Summer of Bears

This past summer on our trip up to Alaska and back, we saw 27 bears, of which we got pictures of 26 of them.  The picture above is, by far, the best bear picture(s) we have ever taken.  When this mother stood up to the oncoming vehicle…well, the only way it could be better is if “we” were the oncoming vehicle, but we give bears more space than that whenever possible.  With so many bears, and even though all 26 have been featured in the blog as we saw them, I thought it might be nice to post a blog posting showing all 26 bears.  In doing so, I have tried to post pictures which were not posted previously.


Bear # 1 – Tetons, May 5th


This bear was seen near Jenny Lake in the Tetons.  I had gotten out of the car, which was parked in the Jenny Lake Parking lot, as I wanted to get a picture of the river and lake.  Shortly as I walked away from the front of the car a lady says to me, “There is a bear down there…”  Sure enough, the bear was down there, and it was going to cross the small river stream, and head right for me.  I got this picture through an opening in the trees…the opening that the bear came through a short minute later.  Of course, I was not there any more as I had moved away.


 



 Bear # 2 – Yellowstone near Old Faithful, May 7th

As we pulled off the Grand Loop Road headed east at the Old Faithful exit, there is a very large grassy field off to the right before the road takes you to the left over the Grand Loop Road headed to Old Faithful.  Out in the middle of this field we see this large Grizzly Bear.  We are in the HHR, so it was easy to pull off and get pictures of this huge bear with no other cars around.  Marcia must have taken around twenty pictures, lots to choose from, and when we pulled away, it was still out there on the grass moving slowly toward the tree line.


Bear # 3 – Yellowstone Grand Junction, May 8th

This grizzly was digging into the dirt, probably for grubs and other bugs.  It never would let us see its face.  A small crowd had gathered alongside the road, and it was probably its way of ignoring everyone.


Bear # 4 - Yellowstone Blacktail Pond, May 9th

This Grizzly was getting its fill of Buffalo.  We were driving from West Yellowstone to Lamar Valley via the upper loop.  There were twenty or more cars parked along the narrow road, lots of folks outside of their car, getting pictures of this bear.  We also got a picture of a Bald Eagle which was waiting for its chance to get some of the Buffalo too.  On our way back from the Lamar Valley, the bear was still there working on the Buffalo.  I talked to a lady who had been there all day and she said that it took about a 90 minute break from eating, laying near the carcass, but far enough away that the birds were able to get their share.


Bear # 5 - Kootenay National Park, May 15th

 This was our first Canadian Bear which we saw in the Kootenay National Park on our way to Banff.  They have no parking signs in this area, and we were driving the motorhome with the HHR in tow, so I did not dare stop…although I slowed to a crawl.  Marcia did a good job getting this picture as I drove on.




Bear # 6 - Kootenay National Park, May 19th



When we first drove through Kootenay National Park, we were in the motorhome, so we decided to come back and visit with the car.  As we got close to the Mt. Sinclair area on the way to Radium Hot Springs, we see this bear near the concrete barrier running along the roadway.  Found a place to turn around, and Marcia got a few picture of him as I again “crawled along” the road keeping within the spirit of the “no stopping signs” along the roadway.





Bears # 7 & # 8 – Banff and Yoho NP border, May 20th

  

These two bears were walking the tracks north of the Trans Canadian Highway at the border of Alberta and British Columbia, which is also near the border of where Banff National Park and Yoho National Park is located.  They were a few hundred yards away from the roadway, and this is the best pictures I got of both of them.


Bears # 9, #10 and #11 – Yoho NP, Emerald Lake, May 20th

While visiting Emerald Lake in Yoho NP, I was looking for bears along the side of the mountains on the other side of the lake when I see this Black Bear.  I point it out to a few others who have cameras which can zoom in, and having my shots, I find Marcia and we start to leave…I give it one more look through the lens and see a baby bear come out.  We turn back and as I get more pictures, the second baby bear comes out of hiding.  Above is a picture of it coming down the slope to mama.


Bear # 12 – Jasper National Park, May 22nd

When we drove to Jasper with motorhome towing HHR, it was snowing at the summit.  As we got close to Jasper it was a light rain, and we see this guy taking picture.  Yes, bear in there, but hard to see, look at the end of the arrow.



Bear # 13 & # 14 – Fort Nelson, May 26th

    

After driving 280 miles from Dawson Creek to Fort Nelson, taking over six hours at our slow pace, we set up camp, went out to eat dinner, and on the way back I decided we needed to do a side road to get a picture of the Muskwa River.  On the way back we spotted these two bears, about 1/4 mile apart from each other, alongside the roadway.  The one on the left was along the driver’s side so I took that picture, the one on the right was on Marcia’s side of the road, and she got it…getting a few fairly close as we gently drove by it.

