as our grizzly guide had told me that the eagles were better there, in a more natural setting than in Homer. I wasted an hour and a 1/2 on the beach at the boat ramps and only saw one eagle, way in the distance. They have an interesting method of launching boats in Ninilichik:
No luck shooting eagles in Homer, either. I had
really wanted to catch some halibut while on this trip, but I had no
luck in the bay earlier, and now there was just no time for it.
So, I took my son's advise, or suggestion, and bought some
frozen
halibut fillets at the local fish market in Homer. Now, my
problem
is how to get them home without thawing. FEDEX would have
cost
twice as much as I had paid for them. I've got a cooler for
them
until I get to the airport. My flight doesn't leave until
almost
midnight. It's a dreary, rainy day, so I would have liked to
find
some indoor activity to keep me occupied today, but I didn't.
I
spent a couple of hours walking Anchorage's Coastal Trail, hoping to
find some moose, but was unsuccessful. After a nice lunch in
a
local restaurant I headed to the airport, only to find that I had to
wait several hours just to check my baggage. Oh, well.
I
found a comfortable piece of floor next to an electrical outlet and
spent a couple of hours with my laptop, adding photo links to my blog.This is where I stayed: Silver Salmon Creek Lodge.