Dwarf Fireweed on an alpine hillside and a fiery sunset in the Chugach Mountains, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. The latin or scientific name for Dwarf Fireweed is Epilobium latifolium and it is classified in the Evening-Primrose Family, or Onagraceae. Please click on the thumbnail to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

Here’s an image I took several years ago on a backpacking trek through the eastern Chugach mountains in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.  I finally got around to processing it today. The image is a compilation of 4 separate exposures, blended together manually in Photoshop.

This is from a backpacking trip we do from Iceberg Lake to Bremner Mines in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. It’s a spectacular trek, and a real favorite of mine. Last summer, 2009, one participant did the trek with me for his 2nd time. We cross 2 glaciers, traverse 4 high alpine passes, and camp in some of the prettiest spots I’ve ever been to.

Summer’s approaching quickly and I’m looking forward to trudging around the mountains again. I’ll be heading over to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park this week to do some exploring, some photography and soak up some of the big mountain country. As such, I’ll be gone for a while, but hope to have some new photos to post when I return, with some stories to accompany them. Following this next few weeks I’m heading up to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for 2 weeks on the Canning River. Then it’s back to Wrangell-St. Elias for the rest of the summer, before 2 weeks in Katmai National Park in fall to photograph the great grizzly bear. That should be an amazing 2 weeks, for sure.

Then, before ya know it summer will be history, and I’ll be editing and processing photos, waxing up my skis and looking for my down jacket. Life can be pretty routine, I suppose.

This summer, my photography is going to again focus on Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, as I work towards completing my first book; a presentation of the place I first fell in love with over 10 years ago, and have returned to each year since. I’ve shot quite a bit of the park already, but would like to improve my work in some specific areas; the boreal forest, the coastal region, and a broader coverage of the mammals of the park – a few species in particular, but  really any of them are a treat to photograph. Hopefully I’ll get lucky and grab a few new images during this next few weeks.

Funnily enough, the longer I’ve worked on the project, the larger it seems to grow. Rather than feel like I’m moving toward a complete coverage, I’m still constantly finding more and more areas that I realize “Oh, I need some photos of that”. Sometimes it feels like it may never actually finish. 🙂

If I get some more sunsets like this one I’ll be happy. What an amazing evening this was. The rest of the group on the trek had gone to bed while I wandered around trying to capture this glorious sunset on camera. I’ve since found a few other compositions in this area I’d like to try, so hopefully the light will cooperate next time I pass through. We’ll see, eh?

Cheers

Carl