Mount Saint Elias, 18 008' high, stands tall in the evening light over an unnamed glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska - aerial photo. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Well, just back from 2 weeks to photographing brown bears in Katmai National Park, and I’m off again already; I’ll be gone for some time on this trip, 4 weeks down along the coastline of Wrangell – St. Elias National Park, where I will meet up with Erin and Hig, of Ground Truth Trekking. They’re spending 2 months in the area,  finding out

“what would it be like to live on ice? In the fall of 2011 we will set out to spend two months living on the shifting, melting surface of North America’s largest glacier, along with our two young children.

Trekking between a series of camps on the Malaspina Glacier, on Alaska’s remote and harsh Lost Coast, we will explore this dramatic and wild landscape, weather the fall storms, and document climate change in action.”

Pretty cool stuff. You can read more about the expedition on their blog, here. They’ve already been out a few weeks, and I’m looking forward to meeting up, and hearing all about their adventures. From the tweets I’ve seen, they’re having a blast. I spoke with Hig today, and he’s excited about the trip as it’s going so far. So my plan is to join their trip, for a while, and photograph as much as I can of it. As well as explore the magnificent Wrangell – St. Elias National Park coastline, a place I’ve not spent as much time as I’d like to. So, for 4 weeks, I’ll be trudging around, hiking, pack rafting and experiencing the Malaspina Glacier and the “Lost Coast”. I also hope, of course, to get some big views of those mountains, the incredible Saint Elias Range, the world’s highest coastal range, and home of Mount Saint Elias, pictured above.

The trip should be a blast, anytime I can spend 4 solid weeks in the backcountry I’m a happy fella; to do so in such a unique area as this coastline will be truly memorable, I’m sure. Lots to photograph, and lots to learn about in such a relatively rarely visited area. It’ll be awesome to hang with Hig and Erin some more, and learn from their knowledge and experience. Hig has a PhD in geology and Erin a masters in molecular biology, so I’m sure I’ll learn an amazing amount from both of them.

I’ll schedule a few posts for while I’m away, so please do check in from time time. I should be back in on Nov 7, and have plenty to talk about when I arrive. That’s the plan, anyway. But we all know what they say about plans and mice and men.

Cheers

Carl

Willow Lake and the Wrangell Mountains, wintertime, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, Alaska. From left to right, Mt Drum, Mt Sanford, Mt Zanetti, Mt Wrangell. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks

Well, maybe not all of them, but some of the stars, for sure.

Mt Drum, Mt Sanford, Mt Zanetti and Mt Wrangell, viewed from Willow Lake, along the Richardson Highway. It’s not always this clear, however, and so many of the people who drive by this scene have no idea what they’re missing. Perhaps more amazingly, when it IS clear, some people drive right by without so much as a glance.

Cheers

Carl

Winter travel through the boreal forest, in Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Hiking on snowshoes through the snow-covered taiga, white spruce forest in winter. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

Well, Fall’s well and truly over, now. I skied through a whiteout this afternoon, over in the Chugach Mountains, and decided winter’s here. So I think I’ll welcome the new season with a trip to “the park”, as I call Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve.

The plan is to head over early this week and spend a few days on the north side of the park, snowshoeing and skiing around in the forest. I took this photo last winter on a trip to this same area; it’s always a treat to return and wander through the silent whiteness.

Winter is such a fascinating time of year in Alaska, so stark and silent, yet completely amazing. It lacks the vitality of the summer, but owns a kind of sublime depth that simply isn’t present at any other time of year. It’s very alive. Right now it hasn’t yet got down to the crazy winter temps of -40˚, but there should be plenty of snow around.

Tomorrow I’ll spend part of the day packing for the trip. Even though I’m only going to the park for a few days, colder weather means more gear, and more careful packing is required. Then, Tuesday, it’ll be off to Wrangell – St. Elias National Park to see what I can find to photograph. If nothing is on offer, I’ll just spend the time skiing a few areas  want to explore a little more, snowshoeing through the forest, and enjoying the greatest National Park in the world.

Cheers

Carl

Backpacking up Hidden Creek, in the Wrangell Mountains, near Kennicott, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. To view a larger version of this image, please click on the photo above.

Hey Folks,

Here’s a shot again from the Hidden Creek backpacking trip this past summer. Well, if one can really call the last week of August in Alaska “summer”. We had a great time on the trip, as I mentioned in a few earlier posts, in particular because we were fortunate enough to have some fine weather. Those big sunny skies make the world of difference when you’re sleeping, eating and doing everything else under them.

I miss the summer already! Right now we’re kind of in that dead era between fall and winter. I’ve been back from my last trip (photographing grizzly bears in Katmai National Park) over 2 weeks now .. the longest stint i’ve spent inside the house since May. I think next week I’ll try to head to somewhere and sleep in my tent again. I need some wilderness, especially after sitting in a court room all week (so far) doing my civic service of jury duty.

