How to Day trip to Lake Clark National Park from Anchorage

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Jennie’s article about day tripping to Lake Clark National Park from Anchorage

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Music credits:  Largo Montebello, by Domenico Mannelli, CC.

Transcript

Jennie Flaming: 0:00

Jennie, welcome to the Alaska uncovered podcast with me, your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming, my occasional co host and full time husband, Jay and I bring you accurate, helpful and entertaining information about Alaska, travel and life in Alaska, before we start the episode, we would like to thank our Patreon members for making this podcast possible. You can join them at the link in the show notes. We are so grateful for your support of independent podcasts. Enjoy The show.

Background Audio: 1:37

Lake Hood Tower intro audio

Jennie Flaming: 1:55

Hi everyone. Jennie, here. Today, I'm doing something a little bit different with this type of episode, and I would love to hear what you think of it. So in the show notes for all the episodes, there is a link to send a text message to me, and I can't respond there. So if you want a response, make sure to include your email. But I would love to hear if you like this type of an episode or not, and if I should do more like this. So today's episode, I'm going to just share a bit about my recent experience taking a day trip from Anchorage to Lake Clark National Park with Rusts Flying Service, and it was a really wonderful and unique experience, and combines a couple of things that people often ask me questions about, or often hire me to help them figure out, which is how to do something like Bear Viewing and also how to visit national parks. So today I'm just going to focus on this one experience I am going to have in about a month or so. Well, it'll be in December. So if you're listening in real time, a little further out than that, an episode where I'll be talking specifically about bear viewing options that are not at Brooks Falls. This episode will touch on that, but that episode is going to be more specifically about that topic in general. So I also want to mention, just for transparency, that rusts flying service hosted me for this experience. And what that means is, if you are, say, a travel writer or a travel agent or a podcaster or someone who has the opportunity to share about travel experiences with other travelers, sometimes you can be hosted for an experience so that you can share with other people what it was like. And so that was the situation with this trip I took to Lake Clark. So all the opinions I'm sharing are, of course, my own, but I did get to do this for free, and so that was pretty cool um, that often involves a long time of figuring out, you know, when it would work with my schedule, when they had space available, that kind of thing. So today I'd like to tell you a little bit about the trip, and I'm going to include a couple of short interviews with people that I taught to. Uh, while I was on this trip. So this trip is a float plane experience. Um, it's about so my trip was about nine hours total. It can vary quite a bit. So I would strongly recommend if you do this trip that you don't have anything else planned that day, so that you can have maximum flexibility around any weather related delays or cancelations. The weather was pretty rainy on the day that I did this in Anchorage. It wasn't rainy in Lake Clark National Park, but it was very cloudy. And so I just first of all want to tell you that just because it's raining doesn't mean your trip won't happen for a flight scene and for transportation and small planes and float planes, it's much more about visibility and wind, and so the rain, in and of itself, is not a big deal. So just want to let you know about that. Um, so the way that this trip works is you meet at Lake hood, which is very near and actually part of the anchorage International Airport, although you don't go into the main airport terminal to do this trip. So you take off from Lake hood, and it takes somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half to get out to where we went, which was Crescent Lake in Lake Clark National Park. I also want to mention that rusts and not only rest, but other companies that offer flight flight scene bear viewing trips have different options, and they're based on the different times of year. So bears move around based on where the salmon are, and so that's something you want to pay very close attention to if you're booking a bear viewing trip. And in this case, we were going to Crescent Lake, but rest and other flying services also take you to other parts of Lake Clark National Park at different times. So I did my trip the last week of September, which was, I believe, two days before the last trip of the season. So that is about the, you know, mid to late September is about as late as bear viewing goes. And so that's where we went. So that