The summer of 2007 was a fantastic bear year in Juneau.
If you visited the Mendenhall Glacier anytime between late-July and August of that year, you were nearly guaranteed a black bear viewing. There were 13 black bears concentrated in a roughly 1.5 mile stretch of Steep Creek, feeding on the spawning salmon making their way upstream. The raised viewing platforms of the Moraine Trail – originally built to enhance salmon viewing – proved to be a wonderful and safe way to watch the bears and their cubs go about their feeding.