This particular hike was rewarding as well,, because last year I did this section as part of a longer route, from Nugget Creek to Kennicott – 65 miles through the Wrangell mountains. However, most of the trip was under socked in, gray, cloudy skies, cold damp air and gusts of winds. It was a treat to get to see at least some of what we hiked through in the fog.

I think I’ll probably add this hike to my regular set of Wrangell – St. Elias National Park backpacking trips. It’s a flexible route, with a lot of options for detours, sidetrips, basecamps, extended hikes or shorter trips, etc, etc. And the scenery is simply superb.

We also got to see a number of Dall sheep and mountain goats up in the high country, which is always nice. We didn’t see any bears, though last year we saw some in the area. But the mountain views more than made up for any lack of wildlife here.

I shot this photo using the intervalometer on my camera (Nikon D300s). In the past I’ve used the self-timer, but that limits me to just one shot at a time. With the intervalometer, i can program the camera to take any number of shots, in sequence, starting at a given point in time, and also set the timing of the shots. So, for example, I think here I set it up to start 2 minutes from when I programmed it, and take about 8 or 9 shots, 1 second apart. That allows me to move, turn around, etc, and try some different shots. It’s definitely the best way, IMO, to take this kind of shot without a model or without using some kind of handheld remote shutter release.

I usually take one shot, or 2, using the self-timer, to get a ballpark of where I need to be, what focal length I want, etc, and make sure everything is right. Then I turn on the intervalometer, and away I go. Nikon cameras mostly come with an intervalometer now, while I believe Canon cameras do not (but it’s possible to buy one after market). For shooting images in the backcountry, if you don’t have a model along, they can be invaluable.

I had hiked up this ridge, and was waiting on the folks in the group to join me, so I set up the tripod and took a few images while they were still climbing up. By the time they’d caught up, I had taken the photos and packed up again, ready to hike over the hill to camp. And then, to dinner.

Cheers

Carl

A backcountry campsite (Big Agnes Seedhouse SL1) high on the tundra in the Wrangell Mountains. The high alpine ridges near Mt Jarvis, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve provide a great place for hiking and backpacking. Sunset, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

Just to stave off the impending deluge of grizzly bear photos, I thought I’d drop this one in here. This is from the last backpacking trip of the season for me, the recent Mt Jarvis excursion. Here’s a campsite I picked out all by myself, high on the tundra.

With a  night so wonderfully clear, the temperatures dropped down a bit during the evening, and it was plenty cold in the am when I awoke before dawn, and sauntered across the tundra to ‘reflection pond’, where I shot some of the recent images posted of Mt. Jarvis.

For this trip, I carried the Big Agnes Seedhouse SL1 tent that you see here. It’s a nice little 1 person tent, pretty roomy actually, and relatively light. Weighing under 3lbs, it’s not heavy at all. I add a footprint, which probably makes the packaged weight over 3 lbs, but I do that for all my tents, so the relative weight remains the same. The tent’s not perfect, but I do like it pretty well. I’ll do a fuller review of the tent on my Alaskan Alpine Treks blog in the coming weeks.

I also carried my Mystery Ranch G5000 backpack, which is lying under the REI Duck’s Back Rain Cover (100L). REi have improved this cover a lot, and it now works pretty well.  The Mystery Ranch backpack is awesome.

And my trusty old Leki Makalu trekking pole. I’ve always preferred to hike with just one pole, rather than the 2 that most folks use. I’ve no idea why, it just feels better and easier for me. All I need now is a little bandana printed with an Australian flag, and the Makalu would double as a perfect flag pole to mark out Australian Territory, once I pick my campsite. This serves notice to other folks in the area to not camp too close!

I think that’s all the gear that I can make out in this photo. I’m going to do a full list of my typical backpacking gear soon, too.

Oh .. and I should post another shot of this tent, taken the night before, at out previous campsite. The scene was very different to what you see here. But you’ll have to wait for that one.

Cheers

Carl

The Copper river and Mt Drum, from Simpson Hill Overlook. View of the Copper River basin and Wrangell Mountains, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image thumbnail to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

OK, enough with the waterfalls already! Here’s another image from my spring trip earlier this year, from Simpson Hill Overlook, off the Richardson Highway, near Glennallen, Alaska. This is a scene I’ll never tire of; looking down the Copper River, with the Wrangell Mountains in glorious sunshine. The mountains you can see in this image are Mt. Drum on the left and Mt. Wrangell the broader, dome-shaped mountain on the right in the background.

Just out of sight to the left of the frame is Mt. Sanford, and  Mt. Blackburn to the right. How many vantage points do you know of in North America where you might choose to exclude from your photo two mountains both of which stand over 16 000′ high? That speaks volumes, in my opinion, about how amazing this viewpoint is. The 5th (Blackburn) and 6th tallest peaks (Sanford) in the US and they don’t make the photo? Craziness!