flight is about an hour to an hour and a half, it depends on what type of plane you're on. Some float planes are faster than others, and that's not something you're going to know in advance. It'll depend on a variety of factors, but primarily how many people are going, and how many planes are going, and that kind of thing. So then when you get out to Lake Clark on this trip, you go to the redoubt Mountain Lodge, which is on the shore of Crescent Lake, and you get to have lunch there, and they take you out on pontoon boats and to look for bears on Crescent Lake and on the creek that drains from the creek down out to the ocean, which is just a few miles away. So you mostly fly over the Cook Inlet when you leave Anchorage, and then through the mountains to land on Crescent Lake. So you're on a lake, but you're very close, sort of as the plane flies to the coast at this location. So what I really loved about this tour, and I'm going to just tell you that this is one of the best day trip tours that I have ever done in Alaska. However, it's probably not for everyone, so I want to explain a little bit more about that in general, and then I'll talk more about what the day was like, kind of step by step or hour by hour, as the case may be. So I loved the fact that this tour was long and gave us a lot of time to observe bears. That, to me, is what Alaska is all about, is just being and seeing what the natural world has to offer us when we're there. And this tour was, of course, not the only way to do that. You can do that absolutely for free, by just kind of being in any landscape in Alaska and just observing but this is really unique because it is so remote and so I. Far from any roads or towns. I thought that was really wonderful. However, if you are someone who needs to be on the go at all the time and moving quickly from one activity to the next, you're not going to like this tour. This tour is amazing for someone like me who really wants to experience a place and have lots of time to observe and just be and I've found that a lot of people who are into national parks, not everyone, but many people kind of share that orientation to travel. So I am not telling you that it it should be that way, or that's better, but just that that's what this is. So we spent a couple hours flying there and back. We spent about an hour eating lunch in the bear den at the lodge, and the rest of the time, which was about five hours, a little more than five hours we spent on the pontoon boat, going around the lake and looking for bears, and often just watching a group of bears for half an hour, 45 minutes. I found that really magical and amazing. But if that doesn't sound like something you want to do, I would pay attention to that. It was very different. So I have also been to Katmai, and I mentioned that I'm going to do an episode about alternative bear viewing. But for right now, what I will say is that Katmai is a longer flight. It's also a more move you along quickly from one thing to another kind of experience. The platform over Brooks Falls to sea bears is restricted to a certain number of people, and there's a ranger there, and they will not let you out onto the platform until it's your turn, and you might have to wait for over an hour or longer, and then you get a limited amount of time that you can be there, and you can go back to the line and that sort of thing. So I don't want to tell you that that scene bears at Brooks Falls isn't amazing. It is amazing, but it is a much more kind of controlled and busy experience with other people. And this experience at Lake Clark National Park was there were just seven other people who were on the plane and on the pontoon boat with our group. There was another group that came over from Homer with a different company, and we had lunch with them, so there were maybe 20 of us in the lodge for lunch. But this is a slower experience, small group kind of experience, so it's very different, and I loved that, but that's just a good thing that I want you as listeners and travelers to be thinking about if bear viewing or national parks is something you want, and if this kind of slower, more in depth experience is for you or not. So I loved it, and we saw 31 bears during our time there. I was told by our guides and pilot that that is a bigger number than normal. That's not necessarily typical. It's a bear viewing tour. So while wildlife viewing is never a guarantee, it is very likely that you're going to see some bears, but not always 31 look I saw, it was pretty remarkable. So let me walk you through the day a little bit, and then I'll finish up by talking about what I would recommend packing and bringing with you. So we took off from Lake hood. It was raining pretty heavily in Anchorage. We quickly got out of the rain, but we were still in the clouds, and you heard at the opening of the episode kind of what it was like in the plane as we were getting ready to take off from Lake hood. If you are not familiar with float