Category Archives: Travel

Travel photos, tourism and tourists, adventure and exotic photos.

MuskOx Calf photo, coastal plain, arctic Alaska

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MuskOx calf, coastal plain, arctic Alaska.

Hey Folks,

As I don’t have anything new to post from the Skolai Trip I did last week, I’ll post a few more Muskox. This young calf was hanging around with his mom and the herd one afternoon, and it took quite a while before I got a decent opportunity to shoot a portrait of the calf. Muskox really protect their young well, mostly by hiding the calves behind the adults, and often keeping them in the thicker brush. Finally this calf ran out in the open, stopped and looked back, and I took this photo. You can see the Mosquitoes were plentiful up in the arctic this summer.

Muskox photos.

Cheers

Carl

Too cold for off-shore drilling

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Testing the waters of the arctic ocean, ANWR, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

Some of you may have read my recent piece on the proposals to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. You can read it here.

For those of you who aren’t aware, another hot issue with proposals to drill is the off-shore sites, in the arctic ocean. We were keen to explore this possibility as well, as the testing we did on the coastal plain really showed how magical this arctic oil is. However, howling winds and chilly temperatures proved that off-shore drilling simply isn’t possible.

Any deeper than this in the arctic ocean and nothing would be the same afterward.

So we said “No”, to off-shore drilling.

Cheers

Carl

Climbing in the Brooks Range, Alaska

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Climbing on the Pipeline, Brooks Mountain Range, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

I just got back from a trip to Skolai Pass, in Wrangell-St. Elias, and we got SLAMMED by the weather. It was so ugly, I couldn’t help but feel bad for the people on the trip. I didn’t even take my camera out of the backpack the whole week. So I don’t have any images from this trip. That’s a first for me. Instead, I’ll post some more images from previous trips, including this one from our highly vaunted ANWR Drilling Trip earlier this month. I’m not going to say that this climbing around was my idea – and far be it for me to snitch, but I think you can tell from the looks of the 2 people with me that it was their responsibility – they literally forced me onto this pipeline for the photo. 🙂 🙂

Erika and Bob were great folks, and we had an excellent trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Cheers

Carl

Flute on the coastal plain, ANWR, Alaska

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Hiker playing a traditional Native American Indian Flute on the coastal plain of ANWR, Alaska

Hey Folks,

One evening I set out from camp to find a nice place to play the flute. This little pond was really cool, there weren’t too many bugs, and it had a peaceful reverie about it that I enjoyed. I ended up playing for an hour or more here. See what I mean – this coastal plain isn’t all as ugly and revolting as some people would have us believe.

Cheers

Carl

Arctic Coastal Plain, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, Alaska

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Arctic Coastal plain and Alaska Cotton grass, Arctic national Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

We all hear about how barren and ugly the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is. The coastal plain is a desolate wasteland, we’re told. Well, I don’t agree with that. I think it’s a beautiful place, and well worth our respect. Here is a field of Alaska Cotton Grass in full bloom along the coastal plain, east of the Canning River, in Section 1002, the section proposed to be opened for oil drilling. Trust me – the photos you see posted across websites and emails doing the rounds that suggest the place is ‘ugly’ are simply bad photos.
Continue reading →

The Golden Oil of ANWR – it’s over!

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oil in ANWR

Hey Folks,

By now, you’ve all heard the rumors, I’m sure. How the massive oil fields, despoiling the pristine earth lying deep beneath the frozen, barren tundra of the lonely coastal plains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (known by its acronym ANWR), could save our planet. How, if only those whacko enviro-freaks, who are bent on ruining the lives of countless hard-working patriotic Americans, have consistently and ruthlessly undertaken to bully the American Congress and the oil industry into submission, and not allow the oil and natural gas that is currently being wasted underground to be extracted and delivered to gas stations across America.

I’m sure you’ve read the facts, and seen how, if the estimated 10 billion barrels of ANWR oil could be drilled and refined, gasoline prices at the pump would plummet; but not just the gas prices, Continue reading →

Bull MuskOx photo, arctic coastal plain, Alaska

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Bull MuskOx, arctic coastal plain, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

So I just got back in from a nice long trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). I drove up to Fairbanks, picked up Bob and Erika, a lovely couple from Florida, and we headed on up the Dalton Highway, almost to Deadhorse/Prudhoe Bay, where we met our pilot, picked up a raft, and flew in to the headwaters of the Upper Marsh Fork of the Canning River.

It was quite an adventure, an their first time in the Refuge, so we all had a great time. I’ll tell you some more about it over the next week. Before we flew in though, we were told about a small herd of MuskOx just north of us, on the Sag river. With some time to kill, and gigabytes on the memory cards, we figured we’d go take some pictures. Continue reading →

Hubbard Glacier calving photos, Gilbert Point, Russell Fjord, Alaska

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The Hubbard Glacier calving, Gilbert Point, Russell Fjord, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

Mark knows his stuff. I’d never have got this photo of the Hubbard Glacier calving without his knowledge. He looked at the wall and said ‘that’s gunna go, soon’ .. so we waited. And sure enough, a few small pieces of ice started to fall. I shot a bit, and few more started to fall. I shot a bit more.

Thinking ‘that was cool’, I started to ease up.

Mark says “get ready”. I’m smart enough to know he knows what’s up, so I get ready; seconds later this huge wall lets go. This wall is approx 150′ high. To witness such a blast was amazing. I got some nice shots of the wall falling, then the camera lost focus in the splash – the autofocus just couldn’t grab onto anything, and I was too useless to do anything about it. Continue reading →

Gilbert Point, Hubbard Glacier photos, Alaska

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Gilbert Point, Hubbard Glacier and Disenchantment Bay, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

hey Folks,

As I said, Mark got us closer. And Closer. This photo is of Gilbert Point, famous because the glacier has advanced enough at times past that it closed the gap, and dammed up Russell Fjord, which sits behind the gap – around to the right in this photo, behind the cliff face.

The Hubbard Glacier has been advancing pretty rapidly recently, and in 2002 it closed off Gilbert Point. This had occurred previously in 1986. It essentially turns Russell Fjord into a giant dam, stranding wildlife in the area, including whales, sea lions, fish, etc.

Eventually, the pressure builds up enough that the dam bursts, and water flows out of the strait at some insane volumes – Continue reading →