Bear # 15 – North of Muncho Lake, May 27th

This bear was a few hundred yards away from us heading for the tree line.  By the time we got up to where it was, it had vanished into the woods.  Along the Alaska Highway, there is nice buffer between the road and the tree line through much of the way.  One has to constantly be looking straight, and to the right and left for the signs of wildlife…bears are easy to see.




Bear # 16 – South of Watson Lake, May 27th

This bear was also along Marcia’s side of the road, but the tree line was closer to the roadway, and this bear walked along the tree line for a good 1/10th of a mile.  As with many of our Alaska Highway sightings, we stop the motorhome, and no one else stops because there are no other cars on the road near us.  Sometimes car will come along, but many just keep on going, I guess they get used to see bears along the road.




Bear # 17 - 17 – South of Tutshi Lake, June 2nd

On our way back to the Alaska Highway coming out of Skagway we saw this Cinnamon Black Bear along the side of the road.  It was not there very long, and we were lucky to get a few shots before it shot off into the woods.  The Cinnamon Bear is a subspecies of the American Black Bear, native to the North West US, and Alberta, and British Columbia.


Bear # 18, # 19 and # 20 – Near Haines, July 26th

We thought we were going to “Strike Out” seeing any bears in Alaska.  As we got close to the Haines Border Crossing, we saw these three Grizzly Bears, a mama and her two cubs, running along the Klehini River which is a typical glacier river with lots of rocks along the banks for when the river swells during the spring or heavy rains.  The width of this rocky area is at least 250 yards wide, and the bears had a long way to go to get to the safety of the trees.  I first saw the mother bear, then one cub close behind.  Suddenly the mother stops and looks back and the third cub is spotted, sniffing around.  She must have given it a growl, because it starts running, and took 20-30 seconds to catch up to momma and its sibling.  I only got three or four pictures of all three bears together, and this one is one I had not shown before.


Bear # 21, # 22 and # 23 – Cassiar Highway, July 29th

This is the same set of bears as the opening picture in this blog…it by far was our most interesting, fascinating, longest sighting, and most cherished bear moment of our trip.  Driving the Cassiar Highway about 50-75 miles north of Meziadin Junction on our way to Hyder, I spot a black dot way ahead along the highway.  I slow down and quickly we see it is a bear.  We creep to under 100 yards away and stop…no traffic coming or going…and we enjoy a 15 minute encounter with what ends up being a mama bear with two cubs.  And when this blue car coming toward them, the mama bear gets up on her hind legs until the car stops.  We still had another 3-4 minutes with them before she takes them safely into the woods again.  15 minutes of our life which we will cherish forever.


Bear # 24 – Meziadin Junction, July 29th


After our earlier encounter with the mama and two cubs, this bear alongside the road at the junction of the Cassiar Highway and the Highway to Stewart/Hyder.  It pretty much just sat there as traffic went slowly by…as the traffic going slowly by looked at it.




Bear # 25 – Near Stewart, July 29th

This big bear was just walking along the road as we were about 4 miles out of Stewart, BC.   When we slowed to a stop, it stops and looks back at us…but for the most part it was ignoring anything that drove by.  As we drove by I tried to get an even closer shot of it, but that did not work out…and I wasn’t about to stop right next to it and roll down the window, that’s for sure.


Bear # 26 – Near Stewart, August 1st



This was, by far, our saddest bear experience.  This little bear looked so thin, its fur was in bad shape, and we could only hope that it was going to make it through the winter.  It was located about the same location as the bear we saw on the way to Stewart/Hyder a few days earlier.  It was the last bear we saw on our trip.




I have seen bears out in the wild since I was a young child.  Camping up at Lake Tahoe or at Yosemite…seeing a bear walk through the campground was not an uncommon sight.  However, seeing this many bear during our trip to Alaska and back was surely a special treat for us.

Stewart to Prince Rupert

True to form, as we left Stewart around 10 am, we quickly come across another black bear.  This bear did not seem to be in very good condition.  Clumps of hair on his back, thin, and probably just kicked out by mama to fend for itself.  it walked from the left side of the highway to the right, and off into the woods.  My pictures did not come out nearly as good as Marcia’s did…this one was the best view of it.  As quickly as it appeared, it was quickly gone.

Marcia also got this nice picture of bear river as it run toward Stewart and into the Pacific.  With all the glaciers, this river runs pretty fast all summer long.

