Bighorn Ram, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada.

Leave a reply

Bighorn ram in the Canadian Rockies, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada.

Hey Folks,

A few more posts before the electricity goes and I scrounge around in the eternal darkness of the Alaskan winter. This one is a bighorn ram that I photographed on my first trip to Jasper National Park a few years back. I recently rescanned it, and am spending some downtime now getting caught up on editing and processing images. It’s funny looking at scans of slides these days, after shooting digital for just a few years. Pretty amazing the difference – though I think that’s a function of scanning more than film versus digital quality.

Well, it’s insanely past my bedtime, and I’ve had a big day, so this will be short and I’ll head to my room. You all have a good one and enjoy it while you got it – whatever it is.

Oh wow – just as I’m ready to hit “publish”, one of the dogs upstairs goes insanely off her head. At this time of night that means one thing: I looked outside and there’s 2 moose in the front yard. How cool is that? A cow moose and her calf under the street lights wandering through the front yard. Awesome!

Cheers

Carl

A Little Web Design time.

5 Replies

A young grizzly bear cub near Brooks River, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks

Hey Folks,

So what have I been up to all this time, if I wasn’t pushing my van around Alaska in the winter? Well, I’ve been updating my website/s, giving them some new content and a slight aesthetic overhaul as well. Nothing too major, but learning a few things about design and tweaking some little things. One of things I’ve been working on is integrating a coding technique called “Flash” into the web pages. It’s pretty cool, though I know some web users are averse to Flash stuff.

For all you “non-web-design” people (i.e., my dad) “Flash” is Continue reading →

The McCarthy Road, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.

17 Replies

Sign warning of danger, dangerous weather and road conditions on the McCarthy Road, in winter, Wrangell-St. Elias, Alaska.

Hey Folks

Well, I’ve not got a lot to tell you, unfortunately. For various reasons, none to exciting, I’m in Anchorage until after the holiday. Around the first of the year I’ll be heading to McCarthy. Not for a trip, but for the winter. That’s right, I’ll be staying just outside a town that has about 5 people in it during the winter. I’m not sure how often I’ll get internet access, but hopefully I can work that out and stay in touch. For those of you who don’t know much about McCarthy, the photo posted here gives you a little idea. This is a sign posted by the side of the McCarthy Road as you LEAVE McCarthy, headed back OUT of the park! How often do you see signs like this warning of danger as you’re LEAVING the backcountry? The road is 60 miles of gravel road, running between the tiny rustic hamlet of Chitina, on the Park boundary at the Copper River, and McCarthy. It used to have a sign as you begin the road claiming you were entering ‘The Worst Road in Alaska”. It’s not as bad anymore, but the road does lay claim to numerous tires every year, and the odd van as well. It’s not maintained very often during the winter, from what I’m told, but hopefully will be passable. I’ve got 4 snowchains and a bag of gumption – hopefully that’ll get me around OK. 🙂

Once at the end of the road, I’ll be living in a tiny cabin in the woods; Continue reading →

Hopscotch above the Chittistone River.

8 Replies

Hiking and trekking above the Chittistone River, Chittistone, Valley, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska.,

Hey Folks,

This will be my last post here for a while. I’m heading off to the big wilderness again in the morning. This time, my plan is a little different. I’ll be over in the park until just before Xmas, when I have to return to Anchorage and baby sit 2 dogs, Keba and Musa, until the new year – then I’ll be back over to the park scrounging around in the dark.

This photo isn’t one I took, but it was my idea. This is from a trip this past summer down the Chittistone Valley. We had a GREAT time. The first time ever on one of my trips that a couple got engaged – Nick and April, 2 very cool folks from Seattle, WA. I was pretty impressed that someone would take a trip like this to propose, way to go Nick. Maybe when I get back I’ll post a photo of Nick and April. They had an awesome time, loved the trip, and even invited me to their wedding!

This little point is near a place called “Wolverine” that I hike to, and I knew they’d both love the sidetrip up to here. I took a bunch of photos of them both out on this overlook, and they wanted one of me for some reason. I said, “here, this will look very cool – shoot this”. I’ve actually done the entire route hop-scotch style, left, left, right, together, right, left, and so forth. Very artful! 🙂

Hopefully, my next post will be a little more inspired than this one.

Cheers

Carl

Chattooga River Photo, North Georgia Mountains.

Leave a reply

Chattooga River, whitewater paradise, Jawbone Rapid, Five Falls area, Georgia - South Carolina Border

Hey Folks,

I’ll maybe try to get one more post in here before I hit the road, so I’ll do 2 for today. This is a photo from the past. I’ve been catching up on some editing and web updates he last few weeks here, and haven’t really got out to shoot too much. As a result of that, I’ll try to post a couple of shots from years gone by that I like – and maybe even post a few of the countless thousands I didn’t like. 🙂 This photo was from an overnight trip a couple of years ago to the Chattooga River in north east Georgia. The Chattooga River defines the border between Georgia and South Carolina, and lies between the Sumter , Nantahala and Chattahoochee National Forests.

Congress designated the Chattooga River a “Wild and Scenic River” in 1974, and I’d attest to that designation. It’s both wild and scenic! The designation protects a corridor along the river for nearly 60 miles, though it’s somewhat silly Continue reading →

Wildflowers, Chugach Mountains, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

5 Replies

Wildflowers, Chugach Mountains, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

Here’s another photo from my trip this year to Tebay Lakes. We hiked south from the landing strip, at Upper Tebay Lake, and found this ridge on the backside of Tebay Falls, where we camped. I got up early one morning and had a blast shooting the dawn, with an array of wildflowers. Most mornings there would be an ever so slight breeze, which made it difficult to get closeup photos of the wildflowers, but I managed to get a few that were sharp. Fortunately there were flowers everywhere here – way more than probably anywhere else in the park that I’ve seen. This little patch of Dwarf Fireweed (the magenta or pink-ish flower here) and Arctic Daisy made a nice foreground for the distant peaks. I’ve never been very good at identifying flowers, but I’m pretty sure these are right. The yellow ones are either Alpine Arnica or Mountain Arnica.

This shot was taken Continue reading →

Waterfall, Baker River Photos, Region XI, Patagonia, Chile.

7 Replies

Waterfall, Baker River, Region XI, Patagonia, Chile.

Hey Folks

I’m going to ease away from the blog for a little while here. Not because I want to, but because, well, I won’t have regular email access for the next few weeks. Hopefully I’ll be able to check in reasonably often and maybe post something, but it’ll be slow around here. I can’t tell you right now exactly where I’ll be, but it should be a lot of fun.

In the meantime, here’s another photo of the endangered Baker River, or Rio Baker, down in Region XI, Patagonia. I’ve written about this situation a little recently, Continue reading →

How to find a campsite, by Carl.

3 Replies

backpacking campsite, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

There’s a lot of things I’m not good at. I can’t do math (I quit, right around the time our class began studying something they referred to as ‘long division’). I can’t play basketball. I have a black thumb when it comes to all things computer. I’m not good at remembering where I put things ….. BUT!!!! ……. Continue reading →

Ice Forms, Kennicott Glacier, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

6 Replies

Ice Forms, Kennicott Glacier, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

I know, I know .. I promised yesterday’s post would be the last of this series, but I changed my mind. This is another image of some ice forms on the Kennicott Glacier. I really was hoping to get some nice abstracts of the deep blue glacial ice so common in this kind of landscape, and so totally missing from my files. It took me quite a bit of clambering around (before my injury, of course), and fiddling with my tripod so that I could get this particular composition, but I was glad I did. There was this huge chunk of hanging ice right above me Continue reading →