planes, it's a pretty cool and unique experience to take off from a lake or a pond, sort of and then land on another remote lake. It's pretty cool. You wear a headset on the flight so partly to protect your hearing, because it's pretty loud from the engines of the plane, but also so that you can communicate with the pilot, which is really a wonderful part of the trip, is hearing what the pilot has to share with you about where you are and what you're doing, pretty great. So in our case, it took about an hour to get over to Crescent Lake in Lake Clark National Park. We. Ended, we flew over some spectacular mountains. We couldn't see kind of the highest mountains in the distance because of the clouds, but we still had an amazing view while we were flying in. Everything was sort of bright golden with kind of the tail end of the fall colors. It was really, really gorgeous. And I would for sure recommend September, partly because there's a lot of Barrows, but also the leaves are beautiful. Lots of birch trees and some willows changing color, really amazing. So once we got there, once you leave Anchorage, it's only pit toilets. There's not flushing toilets, although you can wash your hands, which I always really love, and there's no restrooms on the plane or the boat, but there are at the lodge. And so I'd recommend, if you are someone who needs frequent restaurant breaks, that you talk to your guide at the beginning of the day and ask them to bring you back so you can use the toilets throughout the day, which they're happy to do, but they don't necessarily do automatically, except at lunch. So I'd recommend chatting with them about that, and on our again, there were some other there was one other plane that came over from home, Homer, and they had a slightly different schedule, but this is the one that we did with rests from Anchorage, alright. So we got there, and we went out on the boat for a couple hours, and we saw bears right away. We observed them, learned about them. And one thing I love about an experience where you really get to spend a lot of time bear viewing is that you get to know their behavior a little bit, and you start to be able to anticipate, oh, that bear is just about to jump into the lake and catch a salmon, if you're really watching closely, and I really love that, or you'll see, you know, slightly different personalities of different bears moms and cubs, and kind of the difference between this year's cub and a yearling cub and their behavior, and it's just really cool. So we did that, and then we went back to read out Mountain Lodge, which is a remote place you can stay out there. I've never done that, but you can. We were just there to have lunch, and they made an amazing salmon lunch with rice and salad and brownies and hot drinks and all that. It was pretty cold. While I was there, it was a bit windy, not super windy, but there was some wind, and it was around 40 degrees. So we were ready for hot drinks and to kind of warm up inside. So we did that to hang out a little bit, walk around the sort of immediate area of the beach where the boats and planes are and what they call the bear den, which is where we ate lunch. I should also tell you that this is not a tour where you can wander off by yourself. It's not safe to do that in bear country, especially intense brown bear country, like Lake Clark National Park. So we could kind of explore that immediate area where the buildings were, but that was it. That was the only place you could go on your own. And once you were there, you definitely see why, like, why that wouldn't be a good idea anyway. So then we got back in the boat, and then in the afternoon, we were out for like, three or four hours. Again, exactly what you do is going to vary based on a variety of factors. But we went all the way up to the head of Crescent Lake. We saw two more bear families while we were up there. That was really cool. We saw Trumper swans. We saw an eagle, a more beautiful fall colors, and the cloud ceiling lifted a little bit. It was never like a sunny day, exactly. But we did get to see more mountains, sort of in the middle of the day when we were out there. That was really cool. And then eventually we came back to the lodge the beach at the lodge, that was around five. And then our pilot, Mike came over and picked us up and took us back to Anchorage. So I would love to share with you a little bit from Holly, our guide. While we were having lunch, Holly agreed to sit down with me for a couple minutes and just talk about her experience working as a bear viewing guide in Lake Clark National Park. So let's hear that from Holly. So I am here. I am at readout Mountain Lodge in Lake Clark National Park, and I am here with my guide today, Holly, who's been taking us out on this pontoon boat to look at bears, which has been super cool. So we're taking a little lunch break. So she said she would share a few things with us. So Holly, let's start with having you introduce yourself.

