American Travel Journal: Brooks Falls Hike Part 4 - Falls Platform

The Falls Platform is an elevated two-level viewing platform on land adjacent to Brooks Falls. When we visited on a weekday in early September 2022, the platform had so many visitors that a ranger had to ask people to give others a turn at the railing to view the bears.

The Brooks River is three miles long, draining Lake Brooks into Naknek Lake. Brooks Falls is a block waterfall about six- to eight-foot-high located about halfway along the length of the river. Migrating salmon have to jump the falls to reach Lake Brooks and one of the nine unnamed streams that flow into it. The indigenous people took advantage of the easier fishing at the falls and likely chased the bears away. They constructed large racks for drying the salmon to preserve it for later consumption.

If you’ve ever wondered about the differences between brown and grizzly bears, let Ranger Michael Fitz explain as quoted from the park webpage on brown bears:

All grizzly bears are brown bears, but not all brown bears are grizzly bears. The bears you are watching on the cams are brown bears. Grizzly bears and brown bears are the same species (Ursus arctos), but grizzly bears are currently considered to be a separate subspecies (U. a. horribilis). Due to a few morphological differences, Kodiak bears are also considered to be are distinct subspecies of brown bear (U. a. middendorfii), but are very similar to Katmai’s brown bears in diet and habits.

Even though grizzlies are considered to be a subspecies of brown bear, the difference between a grizzly bear and a brown bear is fairly arbitrary. In North America, brown bears are generally considered to be those of the species that have access to coastal food resources like salmon. Grizzly bears live further inland and typically do not have access to marine-derived food resources.

Besides habitat and diet, there are physical and (arguably) temperamental differences between brown and grizzly bears. Large male brown bears in Katmai can routinely weigh over 1,000 pounds (454 kg) in the fall. In contrast, grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park weigh far less on average. There have been no documented cases of grizzly bears weighing over 900 pounds (408 kg) in Yellowstone. Additionally, grizzly bears seem to react to humans at greater distances than brown bears.