Snowshoeing Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, winter

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Winter snowshoeing in Wrangell St. Elias national Park, Alaska.

Another winter in McCarthy, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

“Oh, break up is early”, they said. “Spring’s here!” they cried. “Summer’s on the way”, they projected. Well, it was about 15 degrees Fahrenheit this morning, and that didn’t factor in the wind chill. Winds in the vicinity of, oh, I dunno, say around 200mph, blowing straight out from under the polar ice cap, I’m led to believe. And here’s me trying to snowshoe across one of the great lakes to take some pictures!

Well, fool me once, for about 5 minutes, but I’m not THAT stupid. Uh uh, no sir, not me. This little vegemite turned tail, and scampered back to the veritable safety (i.e., warm, heated and still running) of my van, turned that baby around and beared to’ard the ole cabin. Full steam ahead. (NB: given the road conditions, and the wildly lunging, out of control nature of said van in such conditions, ‘full steam’ consisted of about 15mph – or, 185mph slower than the aforementioned wind).

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Denali, Mt. McKinley and reflection, Denali National Park, Alaska

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A wide-angle landscape of Mt. Denali reflected in a still tundra pond during autumn, surrounded by red and gold foliage in Denali National Park, Alaska.
The peak of Denali, towering at 20,310 feet, perfectly mirrored in a small kettle pond near the park road. The vibrant reds of the blueberry bushes and the golden hues of the willow scrub mark the brief but spectacular peak of the Alaskan autumn.

hey Folks,

So, here’s an image of Denali I don’t think I’ve posted here before.

Mount McKinley is simply one big grand mountain that is ALWAYS a treat to see. I saw it a few days ago.

This photo though, was taken last August when I spent a week camped out on the tundra, not far from this pond. Actually, this little pond was my water source. Every morning, after I’d do some shooting, I’d saunter down, ever so casually, fill up my one quart pot, stroll back over to the ‘kitchen’ and make breakfast – oatmeal, a cereal bar and some coffee. I’d inevitably end up drinking too much coffee, because it was so awesome to sit back and stare at the mountain, as folks refer to Denali.

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Wild Wolf photo, Denali National Park, Alaska

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A female wolf, alpha female of the Grant Creek Pack, in Denali national Park, stands with the head of a small caribou she hunted and killed earlier that day.

Hey Folks,

Recently some of the environmental news has be regarding the delisting of the Gray Wolves in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Hence you can see, I post a picture of a wolf from Denali National Park.

As you can see from the image, the wolf was collared by the Park Service biologists, to track and record her movements and to help them learn more about wolves. She’s dead now, apparently killed by wolves in another pack last winter, wandering onto some turf that didn’t belong to her. Such seems to be the way with wolves. Continue reading →

Conservation Photography

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Crystalline Hills, Wrangell Mountains, winter, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

I stumbled across this article earlier today, and thought it might be a good topic for a post. The subject is conservation photography, rather than typical nature photography. “Although nature photography can appeal to a viewer’s aesthetic sensibilities, the truth is that photography has much more potential to play a role in conservation than has yet been realized. When photographic skills, creative talent and scientific understanding converge on a subject the outcome can be powerful.”

I think it’s a great article, and an important one, but I think it’s simultaneously important that we remain aware of the capacity in which photography can harm our, as well as our audience’s relationship with the natural world.

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Going to the Sun Road, Glacier National Park, Montana

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Going to the Sun road, in the Rocky Mountains, Glacier National Park, Montana, in the fall, is one of the highlights of the Rockies.

Hey Folks,

I think Glacier National Park is one of the grandest places in North American, certainly that I’ve been.

My first ever solo trip out backpacking in the Rockies was at Glacier National Park, many years ago. I was scheduled to go with a friend of mine, and he bailed out right before the trip – I had to choose between going solo and canceling. Like there was an option! 🙂 I had no idea at the time, but that trip probably put me in Alaska right now, and on the road to being a backpacking guide.

I flew out to Kalispell, got off the plan and grabbed a shuttle straight to the park. I remember arriving in the park, in awe, trying to see it all in one breath – impossible! Trees towered over me as we travelled through the forests of the Western edge of the Rockies – huge, healthy, trees, tall as the sky.

