Edra dropped off Sarah and I at the Anchorage airport we caught our plane to King salmon, ironically enough the plane was a 737 that is painted like a King Salmon, one of the few in Alaska Airlines fleet. George met us at the airport in King Salmon and we were not scheduled to fly to Brooks Camp until the next day, we dropped our bags off at George’s hotel and started our own little pub crawl of King Salmon. After experiencing all King Salmon had to offer, we hitched a ride to Naknek. We were picked up by 2 guys that were there working in the fishing industry (just about everyone does) and they proceeded to give us a driving tour of Naknek, and even offered for us to pre-game at their place. We then headed to the Reddog saloon, followed by the fisherman to enjoy some true local culture. Once at the fisherman we all individually worked on finding a ride back to King Salmon so we could avoid paying the $20 per person taxi fee, it’s a only 10 miles so that is pretty ridiculous, but because everything is brought in by barge or plane, everything is very expensive.
The next day we were picked up at the Inn and brought to the water front, we would be taking a Canadian made deHavilland Otter, 10 person float plane into Brooks Camp at Katmai National Park. His was my first ever float plane experience. Unfortunately the cloud cover was low and the views were not great but I enjoyed it a lot. As soon as we landed I looked out the window to see a brown bear just 100m away on the beach. I would soon learn that these sightings are more common than not. All new arrivals have to go through bear orientation with a range this takes about a half hour and they give you the run down on where and how to store food, what to do if a bear runs towards you etc. After that we tried to make arrangements for a canoe rental, our plan was to paddle to an island and camp there for the night. Unfortunately the weather forecast was calling for high winds so they denied us that option. Instead we ended up camping on the side of Dumpling mountain, which gave great overlooks of Brooks Camp. I even took the time to hike to the top of the mountain for even better views.
Throughout the next two days we made several trips to Brooks falls. There they have a viewing platform where you can great photographs of the bears trying to catch salmon as they swim upstream to spawn. Sometimes there would be 1 or 2 bears present and sometimes up to 10 would be there at one time. It was pretty cool getting so close to them. The bears would often walk directly under the platform that we were on. In the evenings we would hang out the bar area of the small lodge and speak to other travelers, rangers and the professional photographers.
Monday morning we took the bus and our packs loaded with 7 days worth of food into the valley of 10000 smokes. The bus tickets were $51 each way per person! Not cheap, but there was no other way to visit the valley and we were assured that there was a highly trained driver, that would be driving us in a 4 x 4 lifted school bus. It was a 23 mile ride to the valley. We arrived around 11AM and set off to find the USGS cabins, where we would stay for at least the first couple of nights. Initially the trail was pretty easy to follow and after just 30 mins of hiking we came to our first river crossing, we found a wide portion of the river, took of boots and socks and waded across the icy cold water. We continued to follow the trail along the west side of the valley. Eventually the trail ended at the 6 mile canyon area and we were left to route find our way up the valley, and try to find a suitable river crossing. Around this time the wind really started to pickup, we had to get our ski goggles to avoid be pelted in the face by sand and pumice stone. Came up to the Lethe river and started to look for the “jump spot” along the river bank. It should be noted that the Lethe river is also the river that runs through hell, no joke check the Bible. This is a place where the river is so narrow, only about 3-4 feet where you can jump across. Well after a bit of searching Sarah found a place where we could ford the river. I wanted to keep looking though and found a place a bit upstream where I thought I could make the jump. Unfortunately I did not really think the plan through. I lowered myself onto a ledge and then threw my backpack across first. Well the backpack landed on the other side and then promptly rolled into the raging river about 6 ft below! I jumped up out of the ledge, by the time I made it up on the ledge, Sarah was off and running. The tent that was strapped to the outside immediately separated from the backpack. Luckily I was able to outrun both items pretty quickly and hooked the tent with one of my skipoles. I was unsuccessful at 3 separate attempts to stop the backpack. Finally Sarah had ran down to the wide spot in the river she found earlier to ford she had time to take off her shoes and socks and then play goalie right where the river dumped into the shallow part. She could barely drag the bag to the river bank where I was waiting very thankful that I had not lost everything. Everything was water logged, including the stuff in the dry bags. My cell phone, camera lens, and some of my food was soaked. On top of that Sarah managed to lose a sock, and I lost my Clemson hat during the chase. I tried to drain everything out as much as possible, but it was tough. Finally I put the pack on which now weighed probably 80-90lbs and ford the river. Needless to say it took a few more hours to find the cabins. Fortunately there was no one else at the cabins and I was able to hang everything up to dry. I slept very well that night.
The next day we had great weather so we packed up one of our packs for the day with food and water and setoff over pea soup pass to see Navaruptu, Magiek Lakes, Katmai Pass, and more. We saw the lava flow from the 1968 eruption of Mt. Trident, and rolled rocks down a huge hill here. We did not see any other people the entire day. In fact we did not see any other people until the night before we left. The weather was so good that Sarah even put her bikini and took a dip in the glacial lake. We eventually walked all the way back up the west side of baked mountain and back to the huts.
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| 10 days without shaving or showering |
The tird day was even better than the 2nd, so we set-off to climb Mt. Griggs. It’s only 7600ft tall, but is still a 6000 ft climb from the valley floor to the summit. We hiked up over then end of broken mountain and then dropped down to a wide spot in Knife Creek, intent on fording the river. We found a multi braided section, that we managed to ford, but the last bit was pretty deep, swift and very cold. So we decided to try and find an easier crossing, rather than climb a mountain and have to deal with that at the end of the day. First we hiked north for about 2-3 miles and did not find anything. Then we went south, very far, eventually after several miles we found a giant boulder wedged into the river, so we were able to cross there but by this time it was very late in the day and I was starting to feel a bit sick as well. We decided to hike further south to investigate the approach to the caldera on Mt. Katmai. After investigating we turned back towards Baked Mountain and headed for the huts. On the way the fog rolled in very heavy and we had to navigate by GPS.
The fourth day was more of the same foggy weather we had seen the night before. So we decided to investigate reports that there was a snow cave at the base of fallen mountain. We looked for a while and never found, even though we had GPS coordinates for it and everything. We concluded that it must have melted out and then we returned to the cabins after circumnavigating Navarupto. I was still feeling a touch of the flu and head cold so I need rest.
The 5th day, our last before we would hike out was beautiful but my illness was full on at that point. Sarah and I did a quick 45 minute hike to the top of Baked Mountain and were rewarded with a magnificent view. Well worth it, while Sarah read for a while I took a bunch of photos and then returned to cabins, stopping at the nearest water source on the way. I spent the rest of the day in bed, Sarah made another trip to the summit of Baked Mountain and did a lot of reading. Late that evening I woke up to use the restroom and noticed two people coming up to the cabins. It was around 10:30 PM, it was a couple from Sidney and they had taken 11 hrs to fin the jump spot across the river, and the cabins. I spoke with them for a bit and then went back to sleep.
The next morning Sarah and I left early around 8 AM, I was unsure how long it would take since I was still not feeling 100%. We had to be back at the visitors center by 2:30 PM to catch our bus back to Brooks camp. Luckily things were going very smoothly I was feeling good, we found a jump spot across the river right away and we arrived at the visitor center by 12PM. Back at brooks we checked out the bears, relaxed talked to some of the visitors and rangers. We left Sunday morning on a float plane back to King Salmon, where we caught our jet back to Anchorage.
My visit to Katmai National Park was not, cheap, probably the single most expensive thing I have done on this trip, but it was a chance to see real Alaska and an experience I will probably never have again. I’m glad I did it.
Complete Album: FTF Day 137-146
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