Hey Folks,

Watch this clip, destined to become a classic, to see a brief, sudden and welcome appearance by the great Usain Bolt; Usain pops up in the video and shows his classic ‘bow and arrow’ pose, while simultaneously unveiling some gorgeous new footwear. I managed to grab a few seconds of him on video before he raced out of sight.

I was trying to grab some footage of the Chitistone Valley in heavy fog, from the “Wolverine” landing strip, when Usain appeared. I believe this is the first time he’s visited Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve, indeed Alaska itself. I’m sure he’ll make another appearance or 2 before the end of this season.

Cheers

Carl

Rock lake, sunset, Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Please click on the thumbnail to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

It’s summer time, and I don’t have much time to blog – but I’ll try to keep up with the Image of the Month. Here’s one from the north side of Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Taken from Rock lake, at sunset, the light on the distant Wrangell Mountains was gorgeous.

Thanks.

Cheers

Carl.

Hole in the Wall, near Skolai Pass, is a great place to explore. Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the thumbnail to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

Photo of the Month for June, 2010, is this photo of some folks hiking up at Hole in the Wall, near Skolai Pass, Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve. I love the sense of scale this photo gives for the peak in the background. This is one of the peaks known as the 7 fingers, glacier-capped outcroppings towering above the tundra. Hole in the Wall is a classic old glacial formation, and a great place to walk and explore; I’ve spend many a day wandering around on the moraine, awestruck at the magnificent jagged cliff faces soaring above me.

This trip was a few years ago, and we had a grand time. The weather was, as you see here, unbeatable, and we all enjoyed the week we spent in Skolai Pass. We camped on an open ridge above the pass, before heading south to Chitistone Pass, where we camped and enjoyed the scenery. From Chitistone Pass, we ventured down to Russell Glacier, over into Chitistone Valley, and checked out the Goat Trail. Then we made out way back along the floor of Skolai Pass.

The big boulders in the foreground are called erratics; a piece of rock that differs from the size and type of rock native to the area in which it rests. They’re moved into place, carried by glacial ice , and deposited when the ice retreats. Sometimes they’re moved hundreds of miles by advancing glaciers; at Hole in the Wall, they were moved a mile or so. But a number of these large boulders technically aren’t really erratics, as they have fallen from the cliffs above. Massive, some of them are the size of a small house. The geology here is incredible.

I’m looking forward to getting back up to Skolai Pass this summer; it’s just one of “those” places that I can go back to every year and love it. It’s kinda like going home each summer. Each trip brings both new vistas and intimate views of the nooks and crannies, the secrets of Skolai. At the same time, seeing the features like Hole in the Wall and Russell Glacier again is a welcome treat. I love it.

We’ll be up at Skolai mid july this year, and I can’t WAIT!

Cheers

Carl

Hubbard Gacier calving chunks of ice into Russell Fjord, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the thumbnail to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Here’s a photo from a trip to southeast Alaska I took, of the Hubbard Glacier calving into Russell Fjord at Gilbert Point, Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve, near Yakutat. To watch a 250′ high wall of ice crash into the ocean is simply awesome. And I mean awesome like ‘inspires awe’ … absolutely jaw-dropping stuff.

The Hubbard Glacier is one of the few advancing glaciers in Alaska right now, as most are retreating under the glare of warming climate; the cycles of glaciers that calve into the sea are also dependent upon dynamics of the sea floor, as well as other complicated elements. The glaciers are often at various stages of a retreat-advance cycle, and the Hubbard is currently advancing. A decade or so ago it actually advanced across the very narrow neck of Russell Fjord, known as Gilbert Point, and blocked off the Fjord – drastically affecting the ecosystem there. The pressure built up in the Fjord eventually pushed back, and the glacier washed out.

It’s an incredible place to sit and watch the absolutely breath-taking power of ice. These sheets of ice crack off the wall and hurtle into the ocean below; it’s pretty intense to witness. As a photographer, you also need to be on your toes, and not get lost in the viewfinder shooting photos. Within seconds of this calving ice, waves careened across the ocean surface toward the boat, and I had to make a rapid retreat. Intense stuff.

I look forward getting back to this area, near Icy Bay, this summer, and shooting this amazing landscape some more. It’s an incredible experience.

Cheers

Carl

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.

Typically for a scene like this I’ll shoot a few compositions, trying to get a different feel for each one. Because I shoot for stock publication in mind, it makes sense to try to think like a photo editor might, and try to imagine a variety of different kinds of stories or themes a shot like this might accompany: spring ski trips, backcountry travel, etc, but s even something like ‘less common vacation ideas’. Another idea could be something like global climate change. This would be a good reason to make the pool of water more dominant in the frame and the person and background play second fiddle to that.

The other element, though, is shooting for yourself; I try to always shoot a scene as it captures my mind first, and follow that with other ideas for photos. This one appealed to me because of that sexy, curvacious around the pond, and the idea of the blue in the foreground complementing the blue sky being split apart by the orange jacket I’m wearing. A strong bright colored jacket can really make the difference, particularly in scenes like this where there is not a lot of color. That one little dab of warm color adds a lot to the scene.

Hope you like the photo. It was an absolutely rockin day on the glacier.

Cheers

Carl

Shower Camp Camera Cover from Alaskan Alpine Treks on Vimeo.

Hey Folks

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.

