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.

Oh, and just to back up my comment about how few people get up in to to this area; if you know ANYONE who’s hiked in the Arrigetch Peaks area, forward them this blog and ask if they’ve hiked up in the area of this photo. I got a dollar (and an 8″x10″ print of this picture) that says they reply with a “no”. 🙂 And if they have hiked up in here, I’ll double the wager with a post of a photo taken after we hiked further from here. 🙂

Hiking the Maidens, Arrigetch peaks

So here’s another self-portrait. Me on a  dayhike up into the Maidens, in the Arrigetch Peaks, Gates of the Arctic National Park. The talus and moraine in the area was pretty intimidating for most folks on the even trip, even though they’re all strong, experienced hikers. walking over endless fields of boulders and rocks is wearisome. but being so close to such amazing granite outcrops as the Arrigetch Peaks is so worth the effort.

The peak to my right is, I believe, “Parabola”.

The small pack I’m carrying is a Marmot Komperdell pack, a great little summit pack I take on my most backpacking trips; saves carrying my heavier Mystery Ranch G5000 when I go out for the afternoon; and it looks FABULOUS!

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Arrigetch Peaks at first light

Here’s another photo from the trip to the Arrigetch Peaks we took back in August. This scene appealed to me, the light striking the underside of the crags’ overhang, yet most of the rock in shade. It was a wonderful morning, with some gorgeous early light that disappeared all too soon, the sun spent most of the day behind this ridge, but the view up and down the valley was simply stunning.

I hope to get back to this area sometime in the summer of 2012, and shoot it some more. Fantastic landscape. I think the fall is a great time to visit the arctic; earlier in summer the sun doesn’t get as low in the sky, which means the light doesn’t get quite as subtle as it does in the “shoulder seasons”, so we’ll probably head up there in August or September again some time. Look for a possible photo tour announcement coming this winter. I’ll keep you posted here for sure, but the trip will be run through Expeditions Alaska; awesome backcountry travel company! ?

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Caliban, Arrigetch Peaks, Gates of the Arctic

Here’s a quick shot of Caliban, in the Arrigetch Peaks. Interestingly, I shot this image just minutes after I dropped my 18-70mm lens into a small pond and totally destroyed it; the lens still have grit and glacial silt inside it from the Arrigetch Peaks; I know the NPS have a rule about “take only pictures”, but I figured if my lens was busted, and I couldn’t really take pictures any more, it might be OK to take some glacial silt with me.

Gates of the Arctic National Park hiking trips.

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Down Arrigetch Creek

So here’s the view from above in reverse; that shot looks up the valley towards where this one was taken. The peak at the far end of the valley, on the right hand side, is known as Elephant’s Tooth, a classic granite outcrop in the Arrigetch Peaks. The creek here is Arrigetch Creek (I’m not sure, but the word “Arrigetch” may well be a traditional Native Alaskan word meaning “rains like a sonuvagun” or something similar)

We hiked up this valley, climbed up high and had supper on a small plateau above the valley. A really great spot to camp. The next morning we ate breakfast and packed up, heading higher still to cross thru a high narrow pass towards another drainage, but we were thwarted by a nasty storm and precipitous granite; in the stormy weather I had neither the time nor inclination to scrap around and find a safe route across the steep traverse on the other side, and we descended to the valley floor after lunch.

Sometimes safety means turning back. But what a place to turn back toward, eh?

Xanadu, Arrigetch Peaks, Gates of the Arctic National Park

Here’s another from the Arrigetch Peaks trip we did last month, August. This was our first morning up in the valley; really a treat to wake up to something like this. Of course, waking up at 4:30am isn’t such a treat, but such is the life of photography in the Arctic summer.

The 3 peaks in this frame are Xanadu, the largest in the background, with Albatross in front of it, and Ariel on the right hand side of the frame. Going out of the frame to the right is Caliban.

A mile or so up the creek from here we saw a, wait for it .. a beaver. That was pretty wild, I never thought they’d be up in rock climbing territory. Animals are just full of surprises.

Cheers

Carl