The guide
Katmai
Alaska, USA
Brown bears lined up at Brooks Falls, waiting for leaping salmon. About 2,200 brown bears live in Katmai — the largest protected population on Earth. (Photo: NPS Photo)
Getting there
There are no roads into Katmai — that is the whole point. Fly commercially to Anchorage, then on to the gateway town of King Salmon, and from there take a small floatplane or a boat across Naknek Lake to Brooks Camp. Day trips by air taxi are also possible from Anchorage, Homer and Kodiak. Most visitors come for a few days between June and mid-September, when Brooks Camp's visitor center, campground and ranger programs are running (June 1 to September 17).
The only way in: a floatplane over the Alaska Peninsula. (Photo: NPS Photo)
Famous for
Katmai is the brown bear capital of the world. Its coastal brown bears — bigger than their inland cousins, the grizzlies (same species, different diet) — gather at Brooks Falls each summer to snatch leaping sockeye salmon from the water. In July, the peak of the run, dozens of bears can be counted along the river, with 43 to 70 individuals documented at the falls. Big males routinely weigh over 1,000 pounds after a summer of salmon. The park is also home to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, formed by the 1912 Novarupta eruption — the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.
Where to stay & eat
- Brooks Lodge — The only lodge at Brooks Camp, right in the middle of bear country — meals and a bed a short walk from the falls. Cabins book out far in advance.
- Brooks Camp Campground — Tents inside a bear-proof electric fence, with a cooking shelter and food caches — the classic way to sleep surrounded by bear sounds.
- King Salmon lodges — The gateway town's lodges work well as a base if you fly in and out of Brooks Camp for the day.
What to do
Brown bears fishing for salmon at Brooks Falls. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
- Brooks Falls platforms — Three elevated viewing platforms along the Brooks River, one right at the falls. This is the famous one: bears standing in the white water, salmon flying. Watching time can be limited at busy periods.
- The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes — A bus tour from Brooks Camp (by reservation) rides the 22.3-mile valley road to the ash-filled valley born in the 1912 eruption, with overlooks and short hikes.
- Bear School — Every visitor to Brooks Camp begins with a short, mandatory bear safety talk at the visitor center — how to walk, where to eat, and the 50-yard rule.
- Hallo Bay and the coast — The food-rich coast bays host some of the densest bear concentrations on the planet; in early summer bears graze the sedge meadows and dig for clams.
- Evening ranger programs — Nightly talks in the Brooks Camp auditorium through the season — bear behaviour, volcanoes, and the human history of the river.
Ukak Falls, cut into the ash of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. (Photo: NPS Photo)
Jess's favourite The lower-river platform at dusk
Everyone crowds the Falls platform — but downstream, mother bears bring their cubs to fish the shallows in the evening light, away from the big males. A front-row seat to bear family life, the zookeeper's dream.
Good to know: Bears have the right of way at Brooks Camp — always. Stay at least 50 yards from any bear, carry no food or scented items outside buildings, travel in groups and talk so you never surprise one. Weather is wet, cool and windy even in midsummer — pack layers, waterproofs and a head net for the bugs.
Photos: U.S. National Park Service (public domain).
Parks change: roads, reservations and opening dates in these guides were checked at the time of writing — always check nps.gov before you go.
Read Jess's journal ↓
Jess's journal
Katmai: bears at the falls, and Dad's stories
July, eight years ago
The floatplane banked over Naknek Lake and the pilot pointed down through the windscreen: brown shapes, moving slowly along the shoreline. Bears. Before we had even landed. Dad used to tell me that Alaska had a river where the bears stood in a waterfall and the salmon jumped straight into their mouths, and I had decided, at about age seven, that he was making it up. He was not making it up.
A bear plucking salmon from the lip of Brooks Falls. (Photo: NPS Photo)
Bear School
Before anything else, there was Bear School — the short, mandatory safety talk every visitor gets at the Brooks Camp visitor center. Fifty yards from any bear. No food or scented anything outside buildings. If a bear is on the trail, the bear has the right of way and you step aside. As a zookeeper I have given a hundred versions of this talk to visitors, and I have never once meant it more. Then we walked the boardwalk trail toward the falls, and a ranger ahead of us calmly raised a hand: a young male was ambling along the path toward us. We stepped off into the grass. He glanced at us the way you glance at furniture, and ambled on. My hands were shaking. Not from fear — from joy.
The falls
The Falls platform sits right over the water, and the first thing you hear is the river. The second thing you hear is the crunching of fish bones. There were eight or nine bears in view at once: a huge male holding the prime spot at the lip of the falls, snatching salmon mid-leap; a smaller bear snorkelling for scraps below; two half-grown cubs play-fighting on the bank while their mother fished. July is the peak of the sockeye run, and you could see why — the salmon were so thick in the water it looked like the river was boiling. I have watched animals eat in every kind of enclosure you can imagine. I have never watched anything like this. It was a restaurant, a nursery, a wrestling ring and a family dinner, all in one white-water rapid.
The valley of ash
On our second day we took the bus tour out the 22.3-mile valley road to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes — the ash-filled valley left by the Novarupta eruption of 1912, the biggest volcanic eruption of the last century. Standing at the overlook, I tried to imagine the sky going dark at noon and three days of falling ash. Ukak Falls roared through a canyon of pale, sculpted ash. Dad had a story about this place too — he said the valley steamed for years afterwards, like the whole earth was breathing. Standing there, with the wind lifting fine ash off the cliffs, I believed every word.
Dusk on the lower river
My favourite hour was the last one of the day, at the lower-river platform. The day-trippers had flown out, the light went honey-coloured, and a mother bear brought three spring cubs down to the shallows to fish. One cub kept getting bowled over by the current and climbing back onto its mother's back, and she — with the patience of every good mother I have ever known — just kept fishing, occasionally nudging it upright with her nose. I thought of Dad telling me these stories when I was small, planting Alaska in my head like a seed, and I thought: this is what he was saving me for.
Animals spotted: brown bears (many — at the falls, the lower river, and one on the boardwalk trail), sockeye salmon by the thousand, bald eagles waiting downstream for scraps, and Arctic ground squirrels whistling from the meadow. No moose this trip, though the rangers said they move through. Wild sightings are never guaranteed — but in July at Brooks, the bears are the guarantee.
Story seed
Clarence discovers a waterfall where the fish jump up — and Pinafor, who cannot sit still, appoints himself the official fish-catcher, until a wise old bear shows them both that the best spot at the falls belongs to whoever waits the most patiently.
Barnaby's note
"What a thing to learn, Jess — that the wildest place you ever stood was also the most polite one. The bears take their turns, the people keep their distance, and everybody eats. You gave those bears exactly what a good zookeeper gives every animal: respect, space, and your full attention. Your dad told you the stories. You went and stood inside one. That is a very fine way to grow up." — Barnaby
↑ Back to the guide