Alaska, Part 3: Anan Wildlife Observatory – Bears! (July 13)

Every day there was one included excursion on the ship, but each day had several "premium" excursions. (What a shock!) I saw there was one excursion to a wildlife observatory where you could see bears, and I thought this was the one excursion Vic would have really loved. It was also the most expensive excursion. (What a shock!)

I am a legendary noodler when it comes to making decisions. Should I buy this thing or not? Should I go to this place or not? And even when I decide, I keep noodling. Should I get this color or that? Should I get this brand or that? If I had died first, I guarantee you this would be the thing that Vic would have missed the least. And the part of this particular character trait he hated most was how, even once I make a final decision, I might still offer up a new option. This was most common among our restaurant outings.

Me: Do you want to go to Chili's, Red Robin or Buffalo Wild Wings?

Vic: Chili's sounds good.

Me: OOH! Or Texas Roadhouse? I forgot about that.

Vic: 🤬

But back to the bears. I knew I really wanted to go, and I don't know why I didn't make the decision right away. It was just noodly me, I guess. Anyway, you can tell by the title of the post that I decided to go, and man, I was not disappointed!

The Anan Bear Observatory is located in the Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in America. It is 30 miles from Wrangell, and it took us an hour to get there in a speed boat. (And although Vic would have loved the destination, he would have hated the journey—he wasn't great on boats.)

I'm fine on boats, however, and even though it was a long ride, the scenery was still beautiful:

My second seal sighting!

The speed boat trip is followed by a mile-long hike up to the observatory. It was not a difficult hike—uphill all the way but a gentle slope, and I didn't need hiking boots (which was good because I don't know where I would have put them—everything I carried was packed to the gills!). It was a beautiful day, with the sun shining all day long.

We passed this plant, which our guide told us not to use as toilet paper. You can't see it (sorry—remember, I'm not the photographer in the family), but the leaves and the stems are basically covered in spikes.

At one point on the hike, our guide stopped. No big deal, just a bear that wanted to cross in front of us with no barriers between us and her. 😬 (This is maybe 50 feet from me.)

Finally, we got to the sign! Taking a picture in front of the sign was a time-honored tradition in the Love family, and I was not going to pass up this opportunity. (Jeremy the photographer snapped this shot.)

I know what you're thinking, and the answer is no, I don't know why I took my purse. (Oh, wait—it's because I'm my mother's daughter.) OH! Now I remember! It's because I wanted to take a pair of binoculars and my real camera, and I didn't want to take a whole backpack.

The observatory is basically just a deck like you'd see on the back of a house, but with bears. It hovers over the river where the bears are fishing, and there is a duck blind that goes down to stream level that was really neat.

Immediately, I see a bear:

This bear is about 10 feet from me, but we are separated by the fence surrounding the deck. A lot of people asked if I was scared being that close to a bear, and I always replied, "No, because I am not a salmon." And I can tell you, that is all the bears cared about.

This is my favorite solo bear picture that I took.

And my favorite of the mum and her two cubs.

I also took a lot of the bears mostly trying (and not succeeding) to catch salmon. But here's a video of a successful bear!

This was also the best place I saw eagles. I mean, I literally saw bald eagles at every stop. They're to Alaska what Canada Geese are to Colorado. But they were particularly happy here, and this was the only place I could take pix of them sitting around instead of flying away from me.

I was really excited to get this picture of a juvenile bald eagle. I feel like we see a decent number of adult bald eagles here in Colorado, but I've never seen a juvie this close. This young one was just gorgeous, and I was happy to get him with a bear.

No, I 100% did not take this picture. One of my shipmates AirDropped it to me, and I wanted you to see how beautiful they were when taken by someone with a nice, long lens on her camera.

Join me on the next post when we see whales!