Category Archives: Denali National Park

Photos of Denali National Park, Mt. McKinley, tundra, mountains, wildlife, birds and more from Denali National Park, Alaska.

Dall Sheep Ram photo, Denali National Park, Alaska

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A Dall sheep ram photo, taken late summer, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

Well, I was going to post another little note about ANWR, but I haven’t finished it yet and I want to go to bed. So I looked through my folder of images for the blog, and had a cool kayaking photo all picked out when I saw this one and chose it instead. This photo was taken in Denali National Park. I spent the whole day up on this ridge with a band of Dall sheep rams, it was awesome. They’re pretty used to people approaching them up there, so they let me get reasonably close. Mid-morning they all lay down in the shade and took a nap, so I did the same. A couple of hours later, one woke up, rose and walked around the area a little. I tried to get in position for some shots, and he ended up on this little outcrop here. I was lying on the ground, and before ya know it, he walked right up to me. I lay as still as I could and he ended up nearly stepping right over me. It was pretty cool.

I’d love to get some images of rams like these over in the Wrangells, where the sheep tend to be bigger, but because they get hunted quite a bit, they’re WAY more skittish. Also, because Denali is so much more heavily visited, the sheep are very used to people. In Wrangell-St. Elias NP, even where the sheep are not hunted, they so rarely encounter people, especially the rams who stay up very high, that they’re pretty wary. Maybe this summer I’ll have some more luck with them. Until then, Denali is the place for rams.

Happy Easter!

Cheers

Carl

Notes from a Caribou Whisperer

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The Caribou Whisperer

WARNING: – The following journal was sent to me (Carl) from my dad. Read on at your own risk – he does tend to ‘go on’ a little.

JOTTINGS ON OUR TRIP TO ALASKA AND THE NORTH AMERICAN ROCKIES

Dear Blog,

I’m not sure whether that’s the correct way to address a blog, but it’ll have to do for now.

Sorry for the delay in penning these brief notes on our trip to Alaska and the North American Rockies. I had to wait till the ice melted in my veins and the blood started flowing again.

After a very pleasant stay of two days in the lovely city of Vancouver, made all the more pleasant by catching up with an old Aussie mate and his partner, we embarked on our Cruise up the Inside Passage to Alaska. Continue reading →

Grizzly bear photo, Denali National Park, Alaska

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Grizzly bear, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks

Few animals reign a landscape like the grizzly bear does the tundra, in my opinion. Grizzlies are absolutely awesome, in every sense of the word. Seeing one can be an amazing experience, even for those of us who’ve been fortunate enough to see quite a number of bears in our lives. Photographing in Katmai National Park is beyond words. I took my parents there this September; though reluctant to make that trip part of their journey, I was finally able to talk them into it. They both say how glad they are that we went, and how that was probably the highlight of their trip. We were also fortunate enough to see a few grizzlies in Denali National Park, even up relatively close (when we were in a shuttle bus, not hiking on the ground). This grizzly bear photo I shot on my earlier trip to Denali, with my buddy Doug from Atlanta. Doug’s an old country boy from Georgia (“born ‘n raised!”), so seeing a grizzly bear was quite a thrill for him. Continue reading →

Cross Fox photo, Denali National Park, Alaska.

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Cross Fox Photo, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks

I promise I’m winding down my photos from Denali this year. One more after this one. This is a cross fox, a color phase of the more commonly seen red fox. The black stripe down the back, with another one across the shoulders forms a cross, hence the name we give it “cross fox”. The animal is, for all intents and purposes, a red fox. In the wild, it’s not unsual for various color phases. They can be the typical orange-red, silver, grey, black, or a combination (like the cross fox). All red foxes have a litte tell-tale marking, regardless of their overall coloring – they all have Continue reading →

Denali and the Alaska Range photo – a panoramic view.

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Denali and the Alaska Range photo - a panoramic view.

Hey Folks,

Well, here I’ve finally got this image done – for now. It took me a lot of working, and a lot of learning, but I’m reasonably happy with the processing – for now. The image is a stitched composite of 5 horizontal frames, to form a big long wide skinny panoramic photo of Denali and the Alaska Range. I got a full moon in there too, which was nice. The moon was absolutely awesome – glowing like it only can glow in Alaska. As the final image didn’t really fit on this webpage very well, I just linked the thumbnail here – if you click the thumbnail it will open up a larger file. Continue reading →

Bull Moose and reflection photo, Denali National Park, Alaska.

