HANGIN' WITH THE BEAR AT PACK CREEK
Today, we take a 25-minute float plane trip from Juneau to Pack Creek Zoological Area on Admiralty Island – one of the few areas on the planet where wild brown bears live freely while ignoring the people watching them. This is thanks to Stan Pierce, a man who lived here in a cabin for nearly four decades beginning in 1952, co-existing with the bear. Pack
Creek is now cooperatively managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Alaska Fish & Game.
Our excursion begins at the Juneau airport, where we meet our guide, Ken Leghorn, owner of Pack Creek Outfitters. Ken supplies us with a box lunch, water, and knee-high rubber boots -(standard Alaska footwear, we’re discovering).
Creek is now cooperatively managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Alaska Fish & Game.
Our excursion begins at the Juneau airport, where we meet our guide, Ken Leghorn, owner of Pack Creek Outfitters. Ken supplies us with a box lunch, water, and knee-high rubber boots -(standard Alaska footwear, we’re discovering).
The flight is an up-close-and-personal experience with heart-stopping gorgeous scenery combined with noise and vibrations of the small Alaska Seaplanes float plane. Our guide has a great eye, and points out killer whales surfacing in the water as we fly over.
When we land, we hop out of the plane into the water and wade onto shore, where we’re greeted by a ranger. Our guide and the ranger make sure all food is left in a bear-proof box. The balance between the bear and people is maintained by ensuring that people are never correlated with food in the bears’ minds.
Our float plane takes off and leaves us for our five hour Pack Creek excursion.
Our float plane takes off and leaves us for our five hour Pack Creek excursion.
We proceed to hike about a half mile, hearing crunching under our feet as we walk along the beach that’s covered in clams. It looks like a high-end buffet for the bear.
Our hike ends at a viewing area with a log to sit on, a nice spotting scope, and another ranger. We get cameras out, sit on the log and check out our surroundings. There’s still a little evidence of Stan’s cabin, which was left to ‘return to the earth’ after he passed away in 1989. He lived in paradise, albeit a remote one with long, cold winters and no pizza delivery. The mountain backdrop frames Pack Creek, which meanders along the valley. We sit for a few minutes. There’s a slight drizzle; fitting weather for this remote rain-forest area. It’s warm and comfortable, and we’re prepared with rain gear.
We’re here pre-Salmon run which begins in July, so after settling in for about 15 minutes, I wonder whether we’ll see bear today. At that point, our guide tells us to turn around, and we see two bear approaching us from the wooded area next to the beach. It’s likely that we just walked within a few feet of these bear without seeing them.
The rest of our five hours at Pack Creek fly by. With the exception of a short hike to the food box and a lunch break on the beach, we watch bear continuously. A bear lounges on the beach while we walk past on our way back to the viewing area.
The bear appear to be oblivious to us. They’re VERY aware of one another, however. Bear hierarchy is obvious as two small bear, likely yearlings, take off across the meadow to put distance between themselves and a larger, ambling adult.
The flight home is rainy, giving us the true sense of the lifestyle and experiences of the many bush pilots who provide the foundation of transportation in these remote areas.
This has definitely been a day well spent.