Nature, Travel, and Adventure Photography by Carl Donohue
Category Archives: Adventures
Adventures and adventure photography. Could be travels and trips to remote places like Alaska or Patagonia, or it could be outside sports, such as whitewater kayaking, mountain biking, backpacking and hiking, dog mushing, trail running etc.
A backpacker walking in the Aquarius Valley, Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska. Few of the visitors here ever get this far back up in the valley; it’s a bit of a mission to get way back here.
Hey Folks,
Looking over a few old Image folders on my hard drive I found this photo (among others) that I hadn’t yet processed. This one I took on a hike in Gates of the Arctic National Park. We backpacked up into the subalpine area with 5 people, and did a combination of basecamping/dayhiking and backpacking. It’s rugged, steep country, and can be challenging underfoot.
This dayhike, we started out with myself plus 4 people, and by mid-afternoon were down to just myself and one other; Jodee V, who’ll walk just about anywhere! The rest of the group had stopped along the day, each person reaching their own threshold of how many rocks they wanted to walk over.
What struck me about this photo is how, for me, it perfectly evokes the exact feeling that walking in the mountains gives me. It’s infinitely vast and expansive, yet also confined and defined. It’s a feeling of being both everything and nothing, all at once. It’s an amazingly “alive” feeling.
Mount Blackburn Photo, Wrangell Mountains and the Copper River Basin, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska.
Hey Folks,
Here’s a view of Mount Blackburn and the Wrangell Mountains, at sunset.
One of the hassles with shooting in Alaska in the dead of winter is, of course, the cold. We all understand how that’s a hassle, right? Cold fingers, batteries that die, and so forth. The list goes on. Cold Weather Photography is challenging.
So too is driving a vehicle in winter in Alaska.
Getting Your Vehicle Started at -40°F
Getting a vehicle started at 40 below zero deg F is itself an art. An engine block heater for your car helps – well, it’s pretty much a ‘must have’. But at minus40deg, even that won’t get you far.
The engine block heater helps warm up the mechanical parts of the engine block, but at these frigid arctic temperatures, even the oil thickens up so much it doesn’t flow; problematic for a car engine. So, an Oil Heater works well.
Another useful tool is something to warm up the battery. The 3rd item that’s a good tool to have is a battery heating pad – cold temperatures can dramatically affect the cranking power of a battery, so heating it up will help get your car started.
Hidden Creek valley, in the Wrangell mountains. A popular backpacking route, Hidden Creek in the Wrangell Mountains over to the Lakina River is a wonderful hike. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Hey Folks,
I’ve headed out again for the next trip, but will schedule this post in advance. This is from close to the pass above Hidden Creek, looking back down the valley we’d just hiked. We walked up the south side of the valley (right side in the frame), then crossed and climbed up to a bench on the north side of the pass. Camping up there was simply awesome. 2 bands of Dall sheep were wandering the mountains above us, and we saw mountain goats higher still.
Hidden Creek is simply stunning. This particular afternoon, we crested the pass and camped on the other side of the saddle, which is where the previous post’s photo (“Reflections”) was taken. Suffice it to say that the back half of the trek is just as rocking as the front half.
A backcountry campsite (Big Agnes Seedhouse SL1) high on the tundra in the Wrangell Mountains. The high alpine ridges near Mt Jarvis, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve provide a great place for hiking and backpacking.
The Trip: Backpacking Near Mt Jarvis in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park
Just to stave off the impending deluge of grizzly bear photos, I thought I’d drop this one in here. This is from the last backpacking trip of the season for me, the recent Mt Jarvis excursion. Here’s a campsite I picked out all by myself, high on the tundra.
With a night so wonderfully clear, the temperatures dropped down a bit during the evening, and it was plenty cold in the am when I awoke before dawn, and sauntered across the tundra to ‘reflection pond’, where I shot some of the recent images posted of Mt. Jarvis.
Weight and Packability
For this trip, I carried the Big Agnes Seedhouse SL1 tent that you see here. It’s a nice little 1 person tent, pretty roomy actually, and relatively light. Weighing under 3lbs,
Dawn rises over Mount Jarvis, alpenglow lighting the mountain and it’s reflection. Fall, Mt. Jarvis, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Mt Jarvis, in all it’s 13 421′ glory.
