Skolai Images

Hey Folks,

Here’s a photo I took a little over a month back, of Long Lake, off the McCarthy Rd. You can see what happens if you get to close here; the last photographer obviously tried a little too hard to push the boundaries. This lake freeze over, except for this small outflow at the western end of the lake, and another small section on the northside of the lake, where a spring bubbles into the lake, and keeps the surface from freezing. That section is a spawning ground for salmon all through the winter, even into April, and is one of the latest spawning areas in Alaska. The winter spawn is an important food source for a lot of animals in the area, including lynx, wolves, wolverines, raven, mink, marten, foxes and coyotes and more.

Won’t be long now until the lake thaws and the waterfowl settle in. Loons nest here every summer, so I hope I’ll get to photograph some of them soon enough.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

The last 10 days have been pretty busy, as I’ve been doing the Wilderness First Responder course (note to self: don’t let your certifications lapse in the future). One of the primary goals of the course is to teach participants basic life support in backcountry and wilderness settings. Here my friend Lisa is holding her patient’s head stable to protect the patient (Jason) from spine injury. Both hands on the head, holding it still and steady, are critical. You can see in this simulation Lisa, with help from her other rescuer, has the patient warm and dry in a sleeping bag, on a foam pad to help insulate him. Jason was found lying in the pool you can see near his feet. Lisa and Taylor did a safety drag, where the spine is immobilized and Jason was dragged out of the water, on to the pad, they cut his wet clothes off, rolled him onto his side, placed a sleeping bag under him, rolled him back down and zipped up the bag. In no time at all, he was dry and warm. That’s a HUGE deal, as any treatment in this situation is going to (in all probability) be a minimum of several hours, and hypothermia will most likely set in. Hypothermia can affect people even when the ambient temperature is 65˚F (18.3˚ C) - so for someone with a possible major injury, lying flat on the ground for a short period of time even in mild weather can easily induce hypothermia. Get the patient dry, off the ground, and in a bag.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Well, I was going to try to set this up

So another off-the-wall post here; how would you expect anything other?

Another of my little projects this winter was to learn to play the Native American Indian Flute. I thought it might be nice having an instrument I could backpack and hike with during the summer, and I was also concerned about having a guitar in the cabin this winter, with the crazy low temperatures not being friendly to a delicate and expensive guitar (I ended up bringing my acoustic guitar, a Martin J-18, out to the cabin with me anyway - more on that later). I bought the flute in late January, a flute handmade out of walnut, in the key of E. It’s awesome. I’ve been playing it nearly every day, often for hours at a time.

Playing a wind instrument is SO different to playing guitar .. I never pay attention to my breathing when playing guitar, and yet it’s almost the ONLY thing to give attention to on a wind instrument - learning the difference between ‘blowing’ and ‘breathing’ makes the world of difference to tone and depth.

Lately I’ve found playing a few notes and riffs is a nice way to say ‘thanks’ to the mountains after I’ve done some photography .. so I usually get to my spot, pick out some compositions I want, play the flute while I wait for the light to really glow, then when I’m done, I play a few simple tunes to thank the landscape. It’s a treat for me to hear the flute amidst such scenery.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

“Oh, break up is early”, they said. “Spring’s here!” they cried. “Summer’s on the way”, they projected. Well, it was about 15 degrees Fahrenheit this morning, and that didn’t factor in the wind chill. Winds in the vicinity of, oh, I dunno, say around 200mph, blowing straight out from under the polar ice cap, I’m led to believe. And here’s me trying to snowshoe across one of the great lakes to take some pictures!

Well, fool me once, for about 5 minutes, but I’m not THAT stupid. Uh uh, no sir, not me. This little vegemite turned tail, and (more…)

hey Folks,

So, here’s an image of Denali I don’t think I’ve posted here before. Mount McKinley is simply one big grand mountain that is ALWAYS a treat to see. I saw it a few days ago. This photo though, was taken last August when I spent a week camped out on the tundra, not far from this pond. Actually, this little pond was my water source. Every morning, after I’d do some shooting, I’d saunter down, ever so casually, fill up my one quart pot, stroll back over to the ‘kitchen’ and make breakfast - (more…)

hey Folks,

What an awesome day. A walk down along the coastal trail, Denali, or Mt. McKinley in full view is a treat. Absolutely gorgeous. There’s probably not too many towns in the world you can walk along the beach and be looking at a 20 000′ tall mountain. Here’s a picture in honor of ‘the mountain’ - ain’t it something!

