Anan Creek Bears

Another exciting night as we docked to another boat in the middle of the passage to transfer a passenger having a medical emergency. It turned out to be a nasty reaction between their blood pressure meds and the OTC motion sickness patches and they were already doing better the morning after we dropped them at a hospital.

Today is the excursion that I kind of planned this whole trip around and there's no way I can cut it down to just ten photos, so a second photos only post will follow.

Anan creek is about an hour by speedboat away from Wrangell, where our cruise was docked today. It's known for being a place you can watch both black and brown bears fish during the salmon run, without needing a float or bush plane to access. The forest service has built up a viewing platform and photo blind, along with a nice trail from the point where the boats let you off.

It was incredible! We saw about a dozen different bears over the time we were there, including a tiny cub! I think we saw nearly every one of them catch and eat salmon as well. After watching them for a bit, it was possible to see certain bears' fishing strategies and the pecking order. We were also so close to the action, especially down in the photo blind, with the bears practically within an arm's reach.

We weren't sure this was going to be worth it, since we've now seen bears in a few places, but it totally was.Read more