where are the bears?

Fully recognizing that you're looking for somewhere to drive to:

- Have you considered a bear-seeing airplane trip from somewhere along the route of your journey? I know that Los Anchorage, Wasilla, Homer, Valdez all offer such options?
- Agree with others....look for salmon runs and viewing opportunities where you're already headed...starting to get on the downhill side of things.
- Last year I took a couple of hikes out of Cooper Landing into the National Forest (that's all the detail I remember)...and found for the first time that the paranoid signs about bears were at least partially accurate.
- If one just wants to see Ursus without it necessarily being in a wild setting, I suggest that Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Portage as has already been mentioned.
- FWIW, there were a couple of black bears around my cabin and they should still be within 10 miles, but they were high-tailing it out after the booming of the shots into the dirt to scare them away. Not really road accessible though... :)

Hi Dom and Sue,
We ran across you guys in 2014. If I remember we helped change out that 5th wheel hitch in Haines.
Just jogging your memory but their should be a salmon run coming up. It was there the last week in August in 2014 and we a few bears then. If I remember one was called "Speedy".

Good luck and safe journeys'.

Week before last there was one black bear that showed up at the hatchery on Anchor Point in Valdez a couple of evenings between 7 and 10pm. Not every day and not on any kind of schedule.

I would call the ranger Station at Hyder to check on what is going on there.

We had more luck in Denali this year than anywhere else.

If you are just wanting bear pics the one place where you can drive and you are guaranteed to get them would be the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center on the Seward Highway about a mile before the Whittier turn off. They have black and brown bears, caribou, bison, musk ox, lynx, and a three legged porcupine, plus a lot of other critters too!

Good luck and hope you get lots of good pics!

We saw grizzlies last year in Valdez. Also on Kenai Pen. between Seward and Cooper Landing. And Haines, Hyder, along the Cassiar Highway...

Definitely check out where the salmon are running - that's where they will be. Check out Skilak Lake Road near Sterling (Kenai Wildlife Refuge). DH almost stepped on a grizzly cub at an overlook there...

On the Kenai around Cooper Landing along Russian river during salmon run.(grizzlies)
Stuart-Hyder highway west of Cassiar if coming back that way(black bears)

The best time to photograph bears is during the salmon runs. There's so many at these rivers it almost unbelievable.