The Copper River is pretty grand too. Not to get bogged down by meaningless numbers and superlatives, but the Copper River is 300 miles long, and the 10th largest river, by volume, in the US. The Copper River is also the north and western boundaries of Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve, coolest park in all the world! It’s perhaps best known, however, for its nearly infamous Red Salmon run, usually over 2 million spawning salmon, loaded with fatty Omega-3 oils that make for some delicious supper.

I was really hoping for some sweet delicious alpenglow on this particular evening …. but ….. alas, such wasn’t to be my fortune. The light faded soon after I shot this – the boreal forest in the foreground grew dark, and the mountain light ebbed and dwindled; distant dim clouds low on the northwestern horizon thwarted my efforts at capturing some rich color on the snow-capped peaks, as seems to be the case all too often.

This scene is one of the very few ‘roadside‘ vantage points from which to photograph some of the big mountains in Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Willow Lake is another. The views on a clear day from these places rival anything I’ve seen anywhere else. The problem, I guess, for photographers is that the clear days are few and far between. Enjoy ‘em when ya can!

Cheers

Carl

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.

In this photo I wanted to illustrate that sense of being captivated that waterfalls so often impart. Rather than quickly set up for a shot that expresses that feeling, I simply sat and enjoyed the waterfall for a while .. nearly an hour. People came and went, and I just sat and enjoyed the falls; after a while, I knew exactly how I wanted to shoot this scene. I’d been on the far side of the falls from where this image was taken, but I knew that this was the composition I wanted. So, I wandered down to my truck, grabbed my camera, walked up the little trail to this vantage point, set up my tripod and camera, hit the timer, and went and stood in front of the camera. I took 2 more images afterward, but the first one is definitely my favorite. Sometimes it just happens like that.

If you’re visiting Alaska and looking for a great drive, the trip south from Glennallen to Valdez is pretty tough to beat. it’s a little over 100 miles, and climbs up over Thompson Pass, in the Chugach Mountains, and the Worthington Glacier. The descent down to Valdez through Keystone Canyon is a fun drive. You can even still view the old tunnel, built nearly 100 years ago, when the canyon was first used as a route for the train line running to the copper and gold mines of interior Alaska.

Keystone Canyon, with all these killer waterfalls, is a popular ice climbing destination in the winter (keep an eye out here for some of those photos this coming winter). Highly recommended!

Cheers

Carl

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‘.

I actually climbed the west wall of the canyon quite a ways, trying to find another vantage point. I found a spot to shoot from, but didn’t manage to make an image that I liked. Sometimes the generic is the best option for a good reason.

I shot this scene a little, headed on down the road to Horsetail Falls, photographed that, ventured further south to Valdez, enjoyed fresh Halibut, fries and a latte, and then turned to drive back north. On the return drive, I noticed this tiny sliver of blue sky open up, and thought I’d reshoot Bridal Veil Falls while the sky was something more (if only a little) than battleship gray. That’s when I took this photo.

Cheers

Carl

Coastal plain, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska (aerial photo).

Hey Folks,

Last night I attended  public comment hearing for the preliminary stages of a Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In short, this comment period allows the public to offer information and thoughts on some of the issues they feel might need to be addressed, and oftentimes their thoughts as to how those issues should be addressed. The CCP will be a document that “outlines and guides long-term management” of the Refuge. The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) are the land management agency responsible for managing the Refuge. If you would like to add your input at this stage, here is Comment Form for the Refuge. Before you do, it’s worth browsing the FWS ANWR webpage for some useful ideas on how this works (they’re not looking for reasons why the coastal plain might or might not be opened to drilling – that decision is to be the work of Congress, not the simple folks of the FWS).

One of the critical topics up for discussion is the designation of  ”wilderness” in the Refuge. Currently, nearly half (41%) of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge 19.3 million acres is designated wilderness. The remaining 10 million acres are not currently designated “wilderness”. The FWS are presently proposing to study these areas and determine whether or not they qualify as wilderness; the ‘Wilderness Review‘ section of the CCP. A recommendation could then be made to Congress to designate these areas wilderness. Such a designation would render the Refuge off-limits to oil and gas extraction.

The arguments were the same tired commentaries we’ve heard countless times now; “we need the oil, we don’t need to send our money overseas, national security, billions of dollars worth of economic value, etc, etc”. Yadda Yadda Yadda. What everybody failed to mention is reality; the area IS wild. I challenge anyone to visit the Refuge, traverse those majestic mountains, feel the vastness of the coastal plain, and argue that this is not wild land, is not wildness and wilderness. We can draw up our arbitrary lines of demarcation, our imaginary boundaries, but all this illustrates is how far removed we are from a real understanding of wildness, of wilderness.

