Our Life in Alaska and Beyond

The next day Scott took his dad on a salmon fishing charter on Knik River. They lucked out with beautiful weather, and they caught their limit! I was working and Kay watched the girls, but that evening we all made some delicious salmon tacos for dinner! We figured the fish made it from river to table in about two hours, haha! Can't get much fresher than that! Yum! 🐟

Living the dream! 😁

Just a few extras from July 2024. Such a fun month!

Friday Fling in Palmer. This peony was huge and so pretty! 💗 7/12/24

At the end of July Scott got to go dipnetting several times with some of his coworkers. They went to Fish Creek (just down the road from us) and the were very successful! They got a ton of salmon and our freezer is full of delicious reds and silvers. We've already enjoyed several yummy salmon dinners. Thanks Scott!

The first night they went out there was this beautiful rainbow 🌈

The next couple days we spent in Valdez. We had beautiful weather and loved spending time together in the camper van! I think if it weren't for covid we would have spent more time walking around Valdez in town, shopping and stuff, but we still had fun! We walked around the harbor, did a short hike above the Civic Center (where we found lots of salmon berries), and camped across the water, over by the hatchery. We loved Solomon Gulch Hatchery we were could watch huge sea lions eat salmon after salmon after salmon! (See my IG for videos!) Enjoy these pics! 

I couldn't get enough of the beautiful blooming fireweed!

Scott and I had the amazing opportunity to go on a day trip to Katmai National Park! All of Alaska has seen a decline in tourism this summer and so lots of companies have been doing specials for Alaska residents. I saw that Katmai Air had a 25% discount for a day trip from Anchorage so once my parents made it up here I jumped on booking this deal for us! Even with the discount it was still pretty expensive, but in my opinion it was definitely worth it as a once in a lifetime opportunity! (Although I'd love to go back, haha!) 

It worked out perfect with my parents watching the girls so Scott and I could fly out of Anchorage early in the morning, and then we made it back by late that evening. We first took a small nine passenger plane to King Salmon, and then from there we got on an even smaller float plane (it was just me, Scott, the pilot, and the copilot!) to Brooks Camp at Katmai National Park! We landed on Naknek Lake, right at Brooks Camp and the NPS Visitor Center. We had a quick bear safety orientation by a Park Ranger, and then we were free to explore the park! Most of the time (and where most of these pictures were taken) we were on one of the viewing platforms, so we were close to the bears, but we were safely above them. However, to get to the platforms we had to walk on the trails and the most famous viewing platform (Brooks Falls)  is about a mile from the visitor center. We had a close encounter with a bear while on the trail, but we were able to let it safely pass, giving him plenty of room, and it was all good! 

The best part of Katmai was just how many bears there were! I had no idea we were going to just see them everywhere! It was truly amazing! We probably saw about 50 bears total. I've read that they are able to tolerate each other, being so close, and they're not as aggressive (as say grizzly bears in Denali) just because of the abundance of food (salmon) available. There was definitely no shortage of salmon as you'll see! Enjoy all these amazing pics!!! (Also, huge thanks to my friend Britta who lent me her 70-200mm lens. I was going to rent a lens, but it wasn't able to be delivered on time, so she definitely saved the day!)

I've tried to identify some of these bears by using pics from the Katmai NP FB page, the 2019 NPS identification guide, the Meet the Bears of Fat Bear Week 2020 guide, and remembering info from the Bear Monitor, who was on the Falls platform the second time we were out on the platform. I've probably got some wrong, but it was still fun. I love these bears so much, haha!

One of my favorite pics of the day 🐻On the Falls Platform