Skolai Images

Hey Folks

Well, it’s been a nervous last few days, but here I am in Anchorage. I managed, through sheer luck, to get all the way back to town with no real drama. A little tweaking of cables and a lot of grace, and my van started, and drove me and my buddy Charlie and his 2 dogs, Keba and Musa, all the way back to Anchorage. I’m still in a little bit of shock. My van seems to have some kind of mystery virus, that nobody is able to diagnose. There’s a possibility, one mechanic told me, that it’s as simple as 2 cables poorly soldered together. Which 2 remains anyone’s guess.

I’ll be here (hopefully only) a few days, and then head back to the cabin. (more…)

Hey Good People,

Well, here it is, the long-ago promised and highly sought-after follow-up to my dad’s earlier notes about my parents and my recent trip together here in the US. I’ll post it below, only this time, for integrity’s sake, I’ve interspersed a few points along the way, to verify and clarify some of his words. The prequel to this, tales from the first part of our trip, can be found here.

Final Jottings on Our North America Trip

My apologies for the delay with the second instalment. Unfortunately I had some serious affairs of state to attend to, and if you knew how serious our state’s affairs are, then you would understand. Another factor was my agonising over what to buy my wife for Xmas, but I think she really liked her Mars Bar (candy bar) – and it was the extra large size. (more…)

hey Folks

Well, I’m back in the woods, living the quiet life. This image is from a trip I made up to kennecott a few weeks back, hoping to get a nice morning shot of Mt. Blackburn. I had no luck with Blackburn, so I shot Donoho Peak, instead, along with various other images. This is Root Glacier in the foreground.

It’s been pretty cold here the last few days, so I haven’t spent much time on the computer .. the owners of the house are away, and so the house has no heat. I come over, check my email, (solar power!) and head back to my cabin. Today I turned on a little propane heater, which I’m nearly sitting on, and it’s still freezing! The days are unbelievably clear, but it’s way cold. What’s most frustrating to me is how nothing seems to work well in the cold. The tripod legs stick, the camera fogs up ( I couoldn’t even read the historgram yesterday), ad infinitum.I can’t imagine what it must be like trying to start and deal with an automobile.

I’m heading back to the cabin to get warm.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

OK, here’s another trivia; these 2 mountains, Mt Drum on the left and Mt Sanford on the right, are volcanic mountains. Mt Sanford is a shield volcano. Shield volcanos are the result of low viscosity lava flows (free flowing) that build up over time - the lava flows and flows, hardens, flows, etc, and the mountains gradually grow. They tend to have a lower profile with shallow, kind of sloping sides .. they become broader mountains, typically, and are sometimes mistaken to be entire mountain ranges.
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Hey Folks

Well, it’s been a busy week. Today, for example, I chopped down a tree, to the tune of “I’m a lumberjack, and I’m OK” .. it was kind of weird, to watch a spruce tree fall at my hand, but knowing the tree was already dead kind of made it OK, I suppose. I cut the tree up, trimmed all the limbs off it (spruce trees have many, many limbs), and stacked the wood in the little wood shed I have. Not bad, but a lot of work in the snow - and it snowed all the while I was working.

This morning I shot a few images that I think will work out nicely when I get them on the computer and processed a little. It was cloudy and overcast, and I had commited the morning to doing some writing, when the sun started to come out … I headed out into the woods, and shot a number of images. We’d had some snow the night before, but a little nefarious breeze blew most of it off the trees. Pesky breeze!

Yesterday was gorgeous, and I got a few nice images of Fireweed Mtn, outside the cabin. It was crazy cold though, like 20 below and wow were my fingers chilled!

I’m really enjoying the life in the cabin - it’s quiet, simple, and has a rhythm that is so different from living in a city, or even a small town. The routine is good - wake up, stoke the fire, go back to bed, wake up, stoke the fire, go back to bed, etc .. then I get up, have a little breakfast, some coffee, stoke the fire, then do some reading by the lamp. I have 2 lamps - a kerosene lamp, and a propane lamp. The propane lamp puts out a lot of light, but it doesn’t feel right - even turned down low, I prefer the kerosene lamp .. it just ‘feels’ better for life in a little cabin in the ALaskan woods.

