Pack Creek

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Saturday July 28, 2012 Tracy Arm Cove to Windfall Harbor

I picked up a message on the SAT phone followed by a call to Keith brought news that Ruth is in the hospital with a pulmonary embolism. Our on-board doctor and friend encouraged us that now that she is being treated she is “out of the woods” yet we feel very far away. Yesterday these mountains were things of beauty and grandeur. Today they are infinite barriers between us and home. The sea is thicker and harder for Little Liza to push against.

I chatted again with a cruise ship, the Sea Princess, coming out of Tracy Arm and I altered course so he could make a smooth turn into Stephens Passage. Another peaceful cruise took us down and around corner, a sea-level switchback into Seymour Canal. I scan the shoreline for bears, the engines are steady and the water is flat. Course can be changed easily with a couple of clicks of the auto pilot. Seymour Canal is not such a deep channel with lower hills on either side. * and + signs on the chart (indicating rocks) remind us to stay in the middle. But looming off in any direction are those snow-covered ranges, mountains beyond mountains. Solitary whales feed along the deep edges of this large inlet. They lay on the surface or take three breaths and then are gone for ten or so minutes. We did find a whale that was feeding, rounding up fish and then diving down and rolling in them. Lots of sea birds were milling around and we saw bait fish flashing on the surface so it wasn’t clear if the whale was feeding on the bait fish or on the krill that the bait fish were eating, I think that they eat both. We just shut the engines off and drifted with the whole scene.

Windfall Harbor was lined with grass flats and rivers just right for bears and we soon found on meandering along the shore. Fish were milling around at the entrance to Windfall Creek so Denise and I pushed up as far as we could and found them all around us until the water was boiling with them. Denise cast the lure into schools and caught a big humpie (pink). Everyone walked the shoreline to the creek and Denise and I followed it up to see the salmon working their way up to the nesting areas. They would school, resting except to hold themselves in place then in a burst of movement scoot up the shallows to a deeper spot where they could rest. I would like to know just where these fish go by the thousands to spawn and die. Maybe the bears wait for them there. Bald eagles sat on the bank, waiting for their carcasses to float back to them. Denise filleted the salmon and Tim barbecued it but no one liked it so we ate the crab instead. Aaron, a forest ranger came to tell us about the bears. We found out about tomorrow’s schedule and peppered him with questions.

Sunday July 12, 2012 Pack Creek

We took our twenty minute Bullfrog ride from Windfall Harbor to Pack Creek over water so smooth it was like ice skating on the Zider Zee. Harry, our Forest Service Guide, met us on the beach, where we unloaded then tied to dinghy to a line on a system of pulleys that pulled it back out into deep water where the bears wouldn’t be interested and where the tide wouldn’t ground it. Harry was orienting us on how to behave around bears when out from the forest came a sow and two one year-old cubs who proceeded to frolic up the beach toward us like we didn’t even exist. Mama guided them on up the beach and we decided to hike to the observation tower this morning and do the estuary observation area this afternoon. Up through the rain forest on a nicely maintained trail we hiked for a mile as it circles back to Pack Creek. We climbed a tower overlooking the river full of spawning chum salmon going through their last hurrah. Their carcasses littered the sand bars where eagles, ravens, and gulls were cleaning up the mess. We were there to see bears but I was equally fascinated by this cycle of birth and death and the interrelatedness of living things. Salmon beyond count were returning after two years to where they were hatched. I found it interesting that these were a different species and a different run than the pinks that we watched (and tried to eat) last night. Two rivers only a few miles away and each of them were unique. Chums by the hundreds within our view, pointed upstream, many being torn to pieces, some fresher looking, some paired in breeding or thrashing about protecting their nests, biting would-be interlopers with their hooked mouths.

One bear wandered up the creek so stuffed with salmon she was doing catch and release and a while later another female ambled back down, different we knew because the second was wearing a tracking collar. She wandered down the stream then climbed an alder tree – a big bear in a thin tree. More humans climbed the viewing tower and we hiked back down the trail to the Bullfrog and back to the Little Liza for lunch.

Back at Pack Creek another “beautiful bear” and her dark, little cub walked up the beach and then back so we just sat on the beach and watched. We met Aaron at the viewing area and found ourselves surrounded by bears actively doing what bears do and we spent the rest of the day there. In all we counted seven of them and watched them interact long enough to identify their social hierarchies. A couple of “sub-adults” (adolescents, 3-4 years old) got very close to us first grazing, then playing, standing and cuffing each other like boxers, then biting like puppies. They got closer and closer, disappearing and reappearing until they were within fifty feet. Rangers keep telling us that Pack Creek bears are habituated to humans and we are considered by them to be sort of a benign presence. This means that we behave as they expect us to behave keeping to our reserved space and distance. We do not approach them but neither do we back away. Rangers carry rifles and pepper spray but say they have never used them.

Highest on this particular social bear was a female and her spring cub. If there had been a big male around mom would have left (like we saw in Red Bluff Bay). Apparently Pack Creek is not home to big males and more of them hang around Windfall Creek or Middle Creek. Mama bear was fishing and would catch one and feed it to baby bear who would chew on it and then drag it around and leave most of it for the eagles. I never saw a bear all day that ate a whole fish.

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Photos

Pack Creek
Mom and cub on the beach

Pack Creek
Bear fishing in Pack Creek

Pack Creek
Young Brown Bears playing

Pack Creek Bears
Young bears fisticuffing

Pack Creek
Bears viewing

Pack Creek
Eagle feeding

Pack Creek
Pack Creek is full of spawning salmon and bears

Comments

[Sue & Ken]

Looks like you are staring in a nature movie!!! So sorry to hear about Ruth, but she should be on road to recovery. A friend here had one last spring. Only scary at first...hugs

[Tom Hazelton]

WOW!
Surely you are living a Dream! The pictures are fantastic, although I doubt if they do justice to the real majestic beauty of being there. I read through your outstanding blogs, as you paint a fine picture of your adventures that you are being treated to some of the Nesper's finest cuisine. Lisa and I can attest to that, they are both wonderful chefs and very creative as well. Tell Denise and Tim all is well in San Clemente and we are envious of their latest and greatest adventure. We are surely blessed to have great friends like them, as they are blessed to have friends such as you! That is all for now, as you continue the journey, be safe and may God Bless! Love Tom and Lisa