A recent trek up around the Mt Jarvis area yielded some amazing scenery and fantastic views. I hadn’t been to the area before, and will definitely be heading back next year. To camp within a few hundred yards of this mountain face is a treat indeed. We were pretty lucky, for sure, considering we were camped at about 7200′ in the Wrangell Mountains in September!
We had a real mix of weather, from snow storms and rain to gorgeous sunny days; which I’ll take gladly. The trek was a lot of fun, with a great couple from Chicago, Brad and Tracey. I appreciated their flexibility and easy going nature, which allowed me to sneak out a morning or 2 and grab some photos. Tracey joined me once or twice, and both Brad and Tracey got up early on our final morning to make a a mad dash out the Nabesna Rd in the hopes of snaring some nice alpenglow on Mt Sanford. Much appreciated, Tracey and Brad. What a gorgeous morning that turned out to be.
The Beaufort Sea along the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The Arctic Ocean sea ocean, after spring breakup, rests on the beach. Melting permafrost in the bluffs signals warming temperatures. Arctic Ocean, Coastal Plain, ANWR, Alaska. Click for a larger photo.
I hiked from our final camp across the coastal plain (well, across part of the plain, not the whole thing) with Steve Weaver hoping to photograph some of the icebergs we’d seen the previous day along the shoreline. Unfortunately, strong southerly winds had blown almost all the ice out to sea, and we were largely thwarted. This patch of ice, however, had been resting on shore, stranded when the tide rolled out, and we made a few images.
Coastlines are such dynamic landscapes, and in the Arctic particularly so. They can change drastically in a day or less, and do so frequently.
This photo was taken around 1:15am .. maybe later. I think Steve and I arrived back at camp around 4:00am, and I went to bed at nearly 5:00am. up at 10:00am-ish to break camp, roll the raft, and wait for a bush plane.
We arrived, finally, in Coldfoot, around 5:30pm,(the temp was 90deg F, a start contrast from the Arctic Ocean we’d just left) unpacked the gear from the plane, sorted it and loaded the van, ate dinner, and hit the road, rolling into the Yukon River area stop late at night.
Then up early the next morning to drive from there to Anchorage. 36 hours later it was out the door to pick up folks for the next trip to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Summertime can be like that in Alaska.
I’ve been out to the Beaufort Sea here a number of times, now every time I’ve been so fortunate as to have an absolutely glorious final evening. The wind wasn’t bad at all, the bugs had quieted down, and the expansive vastness of the place really moves me. It’s a fantastic experience, to see such a harsh and rugged environment also be so sensitively fragile; the quiet tundra, the shorebirds, a whisper of air and the glowing rays of the sun, low on the horizon.
After the trek back to camp I simply couldn’t go to bed, but sat for nearly 45 minutes by my tent, just watching, listening and enjoying the grace of the Arctic coastal plain. It’s a phenomenal place.
The bluffs on the left of the frame, like Castles Made of Sand, slowly slip into the sea – eventually.
Chitistone Falls, in the Chitistone valley. The Goat Trail is a popular backpacking route, from Skolai Pass to Glacier Creek, along the Chitistone River, in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the thumbnail to view a larger version of this photo.
Hey Folks,
Chitistone falls are one of my favorite waterfalls in the entire park yet I rarely get to see them.
How do you get to Chitistone Falls?
I usually backpack down from Skolai Pass. It’s possible to approach from the west if you’re coming up Chitistone River, or even from the north if you can up Doubtful Creek from Nizina Lake.
When I do the Goat Trail now, I head north after crossing the scree slopes, and go away from the Chitistone river, rather than down lower toward the river, which is the only way to view the falls.
5 intrepid backpackers do ‘Usain Bolt’ after crossing the Goat Trail, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska. Click the thumbnail to really see this classic photo.
Hey Folks,
It doesn’t get much better than this: 5 Usain Bolts in one photo! We’d just hiked across the infamous ‘Goat Trail’, of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, on our Skolai – Wolverine backpacking trek. The weather was awesome this particular afternoon, and what greater tribute to such a place could there be than the great Usain Bolt pose?
