Skolai Images

Hey Folks

Welcome to anyone who comes and visits this journal. I don’t really have an awful lot to write at the moment, because (a) it’s late and I’m sleepy, and (b)it’s been a long day. However, I did want to make this post to say hello to any of the folks visiting for the first time, in response to my email. Thank you for coming out to ‘the journal’. (more…)

Hey Folks,

Here’s a 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. This proximity to the ocean is one of the reasons the mountain is so rarely climbed, (more…)

Hey Folks,

This is a photo of Mt. Logan and the Universty Range, with Mt. St. Elias in the background. Though Mt. Logan sits in the Kluane National Park and Reserve in southwestern Yukon Territory, Canada, this aerial photo was taken from Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, Alaska. Mt. Logan stands close to 20 000′ high, nearly as high as Denali, or Mt. McKinley, in Alaska, and with it’s awesome bulk, it’s every bit as grand. Mt. Logan is reputed to be one of the the largest mountains in the world in terms of sheer volume - the circumference of the base of Mt. Logan is greater than even Mt. Everest. (more…)

Hey folks,

I’ll try to intersperse a few Alaska photos in here with all the photos from Chile. It’s still only April and already I’m champin’ at the bit to get to Alaska and back in to Wrangell St. Elias National Park. Last year in September I had an opportunity to do some aerial photography of these mountains and it was absolutely awesome. I did a flight in the morning and another in the evening. This photo was taken on the 2nd flight, where we flew south from McCarthy towards Mt. St. Elias and Mt. Logan, the 2 highest peaks in the region. Mt. St. Elias is the highest peak in Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and stands 18,008 feet (5,489 metres), whilst Mt. Logan, the highest peak across the border in the Yukon Territory, Canada, stands 5,959 metres (19,550 feet) ASL (more…)

Hey Folks,

Here’s another from my recent trip to the Rio Baker, or Baker River, in Patagonia, Chile. In this photo, Santiago Ibanez is running the very first rapid on the river, a relatively small drop from a calm pool into a tumbling turbuent pool. Santiago ran the drop several times during our trip, and this was probably his sweetest line. He paddled back over to me after the drop with a huge smile, and said how good it felt. I was grinning from ear to ear myself, because I’d already viewed this photo, and was just as happy aas he was. I showed him the image on the LCD on the back of my camera and he loved it. I knew I had a nice chance of catching a little rainbow in the frame, and the line he took put him right in the middle of it. Thanks for a great photo, Santiago. (more…)

Hey Folks

Here’s another of my buddy Matze, running a little drop on the Baker River, in Patagonia, Chile. The Baker River is absolutely awesome, 4 or 5 of the biggest Class 5 rapids anywhere. It’s huge water. I was fortunate that some of my friends were nice enough to get out of bed early one morning and come run the Baker in nice light. Matze took this crazy line after doing some scouting - it wasn’t his smoothest line, but he made it OK. (more…)

Hey Folks,

This photo is of my friend Ken Kruger running an 8′ drop in a rapid known as “Terminator”. This photo shows about 1/100 of the rapid. Terminator’s HUGE, and aptly named. We were running a whitewater rafting trip down the Futaleufu River, and the water level was high. While all the guests walked the rapid, and we ghosted the boats down the river, the kayakers paddled it. I got into position below this drop, and was lucky to get Ken with his mullet flying (more…)

Hey Folks,

I’ve been sitting on this freaking computer nearly all day, dealing with stupid little keyboard characters and symbols to validate my website. What exactly does ‘validate my website’, I know you’re asking. Take a look at Website Validator if you don’t have much to do with your time. If you’re interested in spending days on your own website, for little gain, this is for you. I went through all of the main pages on my Alaskan Alpine Treks website trying to fix stupid little “errors” that apparently needed fixing. Now, my website worked just fine before I did all this. (more…)

Hey Folks,

Here’s a photo of a friend of mine, Matthias Melcher, whom everyody calls, for some reason, “Matze”. This was taken in the first few weeks of my time in Fuateufu, Chile. It had been raining incessantly for some time, and this little creek called “Crazy Creek” was running high. Matze wanted to paddle it (I think because it had the word ‘crazy’ in the name), though he’d never run it before, and never scouted it either. In fact, I believe maybe only one or 2 people had kayaked it previously (Matze’s a little bit crazy). (more…)

hey Folks,

As the light slowly faded at the end of the day, I hung around this little park. There was just a great mix of people around, toddlers, teenagers, adults, old folks, the weather was great, and I enjoyed the mood. I saw this old man ambling through the park, pushing his cart, stopping, watching, resting, and walking some more. As he parked it here, in front of a small pool of water, I thought I’d take some photos. (more…)