Why We Are NOT Brooks Lodge!

One of the questions we get asked most is “Are you af­fil­i­at­ed with Brooks Lodge”? You may have heard of them. Many of the icon­ic award win­ning pho­tos you see of a bear catch­ing a salmon were tak­en at Brook Falls. It is a place where dozens of bears gath­er every sea­son to catch the salmon head­ing upstream. It has be­come in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned for some of the best bear view­ing and pho­tog­ra­phy in the world.

Sev­er­al dif­fer­ent fish­ing and bear view­ing lodges oc­cu­py the area around King Salmon, Alas­ka, where Brooks Riv­er and Falls are lo­cat­ed. Brooks Lodge is just one of them, but giv­en its pop­u­lar­i­ty, Brooks Lodge has to run a lot­tery sys­tem each year for prospec­tive vis­i­tors to se­cure a spot. Once there, you are ab­so­lute­ly guar­an­teed bear viewing, and there are many raised plat­forms along the Brooks Riv­er to pro­vide a scenic view. The most icon­ic spot, how­ev­er, right at Brooks Falls can be so crowd­ed dur­ing peak sea­son that the Park puts a time lim­it on vis­i­tors and you must wait in line again on the board­walk for a sec­ond chance at that per­fect shot. While this may be many peo­ples idea of per­fect bear view­ing, the crowds and wait­ing in line are not for everyone.

So what makes us dif­fer­ent from Brooks? Here at Kat­mai Wilder­ness Lodge, we offer a more in­ti­mate bear view­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, of­ten with­out an­oth­er group or build­ing in sight!

While we reg­u­lar­ly see sev­er­al bears at a time we don’t usu­al­ly see dozens shar­ing the same riv­er. This also means that we see more of the bears that aren’t com­fort­able be­ing in close prox­im­i­ty to so many oth­er bears, such as moth­ers and cubs or ju­ve­nile bears just start­ing out on their own.

Al­though it is not un­com­mon to see bears around the lodge, it is not a dai­ly oc­currence. So we take our guests out into the field by pri­vate boat, with 6 or less guests to a guide. You will spend the day ex­plor­ing Kukak Bay look­ing for bears. Many times once we spot where the bears are con­cen­trat­ed, we will hike into the field to set up by a stream or mead­ow and watch our bears en­joy­ing the vast wilder­ness that sur­rounds them.

Breath­tak­ing moun­tain views and scenic Alaskan vis­tas will form the back­ground of your shot, no mat­ter how zoomed out you are! Our guides are in­ti­mate­ly fa­mil­iar with the area and the bears that live here and are unique­ly pre­pared to give you the best pos­si­ble bear view­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.

So Kat­mai Wilder­ness Lodge or Brooks Lodge? It all de­pends upon the type of bear view­ing that you are in­ter­est­ed in. Just like every spot in Kat­mai Nation­al Park and Pre­serve, there is a scenic and nat­ur­al magic about it. As for the crew at KWL, we will be out here with the bears en­joy­ing the qui­et and breathtak­ing views that surround Kukak Bay. We hope to see you out here!