Tag Archives: scenics

Northern lights and fall colors

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Northern lights, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Northern lights, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Here’s another image from a recent sojourn to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park to see and photograph the northern lights, or Aurora borealis. It was a treat to have a moonlit night to shoot by, providing plenty of ambient light to capture the fall colors as well as the northern lights.

This trip was a wild ride. A mad run from Anchorage to the Glennallen area Continue reading →

Arrigetch Peaks at first light

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Arrigetch Peaks at dawn, Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska.

Arrigetch Peaks at dawn, Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

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! 🙂

Cheers

Carl

Fall colors in the Arrigetch Peaks

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Arrigetch Creek, fall color, Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska.

Fall colors along Arrigetch Creek in Gates of the Arctic National Park, Sunrise over the Brooks Mountains, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Here’s an image I took in August on a trip to the Arrigetch Peaks, in Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. We’d had a great early morning hike up in to and around the Maidens Valley for sunrise, and I shot a few nice images of the peaks catching early light. Afterward we hiked back to camp to catch an hour or so of sleep before breakfast, but I took a few shots along the creek before my nap.

I really liked the warm light striking the top of this ridge above camp, but didn’t have long to find a complimentary foreground before the low-lying clouds blocked the light. A pretty good rule of thumb for any landscape photographer in the backcountry is to always camp by water; one can USUALLY find some kind of foreground with a water source, be it a pond, a stream, a lake, the ocean, a glacier, etc.

Here I added some color by setting up near this patch of bear berry, strikingly red in peak fall color. The whole process for this shot took maybe 5 minutes, from walking over to the stream and scratching around to find the composition I liked, checking exposure, etc, and shooting the frame. 10 minutes later I was in my sleeping bag, toasty warm, and the light had dropped from the ridge altogether. I was able to grab some sleep before getting up again for breakfast with the group to a cloudy and somewhat drab day. Continue reading →

Northern lights over Mentasta Mountains

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Northern lights, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Northern lights over the Mentasta Mountains, tundra, boreal forest and a small kettle pond on a moonlit night. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

From the recent trip to shoot the northern lights in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I’ve never seen clouds move in quite so quickly as they did this particular evening. I’d se up to shoot over in the Glennallen area, and before long, high clouds rolled in from the southwest. In order to keep shooting, I had to figure which would be the best direction to head.

I chose north and east, toward the Nabesna Road, partly because I wanted to be in that area for sunrise. So I spent the evening trying to stay ahead of the lights and catch what images I could along the way. Finally, I made it to where I wanted to be, and then set off to find a composition I wanted.

For any Alaskans out there, or anyone else who’s hiked over muskeg before, you’ll appreciate this one.; try setting out at night time to hike over the muskeg for your photos. I guarantee that WILL kick your a$$.

Then I spent the rest of the evening waiting for the lights to turn on. They popped out a few times, but never really strongly, though they were pretty active. The full moon made for plenty of light for the foreground. I wish I could’ve gotten a little closer to the water’s edge here, but all that long grass in the foreground sits in about 10 inches of water. If the lights had offered something really dazzling, I might have ventured out, but for staying dry and warm seemed a better option given the circumstances.

Finally I fell asleep under a spruce tree, woke up to a clouded sky, and stumbled my way backward camp and my superwarm, absolutely amazing, Western Mountaineering Lynx sleeping bag. life was good. I didn’t get up for sunrise.

Cheers

Carl

Erie Mine, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

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Erie Mine Bunkhouse, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Erie Mine Bunkhouse and the Wrangell Mountains, fall colors. Erie Mine is one of three mines that made up the famous Kennecott Copper Mines, Kennicott, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

From the aerial shoot we did in September; this one is of the old bunkhouse at Erie Mine, one of the 3 Kennecott Mines, in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.

It’s interesting to me how much money, time and investment the National Park Service put into Kennecott, an old abandoned Copper Mine. The basic tenant of the Park Service is “don’t take stuff out of the place, and don’t leave your trash behind”.

It seems odd to effectively celebrate an organization that did quite the opposite of that. The mining company, like most mining companies, took what they wanted from the landscape, and left all their sh** behind when they were done. Now, what they did is revered.

But, such are the ways of the NPS; sometimes they’re hard to follow.

Cheers

Carl

Mt. Sanford

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Mount Sanford, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Mount Sanford, early morning, fall colors and a kettle pond, boreal forest, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

So while I’m off in Katmai photographing the bears, I’ll schedule a post or 2 from the summer. Here’s a shot of Mt. Sanford not long after sunrise one gorgeous sunny fall morning. What a view!

Cheers

Carl

Fall colors in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

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Fall colors, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Fall colors in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Aerial photo. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Here’s a quick shot from a flight we took over the park last week; the weather wasn’t so awesome, but the flight sure was. I’d shot this valley before, and knew it would have some nice color.

Now, back to packing gear for the grizzly bear photo tour.

Cheers

Carl

Glacial Stream, Root Glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

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Glacial Stream, Root Glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Glacial Stream and ogives, Root Glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

From my most recent trip to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and beyond. This is an aerial photo from above the Root Glacier, near Kennecott and McCarthy, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. The small stream is made up largely of runoff water from Stairway Icefall, a massive 7000′ vertical wall of ice that effectively form the “headwaters” of the Root Glacier.

This is an image I’ve wanted to capture for sometime now; I’ve seen various similar images of this same stream from a few photographers, including my friend Ron Niebrugge, and often thought it would be a cool subject to shoot. Indeed it is.  Continue reading →

Xanadu, Arrigetch Peaks, Gates of the Arctic National Park

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Arrigetch Creek, the Arrigetch Peaks, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Arrigetch Creek and reflection of the Arrigetch Peaks, Albatross, Xanadu, and Ariel. Early morning light, just after sunrise, fall, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

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