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

As it hits the news again here in Alaska today, I thought I’d post about the current proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This post is from an earlier version on my other website, Alaskan Alpine Treks. The photo above is a buddy of mine hiking on the coastal plain near the Canning River, Section 1002, of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). I presume most readers here have heard something about this, so I’ll skip the introductions, and go straight to my arguments here. I’m not a big fan of arguing by numbers, but we can discuss the ANWR issue with “facts” if you care to: in doing so, it might be interesting to approach this issue by first looking at, and dismantling, the arguments of proponents of drilling. Next month I’ll look at some other reasons, probably more important, IMO, why we need to be as active as we can in our opposition to proposed legislation. First, a look at the typical arguments put forward by those in favor of drilling:

1. National Security, dependence from Middle East foreign oil & the US is ‘better off’ if we drill our own oil. (more…)

Hey Folks,

Here’s another flower, the Fire Pink, from the Chattahoochee National Forest, North Georgia Mountains, Georgia. I took this one spring hike up in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, near the North Carolina border. Spring in the Appalachians is an amazing time, the biomass that is generated in the hardwood forests there in a couple of weeks is simply awesome. The woods go from bare and barren to an incredibly rich, diverse glut of biota in what seems like a couple of days. Walking through the deep green forest and seeing a red glow like this little flower is way cool. The red is so bright, I had to dull it down a little on the computer to make it not look overdone - it’s really an intense vibrant flower.

I think there was a push to make the Fire Pink the State Flower of Indiana, but I’m unsure if it ever went ahead. Fire Pinks should be the State Flower of some state, I can tell you that - they’re just way to cool not to be!

I was giong to wait until springtime to post flowers, but my friend Ron Niebrugge is having such a whale of a time down in California shooting the bloom of the century in the desert, I didn’t want to be left out. Check out his blog right now for some downright NASTY wildflower photos!

Cheers

Carl

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Hey Folks,

This will be my last post here for a while. I’m heading off to the big wilderness again in the morning. This time, my plan is a little different. I’ll be over in the park until just before Xmas, when I have to return to Anchorage and baby sit 2 dogs, Keba and Musa, until the new year - then I’ll be back over to the park scrounging around in the dark.

This photo isn’t one I took, but it was my idea. This is from a trip this past summer down the Chittistone Valley. We had a GREAT time. The first time ever on one of my trips that a couple got engaged - Nick and April, 2 very cool folks from Seattle, WA. I was pretty impressed that someone would take a trip like this to propose, way to go Nick. Maybe when I get back I’ll post a photo of Nick and April. They had an awesome time, loved the trip, and even invited me to their wedding!

This little point is near a place called “Wolverine” that I hike to, and I knew they’d both love the sidetrip up to here. I took a bunch of photos of them both out on this overlook, and they wanted one of me for some reason. I said, “here, this will look very cool - shoot this”. I’ve actually done the entire route hop-scotch style, left, left, right, together, right, left, and so forth. Very artful!

Hopefully, my next post will be a little more inspired than this one.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Here’s another photo from my trip this year to Tebay Lakes. We hiked south from the landing strip, at Upper Tebay Lake, and found this ridge on the backside of Tebay Falls, where we camped. I got up early one morning and had a blast shooting the dawn, with an array of wildflowers. Most mornings there would be an ever so slight breeze, which made it difficult to get closeup photos of the wildflowers, but I managed to get a few that were sharp. Fortunately there were flowers everywhere here - way more than probably anywhere else in the park that I’ve seen. This little patch of Dwarf Fireweed (the magenta or pink-ish flower here) and Arctic Daisy made a nice foreground for the distant peaks. I’ve never been very good at identifying flowers, but I’m pretty sure these are right. The yellow ones are either Alpine Arnica or Mountain Arnica.

This shot was taken (more…)