To the Bears !

LeConte Glacier

Busy day! Woke up and made breakfast for ourselves using products provided by the B&B. Then walked down to the dock for our scheduled 8AM jet boat tour to LeConte Glacier, with Breakaway Adventures. This turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip.

Weather was cloudy and foggy. We were a small group (about 8 people) together with a captain and his 'hand'. The boat was fairly basic and the ride towards Leconte Bay was very bumpy but we still enjoyed the sail and the misty scenery around us.

On the way to LeConte Bay

On the way to LeConte Bay

As we approached LeConte bay opening. we started to see more and more ice floating on the water.

Ice in LeConte Bay

Deeper inside the bay and towards the glacier itself we became more and more surrounded by huge amounts of ice in all sizes, shapes and colors (although the crew said this is the lowest amount of ice they saw this season!).

LeConte Bay

The dark cloudy skies only provided contrast and intensified the effect of the sparkling blue and white ice – a truly out-of-this-world vision (this term will repeat itself more and more in our trip...).

LeConte Bay

LeConte Bay

Finally we reached the glacier – our first Alaskan glacier so it was definitely impressive!

LeConte Glacier

As can be expected, LeConte glacier is very active and we witnessed multiple calving events.

LeConte Glacier Calving

The captain kept maneuvering the boat and pushing aside large amounts of ice so that we can get better views on the seals, the glacier itself, and the nearby waterfalls. Pushing the ice made us a bit nervous but he explained the boat thick aluminum hull is specially designed for such environment (as opposed to boats made of steel or fiberglass).

Surrounded by Ice

Ice Formations

We were almost alone in the bay - except for one fishing boat, nor sure what they were doing there but they looked so tiny in front of the glacier, giving proportions to this wonder of nature.

Man vs. Nature

While there were very few people around, there were hundreds of harbor seals lying on the ice. Most of them are pups but the pups were larger now and difficult to distinguish from adults. 

LeConte Bay

LeConte Bay

LeConte Glacier

LeConte Bay

After two years of planning and preparation the big day is here... we boarded the long flight from Israel via Frankfurt (Lufthansa).
We landed in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport around noon, and our flight to Alaska was scheduled for the next morning, so we had the afternoon free. After clearing through immigration and customs, we picked up a rental car reserved from Thrifty just for the day.

We didn't feel like touring the big city so decided to drive to Snoqualmie Falls which are  ~45-60 minutes drive east of Seattle, depending on traffic.

Snoqualmie Falls

The Snoqualmie Falls are tall, powerful and very impressive and the little park built around their top is very nice with many great vantage points on the falls. For those of you who remember, these are the falls that were used as background to the Twin Peaks TV show back in the 90s.

Snoqualmie Falls, from Upper Park

After spending some time there, we drove another 5 minutes to the Lower Park which provides access to the river as well as to more beautiful viewing points, this time to the bottom of the falls – highly recommended! There is also a walking trail that will take you from the upper to the lower park, but the climb back is very steep so we decided to pass.

View from the Lower Park

From Snoqualmie, we drove back to the airport and checked in to the Sleep Inn hotel – an OK airport hotel, no more and no less. We picked is simply based on proximity and on the good rate we were able to get.Sharpe's Roasthouse, also very near the airport, which had excellent food, atmosphere and service (they specialize in wild salmon and in slow-roasted meats).

After dinner our fatigue from the long day of travel kicked in so we simply went back to the hotel for the night. Overall it was a very enjoyable afternoon and a great start to our Alaska adventure.

The Beginning

It all started 3 years ago when my wife, who is an avid nature films watcher, said 'for my 50^th birthday, I want to see bears fishing for salmon in Alaska'. Challenge accepted! 

At first I thought this was a remote fantasy, reserved for extreme travelers and career wildlife photographers. But after some research I found out that such experience is actually approachable to the general crowd (barring some $$ and careful planning). From that point, it was no longer a question of 'if' but of 'how exactly'.