Holly: 20:24

Hi. My name's Holly. I'm a bear view guide here, and I've been doing this for two years now. My first time here was actually three years ago. I was visiting my brother who he got the job here as a fishing guide, and he's still here as well. I love my job. It's one of the best things I've probably ever come across in my life, and it's opened up a ton of opportunities for me, and I've been welcomed into this little, beautiful family of people, and it's such a we're like a well oiled machine here, and I couldn't even, I couldn't be moregrateful for it.

Jennie Flaming: 21:06

Oh, that's awesome. So how many people live here during the summer?

Holly: 21:11

We have 18 and 19 staff members here throughout the summer. We show up at different times depending on what our jobs are. The fishing guides pretty much show up here beginning of June, and just get right into it. The bear view guides like me, I show up a little later, around the end of June, beginning of July, and then some of us kind of come in mid July, but it's kind of depending on the season. Sometimes if we're needed earlier, we'll come out earlier. And if they're planning on doing more things off property and further away from the Crescent Lake, then they ask us to come up here earlier to help and be around on property. So it totally depends. It's, it's quite a full house. This is actually, I think, the first time we've had the most like this is the most amount of people we've had here. You mean as employees, employees, staff, like, the most amount of staffthat we've had here in a long time. Cool, yeah, a long time ago, it started out as like, maybe eight staff members, but it's grown quite a bit.

Jennie Flaming: 22:20

Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, so I would love to know what your favorite thing about this job is. And, like, just to review for everybody, this is what like, You welcomed us when we got here on our float plane, and then you took us out around the lake, and then we're gonna go out on the lake again. So like, what is your favorite thing about doing that? Because it seems like a pretty cool job to me.

Holly: 22:44

I would say my favorite thing is probably the people that I work with. It's it's such a treat to be able to meet so many people from so many different areas, and they're the most kind, the most caring. And I mean, it shapes the whole dynamic where we have great managers that care about us, we have great co workers that just want to support and lift each other up. And I mean, it's the most beautiful place I've ever been to, but I don't think it would be nearly as beautiful without the people that I work with.

Jennie Flaming: 23:21

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Who you work with is kind of everything

Holly: 23:25

it's like we're out here looking at bears every day. But my favorite thing to do at the end of the day is to get together with my with my friends here and talk about what we saw and, you know, laugh about the bears that we saw today, and just fun little things that we like to share with each other and like, oh, you saw that bear today, too. Oh, so did I? Yeah, that's definitely one of my my favorite things, for sure. Cool.

Jennie Flaming: 23:51

Love it. Okay. One last question, because I know we gotta get back out there and look for more bears. What is one thing that you wish people knew before they came out to go bear viewing with you.

Holly: 24:03

That is definitely a really good question. If it was just limited to the bear viewers that are coming out here to visit, I'd say maybe, maybe it would have to be that we're such a small little part of of this little of this world here. We're so small, yeah, like there's five acres here, but the area around us is so huge. But even just us, and how many people are coming in here, we have such an impact on our environment, yeah, just as humans. And I mean, we're here just like viewing the bears, but it's one thing I really do like to educate people about, is, like the impact that people have on on the area around them. And I mean they come in here, and I mean, it's my job to teach them about it. Yeah. And so even if they don't know about it coming in, that's okay, but you know that that might be one of the things, yeah. And,

Jennie Flaming: 25:09

you know, I think that's something I think about with many places in Alaska, and that we've talked about in a lot of different ways on this podcast, is like, this is such a vast place, and everywhere you go, it's just a tiny little corner. And you know, we're here at Crescent Lake, and it's a tiny little corner of Lake Clark National Park, which is a tiny little corner of even South Central southwest Alaska. So it's pretty wild Cool. Well, is there anything else you want to share before we wrap up Holly.

Holly: 25:42

No, just thank you so much for coming, and thanks for coming to look at bears with me. It's a total treat to me, and I just hope that it's as special to you as it is to me.

