Category Archives: Winter

Photos of winter, cold, snowy, icy, wintery images.

The Wrangell Mountains

Wrangell Mountains, Willow Lake, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

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

Mount Wrangell

Willow Lake, frozen and snow covered, view across the Copper River basin to Mount Wrangell and Mt Zanetti, winter, alpenglow on the mountains, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Willow Lake, frozen and snow covered, view across the Copper River basin to Mount Wrangell and Mt Zanetti, winter, alpenglow on the mountains, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

“only for a moment, and the moment’s gone” – Kerry Livgren.

Mount Wrangell, and Mount Zanetti glow at sunset. Viewed from Willow Lake, near the Richardson Highway.

Soon after, the light faded, and I headed home.

Cheers

Carl

 

Mount Blackburn Photo

Hey Folks,

Winter in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Kuskulana River, Alaska.

Mount Blackburn – Winter in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Wrangell Mountains, Mount Blackburn, Kuskulana River, Winter, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Mount Blackburn, the 5th highest peak in the US; a grand mountain!

Sometimes those moments in the mountains are just too grand to describe; This is one of those views that is beyond the sublime. The Great Horned Owls hooting behind me only added to the ambience. The more time I spend in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, the more impressive the place appears.

As the light faded, I quietly breathed my “thank you”, turned the skis around, and eased toward the night.

Cheers

Carl

Mount Blackburn Photo

Mount Blackburn Photo, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Mount Blackburn Photo, Wrangell Mountains and the Copper River Basin, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Here’s a view of Mount Blackburn and the Wrangell Mountains, at sunset.

One of the hassles with shooting in Alaska in the dead of winter is, of course, the cold. We all understand how that’s a hassle, right? Cold fingers, batteries that die, and so forth. The list goes on.

Getting a vehicle started at 40 below zero deg F is itself an art. An engine block heater for your car helps – well, it’s pretty much a ‘must have’. But at minus40deg, even that won’t get you far. The engine block heater helps warm up the mechnical parts of the engine block, but at these frigid arctic temperatures, even the oil thickens up so much it doesn’t flow; problematic for a car engine. So , an Oil Heater works well. Another useful tool is something to warm up the battery.  The 3rd item that’s a good tool to have is a battery heating pad – cold temperatures can dramatically affect the cranking power of a battery, so heating it up will help get your car started. Continue reading

For Martin

Kuskulana Glacier, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

An ice cave on the Kuskulana Glacier, in the Wrangell Mountains. Winter snow and freezing temperatures ice up the water of the Kuskulana River, and the this wall of ice is a myriad of patterns, colors, and textures. Kuskulana 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,

“Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.” ≈ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thank you, Dr. King.

Cheers

Carl

Skiing, Wrangell-St. Elias

Skiing, Wrangell-St. Elias Alaska.

A backcountry skier stands above the Kuskulana River, near Mt. Blackburn. Cross country skiing in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, winter, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

A quick photo from Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.

Skis: cheap
Pack: not very much $$
View: free

Temperature: Minus 40 degrees.

By the way – if you want to see some great work – check out Jim Goldstein’s blog post, including links to  over 160 photographers’ favorite photos from 2010.

Cheers

Carl

Editing art

Backcountry skiing near Mt. Blackburn, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Winter is a great time for backcountry skiing in Alaska. Cross country skiing and ski touring in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, along the Kuskulana River, near Mt Blackburn and the Wrangell Mountains, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Happy New Year, and Welcome back to the blog. I had a somewhat mixed couple of weeks, which I’m sure I’ll tell you all about here soon enough. Before I get all that together however, I’ll post a short note about this news I saw, an article concerning a new publishing of the Mark Twain classics: “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” edited by Professor Alan Gribben of Auburn University at Montgomery. It differs from other editions of those books because Mr. Gribben has turned the word “nigger” — as used by Tom and Huck — into “slave.” Mr. Gribben has also changed “Injun” to Indian.

This is interesting to me. I’m a huge fan of Twain, particularly those novels, and the idea of editing (i.e., rewording) such great work is almost ghastly .. on the surface. On the other hand, we live in a world where art, including ‘great art‘ is constantly being ‘adapted‘ for presentation: consider films presented on television, for example. How are bleeps, voice-overs, cuts and blurred body parts any different to a publisher swapping out words that might be offensive or inappropriate? Or updated versions of Shakespearean classics, making them infinitely more readable for kids? How about song lyrics bleeped for radio play? Or, better yet, literary classics like Nabokov’s “Lolita” banned from schools altogether?

How about the outcry over John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High”? The US Senate held a hearing in 1985 to deal with explicit lyrics in pop music. So we’re not talking about anything new here at all. Indeed, one of the most popular shows on TV in recent times is American Idol, where countless classic tunes have been butchered by this generations’ most current attempts to throw its own heros up the pop charts. 🙂 Continue reading

Working by your self

Snowboarder near Anchorage, Alaska.

I was photographing toward the mountains when 2 snowboarders came on by. I snapped this photo of one of them before he took off down the mountain.  A snowboarder walks across the ridge near Flatop Mountain, Glen Alps, near Anchorage, in winter, Alaska. Mt. McKinley, known as “Denali” in the distance. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey folks,

A quick word of advice. If you think it looks like a nice afternoon to go out and shoot some photos (i.e., the light is rockin’, fresh snow on the mountaintops, etc, etc, etc), the very best of advice I might offer you is this: Head out on your own.

I know better than to think I might do some photography when I head out with non-photographers. Well, I like to THINK I know better, but I today did it yet again. Sometimes I’m a just a flatout non-learner, I guess.

So, as the setting sun turned the sky and nearby mountains a glorious pink, instead of photographing the grandeur, I was packed up and skiing my way back to the parking lot, my camera and tripod safely tucked away inside my daypack.

Photography and non-photographers just don’t mix well. The first time I was given this lesson was years ago, in a discussion with the late Bill Silliker, Jr (a  great photographer and a good man); we were talking about being a photographer versus being a musician. Bill had been a drummer in his younger days. His words were “Carl, one of the best things, for me, about photography as a gig is that I don’t need a bass player”. Continue reading

An Alaskan Icon – Wal-Mike’s

Wal-Mike's, Trapper Creek, Alaska.

Wal-Mike’s run down store of all things, Trapper Creek, on the Parks highway, winter, Alaska. Click on the thumbnail above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Here’s a photo I took this past week on a thwarted trip north to photograph Denali. I’d hoped for a nice clear morning and view of the grand old mountain with some nice alpenglow, but a low lying fog settled in the river valley overnight, and I couldn’t see much of anything until well after sunup. Kind of a bummer after spending a night in my bag at 0˚.

So I packed up and headed back south, towards the warmth of a shower. Along the way, I drove past Wal-Mike’s, a place I’d driven by many times and always thought to myself ‘I gotta shoot that sometime’. Well, friday was ‘sometime’, so I went for it. Mike was around, but fortunately used to photographers, I suppose. He didn’t come out with a sawn-off shotgun, as I suspected, and I was able to take a few photos and scurry on before any drama unfolded.

I must admit, I was a little uneasy standing around taking photos with all the ‘Joe Miller for US Senate’ signs in the area, but no one bothered me, and I escaped without any trouble.

I must admit, the name of the store is pretty clever.

Cheers

Carl