It’s kind of funny how weird it feels to come here and sit on the computer and do emails, etc on the internet, when a few hundred yards I live in a cabin with no power, etc. The rhythm shifts - I’d prefer to simply avoid the computer when I’m in this kind of place, I think. Unfortunately, work calls, sometimes. Mostly I come here and delete spam emails, and/or respond to people who want images for free.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

And so, with little to no ado, I bid adieu, for the time being. I’m hitting the road in the morning, and I’m not sure when I’ll have internet access again - hopefully it’ll be no more than a few days between swigs. I’m heading out in the morning to Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, to live in a cabin named “Shacky”. I’ll be there a couple of weeks or so at a time, then make a run to Anchorage for some groceries and a little warming up, then back to Shacky. If all goes as planned. If all does not go as planned, I’ll spend a few nights there, say something like ‘this is C-R-A-Z-E-E-E!!!’ and boogie on back to the relative comfort of Anchor-ville. I’ve too little pride to tolerate discomfort long. (more…)

Hey Folks,

Sometimes we’d run a full river trip down the Futaleufu instead of the more common “Bridge to Bridge” section, which is the standard day-trip, about 12km of solid whitewater. On the full river section, we’d usually make it an overnighter, and enjoy the flatwater runs between the various sections of whitewater. Halfway along the trip is this killer place to go rock jumping. A nice sunny day, a deep, flat pool of water and a high ledge made for great fun for everyone. You’ll notice Gabby in the orange Jackson kayak just downstream, in position in case anyone got hurt jumping and needed some assistance. As always, safety first.

Cheers

Carl

hey Folks,

I’m a little tired, so I’ll make this brief. This image is of a rock form called “Cara del Indio”, which translates to english as “Face of the Indian” - because the rock form resembles the profile of face of a wizened old Indian; the native people of this area were the Mapuche, who were mostly wiped out by the Spanish Conquistadors. The word “Futaleufu” by the way, is a Mapuche word that translates as “Big Water”, and yes indeed, the Futaleufu River is Big Water. Chile.

Cheers

Carl

PS - Oh, I should’ve added: this feature is just before Mundaca. Generally rafting trips will pull over on to a small beach below Cara del Indio, have a quick rest, and the guides will go over the plan for running Mundaca - it also allows the safety boats, like the cataraft and a kayaker or 2, to get ahead and set up for safety, if needed.

Hey Folks,

So, I’ll wrap up my Mundaca Series here. This is a safety boat, a cataraft, that runs the river ahead of the whitewater rafts, and gets set to pick up folks who might fall out of the rafts. Of course, that’s the plan, but if the cataraft flips, then the safety is shot. Generally, using a series of hand signals and keeping a watchful eye out, something like this will be communicated back upstream to let the guides of the rafts know they have no safety. In which case, they generally wait until the cataraft is either flipped back over, or they’ll continue on down the river, but run a more cautious line. I shouldn’t say there’s no safety - on a river like the Futaleufu, each whitewater rafting trip (more…)

Hey Folks,

Ahhh - the days feel longer already. It’s like Boxing Day for Solstice.

I told you I’d show a couple of photos of how big Mundaca is. This is my friend KC, from New Zealand, guiding a 16′ raft through the entrance wave of Mundaca. One guide plus 6 people in a heavy raft and the wave stands it up almost totally vertical. Some awesome power in the water here. KC’s a killer guide, he’s worked on rivers all over the world, including the Zambezi and the White Nile in Africa. Not too bad for a Kiwi!

Shooting whitewater rafting photos is kinda hard - I found the hardest thing was to not fill the buffer - mostly because the rapids were so big, I could shoot the whole series and still miss stuff. The D2x has a buffer of 17 shots when shooting raw files, and it’s amazing how quickly they go by when you shoot 5 frames per second. (more…)