I spent the first 3 days at Brooks Falls. For those who don't know of this place you probably have seen the iconic photo of a fish jumping into a bears mouth. Tom Manglesen made it famous. Generally the salmon run from mid July into August. This year they were late as it was colder than normal and the water had not warmed up enough for the fish to spawn and go up to the falls. So I spend the first 2 days with bears, but not many salmon so the bears were fighting over the fish that were caught. They would devour the entire fish. Many squabbles broke out and many fish were stollen from less strong bears. Oh, over night after 2 days of no fish, the fish came. Great right, no they stuffed themselves over night with fish and by the time we arrived the next morning they were in the woods sleeping off a salmon hangover. So we then had lots of jumping fish and only a couple bears....

To view this you walk 1.5 miles to the falls and the viewing platform from the main lodge area. You are allowed 30 minutes on the platform at a time. You can then go back and put your name on the list again. I really felt bad for the day people who paid a lot of money for a float plane to Brooks Falls and had their flights delayed due to rain and fog. If they got there later in the morning and got on the list the wait could be 2 hours. There were times they had to leave to catch their plane back before getting to the platform. There was a lower viewing platform you could go to and look more upstream towards the falls. They would at least get to see that view.

I was with a group that camped at Brooks Falls for 3 nights in little pup tents. There was an electric fence around the campground and nothing smelly (except me after 3 days and no shower) in the tents. I just had to touch the fence to see how powerful it was....let's say it would not stop a bear. I think it is there more for show... bears did roam the fence line often. But they did not want smelly us, just salmon.

The biggest advantage to camping or staying in one of the few $1,000 per night cabins is that you are there for several days and before and after the float planes of day people leave there is no time limit on the platform and many less people. It is also light out till well after the 10pm closing time of the platform. The bad, 1.5 mile back to the main lodge another .8 or so to the campground. Download the days photos and fall asleep! Oh and it rained 2 of the 3 days.

This little series of photos shows how once a bear got a fish he was wary of others coming to steal it and the look when it was almost gone! This was taken before the fish decided to come and they were few and far between.