The flight to Lake Clark NP (only accessible by boat or plane) was one hour and 15 minutes. Lake Clark is the third least-visited scenic national park. It has no visitor center. Our plane was a 6 passenger single engine plane with fat tires. We flew at a low altitude along the coast on a glorious, sunny day. Shortly after takeoff the pilot directed our attention to the left to see a great view of 20,310 ft Denali. Seeing Denali was very exciting. On our previous trip to Alaska, Denali was always hidden by clouds so we never got to see it.

Flying at this low altitude, we spotted pods of beluga whales, their white heads bobbing in and out of the ocean below. We also saw two islands packed with seals.

The pilot landed the plane right on the beach of Chinitna Bay, close to the shore where the sand was packed the hardest. Because the bay is tidal, we landed on the beach instead of taking a floatplane.

The bear viewing experience at Lake Clark was very different from Katmai. There were far fewer people. And although we were observing brown bears in both parks, the bears at Lake Clark are coastal bears. Food at Lake Clark is plentiful, so there is less competition and the bears are consequently less aggressive towards each other. Also, we did not get as close to the bears, since there were no fortified viewing platforms.

The tidal bay was at low tide when we arrived, so we first went to the mud flats to watch the bears as they dug for razor clams. I was surprised that the bears could open these small clams (the blue shells were about 3 inches long) with their claws. The bears seemed to ignore one another even though they were within close proximity to each other.

Next we went to a designated viewing area by a salt marsh. There we watched several bears eating tender spring grasses. It was just like watching horses grazing in the meadow, except here it was bears. We went to a third designated area, but there was little bear activity, so we did not stay there for long.

Not wanting to eat lunch in such proximity to the bears, we hopped back into the plane, flew about 10 minutes, and landed on another beach with a beautiful view of Redoubt Volcano.

We had another nice flight back to Anchorage. Then we went to the kennel to pick up Sandy and Pilgrim. They were happy to see us, of course. One of the helpers really took a liking to Pilgrim.