From your left, Chuck, Bret, Les, Carl and Rod.
In the background, the University Range and Mt Bona, 4th highest peak in the US.
The Goat Trail is a special walk for me – my first hike in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve was down the Chitistone valley, from Skolai Pass to Glacier Creek; across the scree slopes known as ‘the Goat Trail’. Every time I walk it again it blows me away; absolutely an amazing trek. This year we had a mix of weather, and were blessed to have such a gorgeous day for our hike over the steep and nasty Goat Trail.
Why the Usain Bolt pose? Because Usain is awesome, that’s why. And, ya gotta admit, it makes a cool photo, eh?
Dwarf Fireweed on an alpine hillside and a fiery sunset in the Chugach Mountains, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. The latin or scientific name for Dwarf Fireweed is Epilobium latifolium and it is classified in the Evening-Primrose Family, or Onagraceae.
Hey Folks,
Here’s an image I took several years ago on a backpacking trek through the eastern Chugach mountains in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. I finally got around to processing it today. The image is a compilation of 4 separate exposures, blended together manually in Photoshop.
This is from a backpacking trip we do from Iceberg Lake to Bremner Mines in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. It’s a spectacular trek, and a real favorite of mine. Last summer, 2009, one participant did the trek with me for his 2nd time. We cross 2 glaciers, traverse 4 high alpine passes, and camp in some of the prettiest spots I’ve ever been to.
Summer’s approaching quickly and I’m looking forward to trudging around the mountains again. I’ll be heading over to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park this week to do some exploring, some photography and soak up some of the big mountain country. As such, I’ll be gone for a while, but hope to have some new photos to post when I return, with some stories to accompany them. Following this next few weeks I’m heading up to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for 2 weeks on the Canning River. Then it’s back to Wrangell-St. Elias for the rest of the summer, before 2 weeks in Katmai National Park in fall to photograph the great grizzly bear. That should be an amazing 2 weeks, for sure.
A tourist hiker stands beside the shores of Moraine Lake and watches people canoeing on the lake The grand scenery of Moraine Lake and the Wenkchemna Peaks, or 10 Peaks at Moraine Lake make the area a popular tourist destination for hiking, canoeing, photography and adventures. Hiker, Moraine Lake, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. Click the image to see how good I look in red.
hey Folks
I was scanning through some images recently and stumbled on to this one. Here’s me in stunning mauve at Moraine Lake, Banff National Park, in Alberta Canada.
Most photographers know how much difference putting a person or 2 in the photo can make to the salability of an image. And adding some color makes a difference as well.
But the image must tell a story. For stock photography, the more generic the story might be, the more possible different uses it might have. This could be a tourist, a hiker, someone lost, a photographer, etc. It could even be someone advertising Arcteryx jackets.
But the real story of this photo, for me, is my first time to Moraine Lake. I spend a whole day just soaking up the grandeur of this place. I can think of very few places that are so simply pretty as the Canadian Rockies. They’re almost picture perfect. Many other places have a wonder all their own, and I’d never forsake the wildness of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, for example, for the Canadian Rockies. But for sheer ‘hop out of the car and be amazed’ classical mountain beauty, the Canadian Rockies have it going on.
I’d been to Jasper National Park a few times, photographing wildlife there. I’d driven through Banff in order to get to Jasper. And I’d thought to myself ‘wow, Banff is pretty’ more than once. But the first time I drive up to Moraine Lake, got out the car and walked over to the lake, it just floored me. I walked along the lake’s edge, and sat and stared at everything. At the detail or these incredible peaks above me, the silence of the montane forest, and that water. That amazing water. It just absolutely blew me away.
They day was cloudy, it was early in the summer, and few people were around; those that were had taken rental canoes out on the lake, and I had the shoreline pretty much to myself. So I just sat and soaked it in. If you ever go to Banff National Park, and I recommend that you do, at least once in your life, give yourself plenty of time up at Moraine Lake. It takes time just to see it – you can’t stand at the overlook, glance around, and see it all. give yourself a day, and embrace the place. Your life will be richer for it.
