Alaska Bear Viewing Tours

There are several ways to view bears while on a visit to Alaska, the most popular being a fly-in experience across Cook Inlet to places like Chinitna Bay, Katmai National Park, or Lake Clark National Park. Many bear viewing trips are day excursions from Anchorage.

Each bear viewing tour has a season based on when salmon and other food sources are abundant at that location. Our reservation agents can help direct you to the best tour to take depending on when you will be in Alaska. Here's a general guide.

Chinitna Bay

• Late May through August
• Arrive by bush plane, beach landing
• Bear viewing by bus and on foot

The Chinitna Bay Bear Viewing Tour is a six-hour adventure from Anchorage's Lake Hood Seaplane Base, over scenic Cook Inlet, and past Mt. Redoubt. Your plane will land on the beach at Bear Mountain Lodge where you'll hop into modified buses for the short drive to viewing areas around Chinitna Bay. Here you can watch bears feed on clams, sedge grass, and fish among the waving meadow grasses and sandy wetlands. Experience a similar by slightly shorter excursion out of Homer via helicopter.

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Redoubt Bay

• Late June through July
• Arrive by floatplane
• Bear viewing by boat

Redoubt Bay is an excellent location to view brown bears, this time from the shelter of a covered pontoon boat. This six-hour excursion also departs from Lake Hood and provides a roundtrip flight, viewing opportunities, a dedicated naturalist guide, and a homemade lunch served at Redoubt Bay Lodge, a rustic retreat for fishermen and bear enthusiasts.

Brooks Falls at Katmai National Park

• Through July
• Arrive by floatplane
• Bear viewing by platforms, unguided, travel by foot

At two to three hours, the flight out to Katmai National Park makes this the longest of the bear viewing tours. On it you'll pass through some remarkable mountain scenery before landing on Naknek Lake. Here you'll have several self-guided hours to observe bears from the park's riverside viewing platforms. The whole excursion is about 11 hours long. Note that trips to Katmai are most often impacted by poor weather. If it's your hope to see the bears at Brooks Falls, we recommend leaving some open time in your itinerary in case you have to reschedule for weather.

Crescent Lake at Lake Clark National Park

• August through mid-September
• Arrive by floatplane
• Bear viewing by boat

The Lake Clark National Park full-day tour departs from Anchorage's Lake Hood in the morning and travels 70 minutes by air into the heart of this remote national park. Here you'll land on Crescent Lake near Redoubt Mountain Lodge for several hours of unrushed bear viewing by boat. The whole excursion is about 11 hours.

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