She also got some great shots of Bear Glacier with the blue glacier ice even when the sun is not shining directly on it.

Those mountains on both sides of Glacier Highway are sure nice to look at…hard to keep your eyes on the road.  Soon we were back on the Cassiar Highway.

    

On the Cassiar we follow the Nass River for much of the way to Kitwanga, where we were planning to stay the night.  As with other rivers in this area, there are lots of lakes and creeks which are associated with the river system.

There are few communities along the Cassiar…two places to get gas during the entire 120 miles we covered.  A few times I had to drive the speed limit (62 MPH / 100 KPH) due to cars or trucks behind me…but mostly I like to travel at 45 to 50 so that I too could enjoy the scenery.  Also, if a moose or bear jumped out at the last moment, it is easier to miss them at this speed.

A short three hour drive and we are at the end of the Cassiar Highway, and we pull into the Petro-Canada at the intersection with the Yellowhead Highway that we will be taking over to Rupert the next day.

We then backtrack over to the Cassiar R V Park in Kitwanga, passing back over the Skeena River which we will follow all the way to Prince Rupert.  I did not get any pictures of the RV park, but it was a nice little park.  At first I thought we were not going to be able to stay there because their Internet was down, and we did not have a signal on our aircard at first…but it turned out we had 2-3 bars of fast 3G as we drove through to park to leave...so we ended up staying after all.  Most 3G in Canada is much faster than the 3G in the states, and I was able to post two blogs about the Cassiar that I had written previously, and I worked on another that night which I posted the next day.  We also had dinner at a nice little restaurant in town there, I think it was called the 37 Grille.  Food was good, service was friendly, but this year old restaurant does need to set it priorities toward service to the customers.  One waitress had to cover ten tables, and three take out orders while we were there…yet the lady owner was in the kitchen with a cook, a food prep cook, and a busboy/dishwasher who only came out to bus one table, leaving three others dirty, while we were there.  Four in the back while only one out front…not the way to run a restaurant in our opinion.

As we leave the park the next morning around 9 am, we get this shot of the Seven Sisters Peaks of the Hazelton Mountains.  I am sure, depending upon the weather, that we will get a better shot of these mountains on our way back from Prince Rupert.

    

      

With the Skeena River to our right for most of the trip, Marcia can’t put the camera down.  It is another gorgeous drive, but it has more traffic than the Cassiar Highway had, that is for sure.

At the town of Terrace, we pass over the river, and it is now on my side for the rest of the trip…and we start coming into the Coast Mountain Range again. 

   

    

The view after the town of Terrace is better than the view before…but the entire drive is real, real nice.  So many of these nice drives…it is going to be hard to drive across Nevada in a few months on our way back to Kansas City to see my son.

Yep, it was one heck of a pretty drive…and guess what…we “have” to drive right back through it to get home since we are not one of the many who come to Prince Rupert to catch a Canadian Ferry to Vancouver Island…a 16 hour trip to Port Hardy, with an additional 2 hour sitting in line and loading onto the ferry, all to save around 600 miles of driving.  Heck, I can drive 600 miles in 18 hours…and “if” we were to do it, it would cost around $2,000 compared to $250 to drive it.

We finally get to Kaien Island where Prince Rupert is at.  This is a shot of the Hecate Strait from a pullout once you get onto the Island. 

Prince Rupert has one RV park, with another RV park located in Port Edward, about 15 miles away.  Without cell phones, I could not call…and it was hard to decide which one to go to first.  I choose Prince Rupert RV Park, and it was crowded because there were many RVs in the park getting ready to get on the Ferry Wednesday morning.  We were able to get a “dry camping” spot for the night, and then move to a full service spot this morning (Wednesday).  It was fine, but you can hear each and every RV leaving from 4:45-5:15.  Since we did not have power, we decided to go out to eat Tuesday night, and ended up going to Theaann’s Greek Palace, located in the Pacific Inn.  Now normally we don’t eat at restaurants associated with a motel/hotel…but yelp gave Theaann's Greek Palace Restaurant 4 stars.  Well, we couldn’t agree more…all the food was homemade, and tasted real good.  We had a platter for two which gave us an assortment of many of their foods.  Wow, some of it was even better than what we get back home in Tarpon Springs.  Had leftovers that we brought home and we added some Salmon from Alaska and some lemon shrimp, and had another great meal tonight.  It is a husband and wife team running the restaurant, and he is Greek, and came out and talked with Marcia for a few minutes.  Looks like they are going to shut down in November though because the Hotel has raised their rent to a level they cannot sustain.  That's too bad...hate to see another "home cook" style restaurant going out of business...especially one this good.