Tag Archives: Keystone Canyon

Horsetail Falls, Keystone Canyon

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A hiker stands alongside Horsetail Falls, near Valdez, on the Richardson Highway, Alaska.

Standing alongside Horsetail Falls, near Valdez, on the Richardson Highway, Alaska. Please click on the image thumbnail to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

Here’s another photo from my trip down the Richardson Highway – Memory Lane. This one is Horsetail Falls, another waterfall in keystone Canyon, just south of Bridal Veil Falls, the image I posted earlier.

Waterfalls are so cool; I can sit and stare at a waterfall for hours, it seems, never tiring of the flow. The energy of the falls is often spellbinding.

I first visited this particular area, along the Lowe River in Keystone Canyon, on a trip to Valdez in 2000. That trip seems like several lifetimes ago now. It rained most of the time, and I left soon after, heading north to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park for a backpacking trip. I wish I hadn’t taken so long to return. Continue reading →

Bridal Veil Falls Photo, Keystone Canyon

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Bridal Veil Falls, Keystone Canyon, Richardson Highway, Valdez,

Bridal Veil Falls from the Richardson Highway, near Valdez, Alaska. Keystone Canyon, Lowe River, Chugach Mountains, Central Alaska waterfalls. To view a larger version of the photo, please click on the thumbnail.

Hey Folks,

Here’s a photo I took this spring on a quick trip down the Richardson Highway to Valdez. Kind of a spur of the moment thing, I took off from Glennallen one rainy, nasty morning to revisit the area. I hadn’t been down to Valdez in years, and so it was a nice way to spend what looked like might be a day of dreary weather. I also wanted to photograph a couple of the waterfalls along the road, this one and Horsetail Falls as well, which is just around the bend from Bridal Veil Falls.

This kind of location is difficult to shoot, for me, as the scene doesn’t offer a lot of options regarding a vantage point. The river in the foreground, Lowe River, is uncrossable, unless you have a boat. I, of course, did not have a boat with me. So the photographer here is pretty limited to shooting from across the river, and that makes it difficult to come up with any compositional variations.

Similarly, without a heavy overcast day, including the sky wasn’t a great option either. The road runs immediately behind where I shot this image from, so backing away would drastically change the nature of the photo, by including the road in the foreground. Not necessarily a bad thing, but that wasn’t what I was looking for. Perhaps I’ll go back one day in better conditions and shoot it again, with the road and a motor vehicle in the foreground, as a ‘travel photo‘.

Continue reading →