Epic tales, rants and insights - hardly "just another weblog"!
Welcome to the Alaskan Alpine Treks blog. You'll find photos, videos and articles relevant to backpacking in Alaska's great wilderness. The blog is a great place to offer some information that might be helpful or simply of interest for those folks Alaska-backcountry bound. Your commentary is always welcome here, so please feel invited to add comments, ask questions, etc. Most of all, enjoy it!
Backcountry skiing, xc skiing or cross country skiing on the Root Glacier in Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Spring is a great time for getting out on the glaciers, with caution, as the snow will typically have a great crust on top, which is awesome for getting around. Stairway Icefall, in the background, is a 5000′ vertical wall of ice – pretty spectacular backdrop for a days skiing! Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Backcountry river crossings; hiking and backpacking treks in Alaska involve river crossings, and these tips can help the hiker safely ford the cold and fast rivers of the Alaska wilderness.
Grizzly bear photo tour, fall, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. ANWR rafting trip on the Canning River, Mt Jarvis exploratory trip, Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Photography gear for the backcountry; a shower cap doubles as a rain cover for the camera on a backpacking trip in Alaska’s Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Skolai Pass, the Russell Glacier, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska.
2 red fox (Vulpes vulpes) kits playing and fighting outside a den on the coastal plain, at sunset, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), Alaska. Please click on the image to view a larger version of the photo.
Hey Folks,
Here is a photo from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge I took one evening, around 1am. These red fox kits were playing just outside their den, and I spent quite a bit of time, patiently trying to get close enough to photograph them. These foxes were pretty wary, and if I approached too quickly they’d duck down into their den. The interconnected network of burrows meant they could, and would, popup anywhere, often 50-60 yards away a few minutes later.
Red foxes appear to be moving further and further north with the warming climate; longer summers and less harsh weather in the winters means they’re able to survive where previously they didn’t. The red fox is larger than their arctic cousins, the Arctic fox, and are (apparently) starting to cause quite a dent in the population of arctic fox, in some areas. Each year I’ve been to the coastal plain I have seen fewer arctic foxes than the year before, and seen more red foxes than previously. …. Read the rest of this entry » »
Backcountry skiing on the Root Glacier, with Stairway icefall in the background. Springtime brings melt, opening a small pool of water on the glacier's surface. Cross country skiing, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Click on the image to view a larger version of the photo.
Hey Folks
Here’s our Image of the Month for March 2010. Backcountry skiing on the Root Glacier one gorgeous spring day. This little blue pool of crystal clear water was simply too nice to pass up for a photo op.
Carrying a tripod allows me to set up for photos when I’m out and about by myself. I set up the shot, and visualize where I’d like to stand to make the composition. Sometimes standing a bit further away allows the photo to be more of a scenic shot, without the person being too dominant in the frame.
This is where a digital camera really helps, being able to review the shot in the LCD, as I’m not able to guess exactly where to stand. For example, I didn’t want my head here to merge with the horizontal line at the end of the glacier – base of the mountain in the distance, so it took a couple of tries to get it right.
Normally I wouldn’t leave quite as much room for the sky, but I wanted to give the image a bit more of an expansive feeling here, with more space. I also wanted to leave plenty of room for text, if the photo were ever to be chosen for a cover shot for a magazine or story. …. Read the rest of this entry » »
Backpackers crossing a creek in Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Hey Folks,
One of the more challenging aspects of an Alaskan backcountry trek is river crossings. With the exception of the occasional Kenai Peninsula hike, all of these treks are off-trail, wilderness backpacking trips, and so there’s no easy way to get across the streams, creeks and rivers that meander through the mountains. A few tips that can be useful to heed:
1) For smaller streams, I prefer to cross one person at a time. If by chance someone in the group does stumble, it means we have one wet person to deal with. Everyone else in the group is safe and secure on shore. Things unravel quickly in the backcountry, and that happens most often when something small goes wrong. One person stumbles, takes a dip, someone else reaches to grab them, they go down, knock their partner off balance, and all of a sudden bedlam results. That’s how people get hurt. It can also mean everyone gets wet gear. A much simpler problem to deal with is getting one person out of a creek, drying them off, and loaning them some warm, dry gear that another person in the group has in their pack. One person falling is a hassle – a group falling can be a disaster.
A large mature adult grizzly bear male, or boar, approaching, Katmai National Park, Alaska. Click to see a larger version of the photo.
Hey Folks,
Just a quick post to announce that spaces are filling up on the grizzly bear photo tours, scheduled for Fall, 2010. It’s also, perhaps, a good time to say check over the website, and see how you like the recent changes. The Grizzly Bear Photo Tour page is just one of the new additions, and that tour has already had a bunch of inquiries. I don’t want to sound like a car salesman here, so I won’t say ‘book quickly‘, but I do want to say, if you’re thinking about it, it might be worth at least sending a quick email to get your name on the list. That way I can at least put a temporary tentative hold on a space for you.
