Day 56- The Lake, The Park And Other Things

My personal alarm went off at about 7:00 this morning. Carl announced he was up and if I wanted to find those bears I’d better get up, too. So, we each brewed a cup of our favorite morning beverage, I stuffed pop tarts, bananas and bottled water into the cooler and we were off. I chose left at the fork in the road, towards Chilkoot Lake State Park. By the time we got to the bridge I could see grizzlies. We pulled over just pass the bridge to see one sow and two year plus cubs. We watched, I took lots of pictures and we played leap frog with another photographer. He had a much bigger lens than I’m shooting with. It wasn’t long before a third cub popped up from the deep grass. There’s always one that strays further from mom than it should. The sow was digging up roots and tearing into logs while the cubs seemed to favor the taste of the berries growing along the shoreline of Haines Bay. I think we watched for more than an hour when the sow headed back towards the bridge. I was up on the bridge when she and the three cubs came up the side of the river and passed directly under the bridge. Both Carl and I crossed over just in time to watch mom swim into view, grab a salmon and begin ripping into it. Two of the cubs worked their way along the shore, taking tentative steps into the cold water while one of them buried it’s head deep in between the large boulders lining the shore. Then, the family moved up the river. You could tell where they were by how quickly the guys fishing in the river moved. We jumped back into the truck and drove up river to where I would have a nice opportunity to get a few more photos. There was a weir spanning the river with a guy in yellow rain pants tending it. I didn’t realize until the guy started yelling at us to get our truck out of the way. There were signs explaining the bears need their space and there was no parking allowed between the signs. One of the cubs tried to cross the planking on top of the weir and Mr. Yellow Rain Pants grabbed a shovel and started banging on it spooking the family into the woods. The ground where we stood was a mixture of bear scat, fish guts and uneaten heads. We followed the river further up stream to the mouth of Chilkoot Lake. There we parked and waited. I figured eventually the bears would work their way to that spot but after two hours there was still no sign of them. While I waited, I had an opportunity to take a photo or two of the area, a Bald Eagle in the tree in front of me and a pair of birds that I can only describe as black cardinals with indigo blue wings. When they flew, that brilliant blue just grabbed your eyes. I also chatted with a couple from Texas who had arrived on the Holland America cruise ship we saw in port earlier. I finally decided the wait had been long enough, we said goodbye and headed back towards the bridge. On a hunch, I asked Carl to go left, back over the bridge, and sure enough, there was another grizzly in the marsh grass. We spotted two older cubs with this sow. I had hopes this sow would be a bit more cooperative but moms are so protective. The first sow had been collared and one of the three cubs had been tagged. Sure enough, this sow also wore a tracking collar. Nothing I could do about that. And just like the first family, this one also worked it’s way towards the bridge and followed the path under the bridge. But, one of the cubs tried to come up on the bridge. A ranger arrived to help redirect bear traffic although she didn’t have to do anything because one of the guys in the small group of people who had gathered made lots of noise and told the cub to get lost. It worked and off it ran back under the bridge to catch up with the rest of the family. And just like the first bear family, this one also worked their way up the shore of the river towards the weir. It was then my battery died in the camera so we headed back to the truck. I didn’t feel too bad. The bears were out of my reach with the 28-300mm lens I have. I changed batteries in the camera and my heart sunk. I got an error message flashing on the camera. Nothing I did changed this and my heart came up into my throat. I’m thousands of miles from home, my camera is malfunctioning and no camera shop within 500 miles. It was a pretty quiet ride back to the camper. I’m not exactly sure what I did to stop the error message but it involved putting another battery in, changing the memory card and then formatting the card. Well, if I could do that, the camera wasn’t dead. I tried to take a photo in the camera and, at first, the auto focus wouldn’t work. I took the picture anyway and all of a sudden, the focus worked, the error message disappeared and I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I remembered when I put the new battery in I hadn’t shut the power off on the camera. Here’s a lesson for you. No matter how long you’ve been taking photos, there’s always something that can go wrong and there’s always something to be learned. Now, it’s lunch time and I’m downloading 154 bear pictures. I promise I won’t post them all on face book.