Hey Folks
Well, I’m here in Anchorage, after a long trip, and glad to be here. Anchorage is such a cool town, and I look forward to getting to know it a bit better. With all the time I’ve spent in Alaska over the years, I’ve not spent much of that time in Anchorage, and so don’t know too much about it. I do know that traffic is a hassle, as I was reminded yesterday afternoon when I arrived.
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Hey Folks
Well, well, well .. times have indeed changed. I’m currently sitting in the plush surroundings of the Princess Cruise Line Copper Center Lodge. I’m sitting in the ‘Wrangell Room” appropriately enough, gazing out one of the 15 twelve foot-high windows, across the Copper River Basin, where I can see Mt Drum, Mt Sanford and Mt Wrangell.
If for some reason I took it upon myself to stand up, out of my comfy swivel chair, I could also see Mt Blackburn to the south. An impressive view.
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I’ve been reading a little about a recent case of a bear attack, this time in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Fortunately, the fellow who was mauled is alive. Here’s one version of the story.
A lot of discussion has focused on this incident on various nature photography forums. I’m always particularly interested in the subject because I spend so much time photographing bears. I’ve had a few encounters that caught my attention. Much of that discussion revolves around the potential for this kind of thing to be a vehicle for new, tighter regulations brought into place by the National Parks’ Service, placing ever tighter restrictions on photographers and the activities they engage.
I’ve been photographing bears in the wild a long time. Probably longer than most folks. I don’t know all there is about grizzly bears, but I do know more than most. I spend weeks on end every year photographing grizzly bears, hiking and backpacking in bear country, and talking to researchers and other naturalists who know bears.
So I’ve got my bear bones.
While I think that’s a worthy discussion, hopefully it’s not the be sole focus of our concern. Firstly, I hope the guy’s OK. I’ve been close enough to many grizzly bears that I can barely (now there’s a great pun) imagine how terrible it must be to be mauled by one.
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Mount Blackburn – King of the Wrangell Mountains
Hey Folks,
This image will be my last one from Wrangell St. Elias for a little while.
Well, that’s the plan, anyway – that’s highly likely to change as I get even more excited about heading back to the park this coming summer.
This photo was taken from the Richardson highway, looking east towards Wrangell St. Elias National Park, at Mt. Blackburn. There’s a pull off on Richardson highway that affords a view of Mt. Blackburn (16,390 feet = 4,996 m), Mt Sanford (16,237 ft = 4,949 m), Mt. Drum (12,010 ft = 3,661 m), and Mt. Wrangell (14,163 ft = 4,317 m) in fall.
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Hey Folks,
Here’s another photo of Mt. St. Elias, taken from the same flight as my previous 2 posts. I’ll post a couple more on this series of aerial photos of Wrangell St. Elias National Park over the next few days. Mt. St. Elias stands 18,008 feet (5,489 metres), and rises almost from the coastal shoreline of Taan Fjord in Icy Bay.
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