Jennie Flaming: 25:52

Yes, I think that is definitely true. Well, thanks for sharing Holly, and thanks for taking me out today. All right. Well, thank you again, Holly for taking the time to chat with me about your experience working in this extremely remote location, and thank you so much for a wonderful day and all that you taught us about bears and for driving and handling the boat safely and smoothly, and it was just a really wonderful day. Thanks to you. All right, we're going to take a short break, and when we come back, I'll share a little more about what to pack and bring, and a little more about the flight. Hey everyone. Jennie here, happy fall, this is the perfect time to get started planning your Alaska trip for next year. Most people wait until January, and then it's more stressful and harder, so you can do it then. But I just want to really encourage you to take some of those steps to get started with your plan for next summer, this fall, before the wild, busy holiday season and all that. So if you want some help, sign up for one of my planning sessions. They're $47 they're really fun. I get to know you and give you personalized advice for how to plan your trip in the perfect itinerary for you. So sign up for one today. The link is in the show notes. And by the way, if you're planning a winter trip, you really need to get on that, and I can help you with that too. So hope to see you over there. Now back to the show, and we're back. So we talked about the the boat, we talked about being there and bear viewing. I want to come back to the flight a little bit because this is something I found people often have anxiety about small planes, which is totally understandable. I will admit to being sort of comfortable in small planes, but it's exciting and fun, and I actually like it more than big planes, but I am honestly usually happy to have my feet back on the ground again as well. So a few things just to talk about. So first of all, weather. So small plane flights are subject to weather delays and cancelations in a way that big jets are not rusts. And any other flying company that you work with is really great about communicating with that, with you, about that, letting you know kind of how things look and what their plan is. That has been my experience with every flight scene company in Alaska that I've personally flown with, which has been quite a few. Again, you know, the plane is warm. It's heated. You could communicate with the pilot. Everybody has a window seat. So one thing about the flight is you don't need to worry about where you're sitting, because first of all, the pilot will tell you where you're sitting, and it's going to be based on weight and what else, what other things are on the plane and various things. So they're going to make the decision about who sits where, including who sits in the co pilot seat, although, if you want to sit there, you can certainly ask them if that's an option. So, but everyone will be able to see you'll be able to see great no matter where you're sitting. So try not to worry about that. It doesn't matter if you're in the back or the front. You know you're going to be in a plane with six or eight or maybe 10 seats tops. So yeah, just don't worry about that. I am always surprised on a tour. Now, this isn't always true if you're just flying between towns on a small plane, but. On a tour, the flight is usually pretty smooth. I mean, you often have a few bumps here and there, especially maybe going through a mountain pass, but it usually doesn't last long, and I'm always surprised at how smooth and calm it is. Of course, the weather can change and things change, but flight scene pilots are pretty skilled at making sure that you're going to have a good experience, both in the plane and when you get to where you're going. I'd like, I'd love to share with you a short interview that I did with our pilot, Mike, who did a great job. He has been flying in Alaska for a long time, and flying even in general, even longer than that. So let's hear from Mike about being a float plane pilot in Alaska. Okay, everybody I we just got back to Lake hood in Anchorage from our day in Lake Clark, and I am here with Mike, who is our pilot today. So first of all, Mike, thanks for a safe and enjoyable trip out to Lake Clark. Thank you so much.

Mike: 31:14

Yeah, there's still lots of bears out there. Yeah, yeah. It

Jennie Flaming: 31:17

was really cool. So I just love to hear well, first of all, introduce yourself and tell everybody how long you've been a pilot.

Mike: 31:27

Oh, well, my name is Mike Terrell. I'm originally from Georgia, but I come up here every summer, and I started flying in the air force during Vietnam and flew military planes, and then just rambled around job to job after that, having a good time,

Jennie Flaming: 31:44

right? So have you always been a pilot since then, professionally, or have you done other things also?

Mike: 31:51

I've tried to always be a pilot. Sometimes unemployment period. Yes, yes, that's real. I love flying. Hope to keep doing it. Awesome. So

Jennie Flaming: 32:00

how long have you been flying float planes like the one we were on today?

Mike: 32:06

10 years.

Jennie Flaming: 32:07

What's your favorite thing about flying?

Mike: 32:21

Well, it's just wonderful to be up in the air. I just like being up there and flying low over the ground. This time of year, you can see the fall colors, which is spectacular, yeah. And, and, you know, sometimes you get sunsets and rainbows and all these magic things that happen up in the air, yeah. And it's always a challenge to land at these different spots we go to, yeah, rivers and lakes and yep, on different conditions every time you go there and and talking to the people. I enjoy that, you know, having conversations, right?

Jennie Flaming: 32:55

Because otherwise you could fly like cargo or something instead of people on a tour.

