Ramblings:

Hey Folks,

Anyone out there looking for some good reading material? I thought I’d make a post that lists some books I’ve really enjoyed - I’ll add to it as I go, and would appreciate any visitors adding their favorites to the list. I’ll start with some great nature books:

Thoreau (of course): My favorite is “Walking”
Jack Turner: “The Abstract Wild”
Derrick Jensen: “Listening to the Land”
Paul Shepard: “Coming Home to the Pleistocene”
Jack London: “Call of the Wild” (I know, I know, it’s fiction, but wow, what great fiction!!!!)
Wendell Berry: “Another Turn of the Crank”
Doug Peacock: “The Grizzly Years”
Aldo Leopold: “A Sand County Almanac”
Bill McKibben: “The End of Nature”

That’s enough for starters - I’ll add more as they come to me!

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

I’m super excited to announce the 2008 Caning River Rafting trip in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR this coming July. We’ll be leaving Fairbanks on June 29, and don’t return until July 14 .. 4 solid weeks of exploring and traveling in the arctic is hard to beat. Room is a premium on this trip, so it’s wise to get in early. 2 people are already booked, and we won’t have more than 5 people on this trip, plus 2 guides (if the trip is full), so definitely start making preparations!

The trip will include flying into ANWR, to the headwaters of the Marsh Fork, in the heart of the Brooks Range, just on the north side of the Continental Divide. The Upper Marsh Fork is pristine mountain terrain, and we’ll spend some time exploring and hiking the peaks and valleys to see more of this region as we make our way north. After a couple of days we join up with the Canning River, continuing through the Brooks Mountains - spectacular country. We go through 2 very cool canyons; they’re short but really neat little canyons. Sometimes Dall sheep are in the area, and caribou, grizzly bear, wolves and wolverines too!

Gradually, as we wind our way north, we reach the coastal plain, which is seemingly endless. The Canning and the Staine river (pronounced Steen) lead us to the coast, where we’ll see the arctic ice pack, just off shore, the Beaufort Sea and Arctic Ocean. We’ll visit the renowned Bird Camp, and hopefully get some great opportunities at photographing migratory birds that visit the area, including tundra swan, shorebirds, sea ducks, loons, and maybe even snowy owls. Arctic foxes and red foxes are in the area, and we’ll also see arctic terns as well. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is famous for 2 herds of caribou, the Porcupine Caribou Herd and the Central Arctic Herd, and we have a good chance of seeing either as they make their way along their migratory routes.

We’re allowing plenty of time for this trip .. so we won’t be pushed for time, we’ll have lots of free time for hiking and photographing and exploring along the way. We’ll try to get around in the best hours for wildlife viewing and landscape photography, as the midnight sun allows 24 hour travel. A trip to ANWR is always a treat, and I can’t way for summer to roll around and to get back up to this incredible place.

Rafting is the way to travel in ANWR, we’ll cover lots of ground with little effort, there are very few rapids at all, it’s a great float down the river. We will do some hiking on both the coastal plain and in the mountains, but with the raft we can get ourselves and all our gear over 100 miles northward with far less effort than a regular backpacking trip would require. Campsites abound along the way, and we’re sure to have a blast. The weather in the high arctic is typically dry during the summer, so it’s a trip that’s hard to beat. Contact Alaskan Alpine Treks for more information.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Welcome back. It’s been a stressful week, working to change server from one very poor webhost I’d had in the past to the new host. Hopefully all the glitches have been worked out and the site is back to normal. If you run across any anomalies, please use the contact link, or write a post here and let me know. I’d appreciate it, thank you. I think we’ve got it all working again though.

This photo, along with the one posted here as the new Image of the Month in the Gallery section, was taken early February in Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Thanks

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Please excuse us for the minute. This site is changing to a new webhost server, and it might be a few days before I get the blog running correctly again. Currently it seems as if all the old posts aren’t accessible. I’ll try to rectify this and get the blog back to normal ASAP.

Thanks.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Happy New Year, and all the best for the coming new year.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Just a quick note to anyone out there to say we wish you all the Happiest of Holidays, and all the best to you and yours for the coming year.

Warmest Regards

Carl and Alaskan Alpine Treks

Hey Folks,

Happy Solstice!

The longest night of the year, and the shortest day of the year. Here in Anchorage, Alaska that means sunup around 10:30am and sunset around 3:30pm. And darkness. So for now, the days will start getting longer, though colder. Winter Solstice is December 21, and summer solstice, the longest day of the year, is June 21. Equinox is March 21 and Sept 21, both days when, technically, everywhere on the planet gets the same amount of day and night. I’m not sure it works out exactly to be that way, but that’s the theory behind it, anyway.

So, for the shortest day of the year, I’ll make it a short post.

Happy solstice, folks.

Cheers

Carl

PS - the photo is from Kennicott Glacier, near McCarthy, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

I just thought I’d post a quick note here and let you know of the updates recently done to the website. We’ve made a few aesthetic additions to the site, hopefully making a little more enjoyable for you to browse around. The first thing you might like to see is the automated slide show I did from the Images of the Month for 2007. Check it out here. Also, the Eye of the Beholder and the For the Eye galleries were both tweaked, giving you the option of an automated slideshow presentation, or, if you have a slower internet connection, the older, regular html pages are still available.

I put a small slide show on the home page, and added a slide show of images from part of the Bremner to Tebay trip. Check that out for sure!

We also made a few minor changes here and there, and will be finishing up some of the other odds and ends while we’re at it. If you see any glaring errors, feel free to drop us a line and we’ll get on it.

Also, you might want to look over at Skolai Images and look at some of the updates there. In particular is a nice slide show of images from Wrangell - St. Elias Natiional Park. And if you really want to look at a lot of photos from the park, check out the Wrangell - St. Elias Stock Photos page.

Well, that’s about it for now. I hope you enjoy the new stuff on the site. Oh, and the picture here is my friend Santiago Ibanez, from Peru, smokin’ on a surf wave on the Baker River, or Rio Baker, in Patagonia, Chile. The Baker River is an incredible river, and we had a fantastic trip there in April 2007.Thanks, and all the best.

Cheers

Carl