RVentures with Doug and Chris: From Sky to Shore: The Remote and Wild Wonders of Katmai & Lake Clark National Parks

I’m not sure who promoted this furry fellow to beach patrol, but he was clearly on duty as our float plane came in.

Just down the shoreline, two juveniles were putting on a wrestling show complete with some pretty convincing bear hugs.

And off in the distance, the local “town crier” dashed away, clearly announcing to everyone that “The plane! The plane!” had arrived.

After months of planning, miles of driving, and a significant drain of our "fun" budget, we were ready for a “bear-y” good day.

From sky

to shore,

we were ready to explore

the remote

and wild wonders of

Katmai and Lake Clark National Parks

(OK, truth be told ... I was a lot more nervous than I looked in this photo!)

The Journey is (usually) as Fun as the Destination

Being able to set foot in Katmai and Lake Clark National Parks is not an easy (or inexpensive) feat. For most travelers, it takes months, if not years of planning. But for "last minute" planners like us, it somehow worked out nonetheless.

Here are a few options that we considered in order to visit these two remote national parks:

Option #1: Take a flight from Anchorage to visit one or the other park (but not both). The price range is $1000 to $1500/person depending on which national park you choose to visit. If you plan to stay overnight, lodging is extra. This option requires a lot of advanced planning.

Option #2: Take a day trip by boat from Homer to visit Lake Clark, but not Katmai. The price is approximately $800/person.

Option #3: Take a four hour day trip on a float plane from Homer to visit either one of the two national parks. The price is approximately $1200/person.

Option #4: Take an eight to ten hour day trip on a float plane from Homer to visit locations in both of the national parks. The price is approximately $1800/person.

We went with Option #4 and booked our trip with Beryl Air just four days ahead of time based on a favorable weather forecast.

Of course, Baby Beest and Mother Nature both sometimes challenge our best made plans ...

For the last few weeks, Doug has been noticing that he was slowly losing coolant. As we came into Homer, the "check engine" light came on. After investigating the warning code, he was fairly certain that there was a problem with the head gasket. While it needs to get fixed, he determined that it was still driveable, so we continued our national parks plan after making an appointment for Baby Beest at an expensive "spa" in Anchorage for the following week.

It was a beautiful partly cloudy day when we arrived at our campground in Homer the day before our scheduled flight. But by that evening, more clouds and rain moved in. We fell asleep to the van swaying not-so-gently in the strong winds. I was a tad bit nervous about flying in the small float plane to begin with and the strong winds definitely added to my anxiety. Thankfully, when we got up the next morning, we found out that our flight was canceled. With a bit of flexibility in our schedule, we looked ahead at the long range forecast and saw that the sun was scheduled to reappear in three days, so we were able to rebook and just hang out in Homer for a few more days

... while admiring the snow-capped mountains of the national parks across the bay.

The day of our tour turned out to be truly a "sun" day. With blue skies, scattered clouds, and light winds, we (along with our pilot, Annalynn, and another couple) took off in a six passenger Cessna 206 float plane. The views were amazing as we crossed Kachemak Bay and headed to Brooks Falls in the heart of ...

Katmai National Park.

Katmai is world famous for its brown (grizzly) bear population and has over 2,200 bears who call it "home". During the summer months, sockeye salmon make their way back to the area rivers. Because they tend to congregate in large numbers just before Brooks Falls, the largest concentration of Katmai's bears gather around the falls from July until September for the "all-you-can-eat" seafood buffet. The raised boardwalks and platforms make this the perfect location for park visitors to view this bear banquet.

When we landed our first order of business (after dodging our beachside bear "greeters") was to attend "bear school", a thirty minute class presented by the park rangers in order to ensure the safety of both visitors and bears.

After that we had a little less than three hours to explore the area. After a 1.5 mile hike,

we arrived at the iconic Brooks Falls viewing platform, and much to our delight, there were about eight or so bears out there enjoying the sunny day as much as we were. Although maybe a little unappealing to us, the bears seemed to thoroughly enjoy their raw salmon lunch.

After two hours and way too many photos ...

it was time to return to the plane in order to continue our flight. Next up ...

Lake Clark National Park

Lake Clark is often called "Alaska in Miniature" because it has a little bit of everything that Alaska is famous for ...

mountains,

glaciers,

rivers,

lakes,

and even active volcanoes.

Can you spot the steam coming out of Mount Iliamna?!!

Some scientists predict that another eruption may occur in the near future ...

And we flew really close to it!

While Lake Clark also has its fair share of bears, it's better known for its pristine and remote wilderness. Many outdoor enthusiasts venture there to escape into its solitude. One such person was Richard Proenneke, who built and lived in a primitive lakeside cabin from 1968 to 1998 after he retired from a successful career as a carpenter and mechanic.

After his death in 2003 at age 86, Proenneke bequeathed his meticulously handcrafted cabin and all its intricate furnishings to the National Park Service. Situated on the shores of Twin Lake, this cabin was to be the location where we could say that we "officially" set foot in Lake Clark National Park.

But when our pilot first landed on Twin Lake, we didn't think that we would be able to officially set foot on solid ground. The afternoon winds had picked up making it difficult to bring the plane to shore in order to disembark. And at the same time, the waves were making it difficult to take off, so for a moment, I feared that we would just drift out to the middle of the lake. But our amazing pilot literally took a deep step into the frigid cold water in order to bring the plan to shore.

A "refreshing" arctic dip ... all in a day's work for this float plane pilot.

While our pilot, Annalynn, held the plane lines secure and waited for the wind to die down, we celebrated being able to officially step onto the soil of another national park. We walked a short distance in order to find the Proenneke Cabin and found this slightly dilapidated structure that looked more like a storage shed than a historical building. I wasn't feeling confident that we had found the "real deal", but we took a "we were here in Lake Clark National Park" selfie just in case it was.

While the others hung around the plane still waiting for the winds to decrease, Doug and I decided to venture out on a shoreline trail in order to do a hike in this national park. And about a half mile down shore, we found the "official" national park treasure,

... and it was as uniquely constructed and well cared for by the park service as I imagined it would be.

The intricate handcrafted treasures that we found inside were icing on the cake! Richard's ability to design useful tools out of the items found around him reminded me of a few other engineering minds that I know and love ... namely my father and my husband.

After we returned to the plane, Annalynn was cautiously optimistic that the winds and waves had subsided a bit. I, on the other hand, was thinking that we may need to embrace the pioneering spirit of Richard Proenneke and use some "wilderness survival" skills to hunker down for the night. With a lot of determination (and a few prayers from this nervous passenger in the back of the plane), we were able to take off and enjoy some of our last aerial views of this incredible land and seascape.