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The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

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Weasel, ANWR, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska

Hey Folks,

Here’s a follow up to my recent post on proposals to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska. Whilst that post concentrated on facts and figures and data and so forth, I think greater arguments ought be made. As you can see from a cursory read of that post, it’s too easy for folks to cut up a pie in any way they choose in order that it might yield the slices that best fit their appetite. I suppose part of the reason for this is that the pie itself is, ultimately, generated by our cultural institutions, our way of living, our way of seeing the world.

The potential number of barrels of oil the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may yield is somewhat of an abstraction – what constitutes a “barrel”, for example? How large is the footprint of a drilling rig? How many caribou will that impact?

Any measurements we choose to use are simply yardsticks of our own worldview (I guarantee you, for example, that the Porcupine Caribou Herd would, if asked, probably give a very different answer to even our cleverest scientists). What if we don’t look upon the world with that viewpoint, however? How else might we be able to see the world, and in what ways might we possibly benefit from a different angle?

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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

Whitewater Kayaker surfing photo Baker River, Patagonia, Chile

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A whitewater kayaker surfing on a play wave on the Rio Baker or Baker River, Patagonia, Chile.

Hey Folks,

Here’s another from the Rio Baker – at the end of the first canyon, which is 5 enormous rapids over 2 miles, there’s a flatwater section, and then just down from the take-out spot is a big playwave.

We bought an extra kayak, a smaller playboat, just for this one wave. You’d never want to run a river the size of the Baker in such a small boat, unless you’re a kayaker with world-class crazy skills – a bigger volume boat is what you need for running such big rapids. But, once down at the playwave, those big boats aren’t as handy for doing tricks and surfing, like this small Wave Sport ZG playboat.

Being smaller and less volume, the boat is more maneuverable, and in the hands of someone like Santiago Ibanez, from Peru, it rocks and rolls with ease. Santiago’s a great fella, a helluva great kayaker, and he guides on the Futaleufu River when he’s not in Peru.

By the way, if you haven’t read my earlier blogs on the Baker, the river is scheduled to be dammed in the coming year. Hopefully enough activism and enough demonstrations will stop that from happening. For more information, visit these pages:

Baker River and also here.

Cheers

Carl

Are We Happy Yet?

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Kennecott Glacier, also Kennicott Glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

A recent thread on global warming and other environmental issues posed the question: “Are we having fun yet?” What a fantastic question to ask of ourselves in the year 2008. This question hit me square between the eyes; that’s really the issue here, isn’t it, I thought. That’s exactly what’s going on. Recent years have given more people more access to more goods and services, more art, more sport, more information, even to more other people, than ever before. With the internet we have access to the entire world at our fingertips. I can learn about almost anything in a matter of minutes. I can order plated Patagonian Alpaca Wool rugs in a few seconds, with the click of a mouse. I can order Goat’s Milk chocolate from Israel in the time it takes me to write this sentence. Figuratively, we have everything, literally we have more than anyone has ever had before. We live, in every sense of the word, in a time of abundance. And yet we seem bent on ‘more’. Why aren’t we happy yet, I wondered. (note: before you read on, this gets kinda long)

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Drilling for Oil on the Coastal Plain, ANWR, Alaska

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Hiker hiking on the coastal plain near the Canning River, Brooks Range, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

As it hits the news again here in Alaska today, I thought I’d post about the current proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This post is from an earlier version on my other website, Expeditions Alaska. The photo above is a buddy of mine hiking on the coastal plain near the Canning River, Section 1002, of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

I presume most readers here have heard something about this, so I’ll skip the introductions, and go straight to my arguments here. I’m not a big fan of arguing by numbers, but we can discuss the ANWR issue with “facts” if you care to: in doing so, it might be interesting to approach this issue by first looking at, and dismantling, the arguments of proponents of drilling.

Next month I’ll look at some other reasons, probably more important, IMO, why we need to be as active as we can in our opposition to proposed legislation.

First, a look at the typical arguments put forward by those in favor of drilling:

1. National Security, dependence from Middle East foreign oil & the US is ‘better off’ if we drill our own oil.

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