Katmai National Park;

For years we've been watching the webcam at Brooks Falls in the Katmai National Park. If you've never seen it click here. It's a live streaming webcam, not still pictures.

We went to Brooks Falls to see the bears live. What an amazing experience to be so near wild grizzly bears.

We flew 10 to a plane in this float plane. The trip took 75 minutes. Les had the copilots seat, because he always likes to think he is in charge. The pilot had other ideas thank goodness.

The first thing we saw was this very large bear pretty darn close to us.

This bear had actually walked in front of us and the park rangers had closed the bridge we were trying to walk to. While we all waited for the bear to pass, it circled around us and appeared right behind us without making a sound. It was an interesting way to start the hike to the falls.

There were a lot of bears, all in pretty close proximity to each other. The fights over the territory and the pecking order all happened at the start of the salmon run, so each bear pretty much stays in a small area and they don't pay a lot of attention to each other.

The salmon jump up the falls like popcorn.

We were lucky to see two sets of mama bears with 2 babies each. For the day, at the falls, we saw 17 different bears. On the flight home, we went low over another area where the salmon run and saw about 12 more.

Mama and the cubs kept a close eye on the bigger male bears. They did some fishing, but didn't take any chances

On the walk back to the plane, we saw the large bear in the water above just taking a swim. We watched him for a while, and then the juvenile wandered to the edge of the water from out of the brush. The larger bear swam over to the edge and dispatched the youngster who didn't need to be told twice. They really are very fast when they want to be.