I’m also excited about a few other trips this summer, including a Mt Jarvis exploratory hike, and a few others you can see listed on the custom trips page.
I thought this video might be both entertaining and useful to visitors to the website. Here, Andy Seeger shows off his fashion-sense and creative ingenuity with ‘Shower Cap Hat’ – a cheap workable solution to protecting your camera gear from bad weather on backpacking trips. Backpacking is ALL about compromise; weight, bulk and space, durability, multi-use, etc … these are things to consider when packing for your trip.
Rather than carry an expensive and heavier camera rain cover, a cheap plastic shower cap fits perfectly. it’s lightweight, packable, durable, light and easily available. What’s more, as Andy says, you can even get water with it. …. Read the rest of this entry » »
Snowshoeing through the forest in search of the wolf, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, Alaska.
Hey Folks,
A week or 2 through the winter boreal forest hoping to find wolves is always a treat – whether the wolves show themselves or not. So far, no luck – they remain the mystery.
But what a treat it is to hear their howls, or find their soft tracks in the snow, and to know they too sift through the boreal forest. To enter the winter boreal forest is to enter the realm of the wolf – the home of Canis lupus. Few creatures can quite so vividly engage our mind and spirit like the wolf – so rarely even seen, yet so enmeshed in our cultural histories and stories.
Backcountry campsite in the Chugach mountains, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve. From the Iceberg Lake to Bremner Mines trip.
Hey Folks
Here’s a short post with some tips for you on picking a campsite in the backcountry. Why a post about picking a campsite? I think it’s useful because many folks overlook this part of a trip, as most people are (typically) so used to backpacking and hiking on trails in the Lower 48 states that it doesn’t really occur to them until it’s time to set up a tent. And by then, it’s too late.
Your campsite is your home, albeit ever so temporarily, and it’s well worth taking a couple of steps toward setting up home for the evening in a setting that you enjoy. Backpacking all day with a heavy load through rugged but beautiful mountains is hard work, and an important part of the trip, to us, is enjoying a great campsite. What makes a great campsite?
Firstly, it needs to be “low impact.” Essentially, low impact campsites are those that don’t leave undue stress on the landscape, or on other visitors to the park, both while you’re camped there and after you’re gone. There are a number of elements that are important, and I’ll stress a few of them here (this is not a comprehensive list). …. Read the rest of this entry » »
I’ve been crazy busy trying to get the website overhauled – I hope you enjoy the new design. Fortunately, I’m a better photographer and backcountry guide than I am web coder!
Here’s a video I shot in Katmai National Park and Preserve, of a family a bears fishing in Brooks River while another young bear wanders around the scene – the young cubs get a little distraught, but ole mom is pretty undisturbed about it all. If you’re not a member of Facebook and can’t see the video, you can view the video on Youtube here.
Anyway, I thought I’d post this here just to keep in touch, and look forward to our Grizzly Bears in the Fall phototour coming in 2010. I’ve just added that html page, so be sure to check it out. I have 2 slide shows on there of new grizzly bear photos.
Mountain Avens and Dwarf Fireweed, Hole in the Wall, Skolai Pass, Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Click the image to view a larger version.
Hey Folks,
It’s always nice when a magazine editor wants your photo for their story, and you get published. But it’s WAY nicer when you get published in a magazine you enjoy, read and value. This image posted here is in the current edition of backpacker magazine, page 65 – full page vertical, which is nice. The image accompanies an article on backpacking “the Goat Trail”, in Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve. This was the first route I ever hiked in Wrangell – St. Elias, and definitely a favorite of mine, so having my image chosen to accompany the story represents much more than just another published photo and a check to me.
This short video was taken on the Skolai Pass Phototour, fall 2009. We had a great trip, some great weather, some great people, and loads of fun. This particular afternoon we put in some miles hiking out along the Russell Glacier toward Mt Bona and Mt Churchill, to awesome peaks 16 000 and 15 000 feet high, respectively. The Russell Glacier runs right up to the north face of Mount Bona, and inspiring sight.
We had a fantastic hike, enjoyed lunch on the high flat plateau, and then walked back toward camp at Chitistone Pass for the afternoon, and to shoot the evening light on the mountains. And, I must say, we had a simply unbelievable evening, with gorgeous alpenglow on the mountain peaks. It was a lot of fun being in the right place at the right time for some photography. That doesn’t happen everyday, but when it does, it makes al those hours and miles worthwhile. …. Read the rest of this entry » »
