Highlights of Alaska ?

another early start of 4-45 a.m. ! for a quick bowl of cereal before driving to Soldotna airfield, or more accurately Soldotna Lake, ready fro a Bear viewing trip in the wilds http://www.talonair.com/

Firstly we had to fly out to Lake Clarke national park,http://www.nps.gov/lacl/index.htm which can only be accessed by foot, or air – we had chosen air, and flew there on a small ‘float plane’ which lands on water, rather than land and then transfer to a small boat, for our guided trip with a guide out onto the Lake and adjacent river, in the hope of seeing bears feeding on the salmon, who had swum in from the sea to lay their eggs, and produce more fish . Before we had even landed the guide had seen a bear from the air, and we roared across the lake,hoping to catch sight of it. Immediately as we neared the shore we could see a large brown bear on the shore, closely followed by another..and another ! all of whom were chasing each other away, and then catching fish from the water- the bears paid no attention to us in the boat, even though we were only about 30ft away. We continued to watch this group of bears for some time, then moved along the lake to find more , and soon found a mother and two cubs feeding at the lakeside, what a sight  as the mother stood on her hind legs, to get a better view of the fish in the lake, eventually catching one, and all three ran off into the undergrowth to eat – the growls of the cubs could be heard, as they fought over the fish ,what sights, and all so close.. we just spent the morning cruising the lake, watching other bears fishing and feeding ,taking lots of pictures, not just of bears, but lots of bald eagles sat alongside, and other birds, but the long lasting impression was the mother and cubs, and watching the bears cashing the fish through the shallows,as they esacped !

All too soon our time was up, it was nearly 1230 p.m. and we made our way back to the landing site, and the float plane zoomed in to collect us, and take us back to Soldatna, and collection by Ryan

We then went for a short visit to Kenai, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenai,_Alaska the original Russian town in Alaska, and visited the original Russian orthodox church, where I had an interesting conversation with the minister there..

Then it was back to camp, for showers and an early dinner

and reflection on a great experience !

A satisfied goodnight