To start with the Ugly: I'll skip most of the gory details, but booking my campground reservation through Reserve.America (a Canadian division of Ticketmaster) was a disaster. Spent at least four hours on the phone (in previous years with the former vendor it took five minutes online), made confirmed reservations, then they were canceled, and finally with the help of the National Park Service was able to get things sorted out.  Wonder how many just gave up?  A Big Thanks to the NPS staff both in Washington, DC and King Salmon/Brooks Camp.

The Bad: Flights between Anchorage and King Salmon on Alaska Airlines on this trip.  Usually I have had wonderful service with Alaska Air, but this year both flights were delayed.  The flight to King Salmon was delayed enough that I missed the last float plane flight on Katmai Air to Brooks Camp for the day and had to pay for a bunk in a cabin ($150) in King Salmon as well as having a site at the Brooks Campground.  I do want to thank the staff in the Anchorage Alaska Airlines Boardroom Lounge that helped me find a place to stay in King Salmon and keeping me up to date with flight changes, but it was still a mess.  Katmai Air was very helpful by getting me out to Brooks Camp on the first flight the next morning to minimize my lost time at Brooks Camp.   And my flight back to Anchorage was also delayed - I did not miss my next flight, but sitting in the King Salmon waiting room is not one of the highlights of the trip - though I did get to fly on the Alaska Air 'Alaska Seafood' big salmon painted plane (I heard this was paid for by US taxpayers through a congressional earmark).  Another Big Thanks goes to Katmai Air and the Staff at the Katmai Lodge.

F inally the Good: Everything and everyone at NPS, Katmai Air and Brooks Lodge for the help during my trip.

R ather than go though each day I was there, some of the highlights were:

Campground: new covered shelters and caches (caches could use skylights, they are very dark, even during the day).  Maybe in September the new outhouses will be set up.

Experiences:

Wolf: From the falls platform I watched a wolf come upstream to the small island in the middle of Brooks River and grab a salmon fillet before heading up the path on the other side of the river from the platform.  In at least 10 trips to Brooks I had never seen a wolf before and to see it grab the fillet was great (photos posted).  I understand that a couple of days before I arrived the wolf spent about an hour in the river catching salmon rather than just picking up the fillets.  Too bad I missed that. (If I had been able to get the reservations which I originally wanted and had been told were available, I would have been there - thanks Ticketmaster!)

Chasing Salmon: One of the sub-adult bears (probably 4-6 years old) managed to chase a bunch of salmon up on a sand bank on the side of the river and seemed almost confused as what to do with all of the salmon flapping up and down on the sand.  Which one to grab first?  (Photos posted) It didn't take long for other bears to spot the salmon and soon they were all cleaned up.

Bear Jams: The water level in the river was low, very low, and the salmon run was strong, leading to a lot more salmon jamming up in the lower river area near the bridge that must be crossed to go from the campground/lodge area to get to the platforms.  I had a couple of days were the bridge was closed for four hours (or more).  The bears would seem to disappear and we would approach the corner where we could see the bridge and then the bears would show up again, sending us back to the lodge area.  Even had to go through the bushes one time carrying all of my camera gear, tripod, etc, when bears were coming from both directions on the trail.  While this wasn't good for photography, it was a new experience to spend so much time going back and forth just to try to cross the bridge.

Fish Jumping: Also got my first shots of salmon jumping out of the water to escape a bear who was lunging into the water trying to catch them (D2X_4993.jpg).  I ended up with several shots where you can see the fish trying to get away.

Bear Charge: While after the event the ranger said he thought the bear had been spooked by another bear and wasn't really charging us, it still raised my pulse to a very high level.  Heading back to the campground, after spending a couple of hours in the Lodge downloading pictures and beer (Alaska Amber, expertly poured by Jason at the Bruin Lounge), I spotted a couple of sub-adult bears going from the beach trail on the side of the lake onto the campground trail that I had to take to the campground.  I went back towards the lodge area and saw one of the rangers who was heading down to the campground area as he had heard of the problems.  Rather than taking the campground trail and possibly meeting the bears we tromped though the woods on the back side of the campground hoping to bypass the bears.  We got almost to the gate of the campground (electric fence that deters, but doesn't stop the bears) when one bear came up behind us very rapidly.  The ranger shouted and kicked dirt at him and when he (the bear) was within about 8 feet he veered off.  It seemed to me he was charging, but as I said above, the ranger thinks the other bear behind him just spooked him a bit.  I'll never know, but will remember the experience for a long, long time.  Having 500-600 pounds of coastal brown bear heading towards you at full speed is an experience you only need once.