Skolai Images

Hey Folks,

After a couple of days I was fortunate to have the weather clear up a bit. The place is pretty amazing. There were tons of birds in the area, gulls, oystercatchers, sea ducks, murres, murrelets, and more. Flowers were in full swing, and impressive stands of lupine were everywhere.

Most impressive however, is Mt St. Elias. I’ve been lucky enough to see a few great mountains around North America, and I doubt any of them are as impressive a sight at Mt. St. Elias. It literally soars skyward from the coast, towering over 18 000′ high. (more…)

Hey Folks,

I think I’m going to title my first book, ‘From One Disaster to Another’.

I got back, safe and sound, from my most recent trip to Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, but somewhat earlier than planned. I’ll tell it to you over a few posts, starting here.

I flew from Anchorage to Yakutat, a small town down on the coast, in northern South East Alaska. I was aiming to go from there to Icy Bay, an inlet on the Gulf of Alaska, and one of the few areas where the park touches the coast. I’d heard bits and pieces about the bay over the years, but knew very little about it. Everyone who’d been simply said ‘Oh, you GOTTA go to Icy Bay’. I’ve always been one to do as I was told, so, in time, I headed for Icy Bay. (more…)

Hey Folks,

Here’s an image from last September - I was basecamped in Skolai Pass, and one morning had some nice light to shoot a variety of images. Skolai is an amazing place with a variety of photographic subjects that is seemingly without end. Wildflowers can be amazing there, landscapes as grand as the immense Russell Glacier and Mt Bona and Mt Churchill, 16 550′ high Mt Bona, and 15 638′ high Mt Churchill towering in the background, ice patterns and crevasses in the glacier, lakes, waterfalls, streams and cascades, shorebirds, raptors, songbirds, and mammals ranging in size from tiny voles and arctic ground squirrels to foxes, marmots, Dall sheep, caribou and grizzlies. I’ve even see wolf tracks along the air strip up there. Hole in the Wall is a massive escarpment of peaks similar to Moraine Lake, only bigger and Hole in the Wall feels more primordial, with no trees, the moraine and glacier are still intact, rather than the revegetated montane alpine country and the deep blue lake of Wenkchemna. Hole in the Wall has 7 peaks, rather than 10, and they stand almost sentinel like over Skolai Pass. (more…)

Hey Folks,

Here’s another image from Chile, the Futaleufu River. This rapid is called ‘Casa de Piedra’, which translates in English as ‘House of Rock’. See that big huge boulder smack in the middle of the river? The one with 4 small trees growing on top of it. THAT’S the rock. It’s huge - I’ll try to dig up an image that might give a sense of scale here - the rock is easily bigger than a regular house - a huge boulder that crashed down to the valley floor centuries ago, and now resides in the Futaleufu River.

Casa de Piedra is a Class V rapid, and a really technical run. Guides would often not let some guests run the river, if they weren’t strong enough paddlers - once you enter the rapid, from just upstream and to the left of the rock (which would be ‘river right’, facing downstream), it’s a non-stop run for over 200 yards of holes and waves and pour-overs. Usually we’d stop a few miles upstream, and decide who wanted to go on, and if they were up to it. If we cold round up a boat full of people, they’d consolidate into one or 2 rafts, and head off downstream. The last few miles were pretty sweet whitewater, with Más o Menos (’More or Less), a huge wave train of Class IV and V water, some smaller rapids, and then Casa - the wickedest rapid on the lower (more…)

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