Mike: 33:01

I like it when people engage me and ask questions, yeah, talk about Alaska and yeah, and it's fun. I learned from them as much as they learn from me. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming: 33:12

yeah. Awesome. Okay, one last question. What's something that you wish people knew before they came to Alaska as visitors?

Mike: 33:21

I wouldn't come with an open mind and just see what they see, and don't be sort of think it's going to be like television, you know, it's, it's always surprising when people think you're going to see lots of bears from the air. Yeah, we only see them generally on the ground like today. We got lucky and saw one on the flight back from Yes, yep, but it's not like you think it would be like herds of buffalo or right?

Jennie Flaming: 33:51

Yes, yeah, no, it's not like that. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Yeah.

Mike: 33:55

It's come with an open mind and enjoy the enjoy the ride. Awesome.

Jennie Flaming: 33:58

Well, thanks, Mike, thanks for a great day. You too well. Thanks again, Mike, for giving us such a safe and enjoyable day and for sharing your long experience with us. It was a really wonderful day. And thanks again for for everything you did for us. All right, so finally, before we wrap up this episode, I want to just share a little bit about what I would recommend bringing with you for this tour. And I think pretty much everything I'm saying here would apply to any all day flight scene tour. It would be a bit different if you're doing a shorter trip, or one with, say, a glacier landing, where you're only going to be out of the plane for a few minutes, but in this one where the plane is more transportation and you're going to be in a remote location on the ground for many hours, there's a few things. I think are really good to bring with you. And I'll include my Alaska packing link in the show notes, along with a link for rest where you can read more about the details of this tour, that sort of thing, but a few things specifically for this. So number one, you're going to be outside most of the day, so not in the plane, not at lunch, but otherwise, you're pretty much going to be outside. And it could be hot, it could be buggy, it could be cold, it could be windy, it could be raining. So you kind of have to be ready for anything. So no matter what the weather is doing in Anchorage. In the morning, when you're going to the airport, you really need to prepare for sun protection and cold. It's really important. So you're going to want sunglasses, sunscreen, that kind of thing. You're going to want some lighter layers, in case it does get warm. You don't want to be baking in a super hot jacket all day. The day that I was there, it was cold, um, it was windy, it was 40 degrees. So I wore a, like, a tech, like a workout top kind of thing from, you know, like Target or something nothing special, and a pair of leggings, and then over that, I wore rain pants, which I don't wear rain pants super often, but they are great for cutting the wind or sitting on wet surfaces. Sitting on wet surfaces is not really something you would do on this tour, but I wanted to have that option, and I knew it was going to be windy and cold and that the rain pants would be a great way to keep my legs warm. I also wore a soft shell jacket and a rain jacket, so I definitely recommend a layer between your like base layer, and your rain jacket. So it could be a fleece, it could be a puffy, it could be a soft shell, like the one that I wore. I would highly recommend having gloves. I had a pair of light gloves and a warm hat, but also a sun hat, and then finally, so I was pretty good with that. However, when we were going across the lake at one point, it was really windy and quite a bit colder, and the lodge had a rubber rain jackets, like giant fishing yellow rubber rain jackets. And I brought that with me, and I wore it for maybe that one half hour, and it was really nice. It wasn't raining, but it really helped with the wind. And so I would really encourage you to take advantage of that. And they're like, Hey, do you want to bring one of these jackets? I just put it on over my rain jacket when it got really windy, and I would really recommend doing that. So it was great. Well, I think that brings me to everything I wanted to share about this experience. I would love to hear, if you like this type of episode, doing kind of a deep dive into one specific experience. And so let me know, send me a text in the text messages and tell me if you liked it or not. Also, I just wanted to thank Russ Flying Service once again for one being a wonderful company that has provided many of my clients, many of my guests on tour, with an amazing experience, either in Lake Clark national park or in Katmai or in one of the other places they do bear viewing, or even just on their shorter flight seeing tours that leave from Anchorage. So thank you for being an amazing company to work with, and thank you so much for bringing me along for this really special day. It was really wonderful. And I think that's all for today. Bye for now. You