The caribou herds know. The great grizzly bears know. The Arctic Tern, returning home from their world travels, know. The countless mosquitoes swarming up from the tundra know. The lichens know, the sedges and shrubs know. The mountains know, the rivers and glaciers know. How is it that we don’t know? What have we lost that we are now unable to feel this place and know it’s wildness? Or, if we DO know this wildness, what kind of fantasyland are we living in that we might deny it? I’m reminded of a great book by writer Derrick Jensen, The Culture of Make Believe. Derrick writes, “For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are necessary because, without them, many deplorable acts would become impossibilities.”

Last night I sat through 4 hours of public ‘comment’ that was largely a bunch of lies. Lies in the sense that the intent is to deny reality. The coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is indeed wilderness. A great wilderness, a beautiful wild place. A wilderness, like all wild places, that is like no other.

Below is the (rather clumsy, if not nerdish) definition of wilderness, as per the Wilderness Act:

(c) A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

While I find the very idea of defining ‘wilderness‘ to be oxymoronic (the minute we define it, we lose it), I’ll leave that discussion for another article. The landscape of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is indeed a wilderness. The US Government might not yet understand that, but, it seems, that’s their own shortcoming; I realized it the first time I visited the place. Every single person I’ve travelled in the Refuge with, and every person I’ve met who’s ever been there realize it as well. To argue that this is not a wilderness is akin to arguing against gravity; it’s simply absurdly dishonest.

The FWS would do well to deal with reality here; and recommend that Congress do the same, acknowledging fully the great wildness of the Refuge. Denial is, they say, one of the great signs of addiction; to live more honestly is to see things the way they actually are. And the wilderness of the Refuge, including the awesome coastal plan, is every bit as wild as we are.

Cheers

Carl

Playing a Native American Indian flute on the arctic coastal plain, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), Alaska. Please click on the image to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

I’ve been wanting to write for the last week about the current Gulf Oil disaster, but haven’t really been quite sure what to say. There are simply so many tangents to this mess that I’ve not known where to start. The deaths of 11 people seem, unfortunately, to fade into the melée of concern about big oil, political ineptness, poisoned ecosystems, fathomless litigations, ad infinitum. The web we weave seems larger than the spread of oil.

It makes sense, to me, to start at home. The reality is that this catastrophe stares us right in the eyeball. The mirror reflects our own lives – I drive a car, I love my gore-tex and silnylon tents, my synthetic-fill jacket, my polycarbonate cameras. I eat fresh bananas and whole grain breads shipped here from afar. My computer was flown directly from Shanghai, China. The world I live in is a fossil fuel world. That world includes crude oil belching from the ocean floor into the Gulf of Mexico, and on to Gaia knows where.

So I bear responsibility in this mess; I want cheap gasoline, cheap oil. I complained about the soaring gasoline prices just 2 years ago. I failed to demand that the federal government not exempt BP from an environmental impact study. I failed to demand that Minerals Management Services mandate a remote-control shut-off switch on all drilling operations. I failed to demand that the oil industry follow the strictest, safest procedures possible.

But it goes further than that; I failed to say ‘enough‘. I have enough gear, enough technology, enough information, enough shoes (trust me, I have more than enough shoes). Enough of everything. The Pavlovian demand for ‘more‘ that we’re conditioned to believe is ‘normal‘ drives this rig. The push for more oil, more power, more energy, more economy, more technology, more information, more shoes, more blogs, more photos, more Gore-tex, more noise. It is critically insane to believe that more pollution, more disaster, more dysfunction, more unhappiness, more hunger, more disease, more war and more tragedy won’t be a part of that system.

Because the 2 are inseparable. More energy is more pollution. More consumption is more extinction. More technology is more dissatisfaction. More information is more misinformation. More gasoline is more oil is more drilling is more than 5000 barrels of oil haemmorhaging from the earth; is more dead terns and pelicans and oil rig workers killed on the job.

If we decide to start at home, then I think we HAVE to start with remolding our economy; the word “economy” is a combination of 2 Greek words: “oikos” or “house” and “nemos” which means “to manage”. “Economy”, then, translates to manage your house or to manage your affairs.

We have to see our economic ideal of unmitigated growth as a death sentence, because it’s killing the planet. In fact, how often do we use that very word to describe economic activity? We WANT to make a killing, we HOPE to make a killing; that’s a good deal, no? When that killing washes up on a Louisiana beach in the form of an oil-soaked shorebird, why don’t we understand THAT is the killing we’ve been in pursuit of?

Can I do with less? I know I can do with less pollution. Less energy, less noise, less frenetic pursuit of that infernal more. When is enough enough? When is enough too much? When it comes in the form of 200 thousand gallons of oil spewing into the ocean? Or when we get that new G3 iPhone?

Let’s do better.

Cheers

Carl