Research and Planning

I started to research Alaska forums (first and foremost in tripadvisor,com), read numerous trip reports, and studied itineraries offered by commercial tour operators. We soon came to understand that Alaska has much more to offer than just bears fishing. We also figured out that we will not be able to cover everything and will need to carefully plan for time, distance and budget. We agreed on a 2-weeks' time frame which was the most we would be able to afford, time- and budget-wise. I built an excel with multiple itinerary options and deliberated them back and forth.

From the start it was clear that our personal 'must do' list will also include South East Alaska (specifically, the Anan Creek Bear Observatory and Glacier Bay National Park). At an early stage we decided not to take a large-ship cruise – we tried it in the past in the Caribbean and thought it would not be the right way for us. We did seriously consider a small-ship cruise, but decided it would be too expensive – a week or so of small-ship cruising would have eaten up a budget that would otherwise buy us 2 weeks of a 'regular' trip.

Glacier Bay

Eventually we decided on an itinerary that would include our 'must do' on South East, South Central, and Interior. The first and most important piece in the puzzle was - where and when to see the bears. We contacted Silver Salmon Creek Lodge 18 months before the planned travel date, and based on their recommendation we locked a 2-night stay in mid-August. The rest of the itinerary was built around these dates.

We booked our international flights and rental car in November, and the internal Alaska flights in January. By January we also had most of the lodging locked, as well as most of the activities. In general, we made our own planning and bookings, either by the lodging/attractions web sites, by email, or (in rare cases) by phone. The only exception was Gustavus/Glacier Bay where we let our lodging arrange our activities for us. We didn't have a single issue with a reservation lost or not being honored.

Transportation, Lodging and Food

Once we decided to include SE destinations in our trip, it was clear we will need to either fly or sail between them. We checked out the ferry schedule for our dates but there were very few options and none of them fitted our plan. As a result we ordered our SE travel from Alaska Airlines. In general their service was excellent, though as we found out, although they use modern commercial jets, their schedule is not immune to weather problems! Careful planning is therefore recommended to allow for potential delays. In addition , about 10 weeks before our travel, they notified us about a flight cancellation, which forced out to reshuffle our plan a bit and drop our Juneau day out of the itinerary. Luckily our damage was minimal, though we did lose part of a 1-day car rental deposit, which we made without noticing the small print.

For our land-based part of the trip, we reserved our rental car through hertz.com and got very good rates and terms. Quote was ~$460 for 8 days of rental, including all insurances and taxes. The only extra we had to pay was second-driver supplement (which was annoying since in many places this in included). But we were still happy with the deal (I believe they were tourism rates, US-based rates seem to be much higher)

We reserved our lodging based on TripAdvisor and booking.com ratings and reviews. We didn't want to overspend on lodging, but wanted to be reasonably comfortable, so in most cases we went for mid-range B&Bs or simple hotels. The only exceptions were again in Gustavus and  of course in Silver Salmon Creek Lodge, where lodging came as part of an all inclusive package. Similarly, this was never intended to be a 'gourmet tour', so we didn't splurge on restaurants either, but had at least one hot meal a day in reasonable restaurants (again TripAdvisor reviews were extremely valuable). In general, we didn't have a bad meal in this trip, but no culinary heights either.

Photography (for those interested).

I'm a keen amateur photographer and spent a lot of thought on what equipment to pack for the trip. I ended up taking 2 SLR cameras (Canon 70D and an older 550D). I took most of my shots using Sigma 17-50 f/2.8 lens (for landscapes) and Tamron 70-300 f/4-5.6 (for wildlife). In general I was very happy with the results (I hope you will be, too!).

I decided against buying an expensive super-telephoto lens just for this trip. But for our days in Silver Salmon Creek Lodge, I pre-arranged renting a Canon 100-400 f/4-5.6L II, from one of their guides (ask the owners about it if you are interested). This was one of the better investments in the whole trip since the results I got with this lens were amazing. I had a tripod with me but almost didn't use it, except for SSCL where the guide offered me to use one of his sturdy tripods to carry the heavy telephoto lens.

Denali

My wife is not a photographer but for this trip I got here a compact super-zoom camera (Panasonic TZ70/SZ50) with an x30 zoom capability. This turned out be another excellent investment since she was able to get amazingly sharp and colorful shots, shooting in a fully automatic mode.