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Bull Moose and reflection, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

It’s WAY too late for me here in Anchorage – I just walked in a little while ago from this little blues bar, called Blue Central. They have an open mic night every sunday, and I was fortunate to get to play this evening for an hour or more – nice finish to my week.It was tons of fun, and the folks I played with did a bunch of different styles of music, so it was interesting. There’s nothing quite like sitting in with people you’ve never met before, and making music together. It’s all the more fun when they start playing tunes you have no idea what they are, how they go, what key they’re in, or anything else. You just have to listen closely. Continue reading →

Denali Photo, alpenglow, Denali National Park, Alaska.

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Denali, Mt. McKinley, alpenglow, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

It’s a weekend, and I’ve been having a good day. I won’t ruin it by writing much, once again, but I will tell you I saw the Rugby World Cup Final this morning. Even though the Wallabies weren’t there, as I hoped they would be, it was a decent game. South Africa played England, and South Africa won, which I’m glad about. England beat the Aussies in the previous WC Final, 2003, in the tightest of games, and then beat us again in the quarter final this year – so I was kinda hoping the Springboks would win, which they did. Next I went for a short walk with my buddy Charlie, and his 2 dogs, Keba and KebaMusa . Keba is an African name, kinda like, say, John, might be here .. and “KebaMusa” means “Keba’s Wife” .. they’re awesome dogs, except Musa gets mad at other dogs on the trail, so that’s always exciting. In honor of Keba and KebaMusa, I thought I’d post another image of Denali – the link being, obviously, the names I wrote about recently. I’m still working on another image from the mountain I took this summer, and once I get it worked up correctly, I’ll post it here.

I also want to thank my friend Guy Tal, for his help. He’s an amazing fella, a ridiculous photographer, and very generous with his willingness to help out. He’s helped me enormously with learning stuff about photoshop, and computer stuff in general. He’s also super smart, and his writings are always insightful and great to read. Check his site out here if you’re not familiar with Guy – spending some time browsing his website will definitely add years to your life.

For the photo-tech stuff, this is a blend of several different exposures (3, actually) – I’ve always done images like this in the past with either a grad density filter, or manually blended exposures on the computer – this is my first ever image using the HDR processing of Adobe Photoshop. I hope you like it.

I’m off to bed.

Cheers

Carl

More Denali National Park Photos.

Snowshoe hare photo, Denali National Park, Alaska.

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Snowshoe hare, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks

This year seems to be the year for snowshoe hares – they’re all over Denali National Park. What was interesting is that I made 2 relatively short trips to Denali National Park this year, one in late August and one in mid-September, and both trips I saw numerous snowshoe hares, but they weren’t at all in the same areas. In August I saw an awful lot of hares in the first 15 miles of the road into the park, particularly near Savage River. In September, we didn’t see any bunnies there, despite my assurances to my parents that would – well, we did see one, he was Continue reading →

Bull Moose Photo, Denali National Park, Alaska.

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Bull Moose, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks

Here’s another photo from my little run up to Denali. We’d been tooling around on the shuttle bus system during the day, trying to find some wolves, and had no luck. Later in the day we were heading back to our backcountry unit, and my buddy Doug headed for camp – he was done in after a long day and wanted a nap. I wanted a bull moose. So I pointed Doug towards camp and then proceeded to walk all over the backend of Denali looking for a moose. Finally, I found this fellow. He wasn’t the largest bull moose in the park, he’s not fully grown yet, but he was reasonably obliging for my photos – more importantly, I didn’t find any others. Continue reading →

Bull Moose, Denali National Park, Alaska.

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Bull Moose, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

Moose are one of my favorite subjects to photograph. It never ceases to amaze me at how enormous they are. From a distance they look “big”, but as I approach and get close to them, their size just blows me away. A big bull like this can stand 7′ tall at the shoulder, and weigh up towards 1800 pounds in their prime. I found this particular bull moose in Denali National Park, and I was able to spend quite a bit of time in the area, photographing him. The light and weather was almost always uncooperative for me, Continue reading →