I've always had some type of cosmic connection with bears... I joined Cub Scouts late and my first badge was the Bear, we moved to Hershey when I was 10 and I discovered ice hockey in the form of the Hershey Bears and in college a friend convinced me to attend a Grateful Dead concert and my life would forever after be connected to dancing bears. The first national park we visited was Great Smoky Mountain and the first day we drove through the park we encountered our first animals, a black bear sow and cub. Even now, I live in Elizabethtown whose high school teams are named - Bears!
The Brooks Camp along the Brooks River is the one place that I absolutely wanted to go to in Alaska. It provides unprecedented access to bear habitat including the Brooks Falls. There are only 20 cabins available so there are a limited number of visitors.
There are viewing platforms above the river and falls that allow you to observe the bears up close in their natural environment. Park rangers are on duty at all times to ensure everyone keeps their distance from the bears which sometimes resulted in the bridge over the river being closed for hours. Without a doubt, this has been the highlight of our adventure so far!
The first thing you do upon arrival at the lodge is attend Bear Etiquette School. They teach you to always stay alert for bears, never get closer than 50 yards from a bear, 100 yards from a sow with cubs, and always make noise or talk (hey bear, ho bear...) while hiking the camp trails. The first pictures I took of the bears was from the cabin area where you could see the section of the river where they allow fishing. The bears outnumbered the fishermen and these stupid humans refused to move out of the river, even when surrounded, until the rangers went out and threatened them with a citation.