This video was taken on our fall Skolai Pass Photo Tour. We hiked out to this high ridge from Chitistone Pass, overlooking the Russell Glacier, and spent the day here before a walk back to a pre-determined spot where we photographed the mountains at sunset from. Then a big hot meal of pasta and lots of chocolate for dessert wrapped a fantastic day.

Have a look at the webpage for the Skolai Pass Photo Tour – Skolai is an amazing place, and never fails to impress. I always look forward to a return visit to Skolai, and this year just as much as ever. I’ll probably even bring a shower cap – maybe not lime green though. Something a little earthier, perhaps?

Cheers

Carl

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.

I’ve walked I don’t know how many miles and waited hours, days, hoping for a glimpse, and yet the pack remain unseen. The reward though, is the detail this adventure forces me to see, hear and smell. One can’t help but become more in tune with the depths of the forest in the presence of the wolf. The white spruce, Picea glauca, cracks in the cold, the willow bend under their heavy snowload, and the cold seeps into the landscape.

I’ve yet to see or photograph a wolf in Wrangell – St. Elias National Park, though I’ve had some amazing experiences: listening to the calls of the pack under the aurora borealis, or stumbling onto their tracks in the mud, or finding the remains of their recent kills. Maybe one day the pack will grant me their witness. Or not. Either way they remain, and the forest resonates with their wild being.

Cheers

Carl

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.

It’s also cool for me because a few of my friends are published in the same edition of the magazine. It’d be remiss of me not to mention Bret Edge, Jon Cornforth and Ron Niebrugge, all of whom are photographers I admire. This month’s edition (March, 2010) is features some great backpacking trips in Alaska and the Rockies, so there’s a wealth of great photos out there that could work for these articles; thanks to backpacker magazine for considering and selecting mine, and great choices on the others, as well.

A little on the image; I took this photo on a trip to Skolai Pass in 2004. We’d camped in the area for a few days, had some unbelievable weather, and I really wanted to get up in to this area, called Hole in the Wall, for some nice evening light. I’d led the group was guiding up to the area earlier in the day, had a great hike, got back to camp in the early evening, had a big dinner, and then asked if anyone wanted to head back up for some photography. Everyone else was kinda happy to stay at camp, but they were adamant that I should go shoot my photos as well; I can’t tell you how cool it is to guide people who are so accommodating on a backcountry trip.

So I grabbed my camera (a nikon N90s, film camera), and headed up to Hole in the Wall. The light got better and better the further I walked. I had a pretty good idea of exactly which composition I wanted, and had my little 24mm prime lens already mounted on the camera body (I SOOOOO miss that lens, sold it a few years ago).

I used a Singh Ray graduated neutral density filter to help balance the light differential between the warm direct light on the peaks and the shaded foreground. Stopping to F22 gave me the depth of field I want to render everything sharp, foreground to background.

This area is one of my favorite places anywhere, and I go back to Skolai Pass every year. I’ve hiked the Goat Trail an inordinate number of times, and it never ceases to amaze me; it’s a grand landscape that no matter how many times I visit, I can never really “see” it all. I grew to love the place so much I named my photography business and website after it. You can see why I say this sale means a lot to me; not just as a sale, and not just because it’s such a cool publication as backpacker, but also because this photo means so much to me. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

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.

This trip is always a lot of fun, and everytime we do it the trip is different. In 2009 we ran the trip in July and then again in early September. Both groups were tons of fun, with good people, good food and good times. we had excellent photo opportunities on both of trips, yet both were very different. We concentrated more on landscapes on the latter trip, and were blessed with amazing light and weather much of the time. The first trip in July we ended up shooting a bit more wildlife, which was a blast. We saw a golden eagle swoop by camp nearly every day, and I’m still kicking myself for not managing to make a photo of that incredible experience.

The fall trip we covered some miles; we did a lot of hiking, with some very strong group participants, which was fantastic. Up early every morning, we shot the sunrise, had breakfast, then dayhiked most of the time, until heading back to a predetermined destination for the sunset. It was really a productive trip, and I must thank the folks on the trip for their willingness, if not eagerness, to really jump in and work hard. Especially thanks to Doug Roane for the loan of his camera. My camera simply stopped working the 1st morning of the trip, and Doug was kind enough to loan me his backup body. Thanks Doug.

Just as an indication of how productive the trip was, we were sitting on the ground, cameras out and firing away within 20 minutes of landing. The plane dropped us off at Skolai Pass, we unloaded, the plane departed, we ran through a quick safety talk, shouldered the backpacks and hiked maybe 300 yards before finding a small Least Weasel running through the brush. The packs were dropped, cameras grabbed, and we had a blast shooting the little guy. I had my first photos of a weasel from Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve, and we weren’t even half an hour into the backcountry. Awesome stuff!

The music on this video is “Avalanche”, a song written by Shawn Colvin. This snippet is from a recording I made a few years ago with a good friend of mine, Steve Lusk. He’s singing, and we’re both playing guitar. Steve sings this song so great.

Cheers

Carl

School teacher Natalie keeps up with her reading on the Sanford Plateau trip, July 09, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

Here’s a photo of school teacher Natalie from this past trip. We had a great walk across the Sanford Plateau in July. The weather was awesome, as you can, and we had an absolutely gorgeous evening after dinner up on the Plateau; the sun going down to the north lit up the entire region just beautifully. Natalie wanted some photos of her reading a book that she could show to her school students when she returned to teaching after the summer. I took a couple of her in front of Mt. Drum, and a few with the awesome west flank of Mt. Sanford as a backdrop. You can also see some of the glacial moraine in the valley below, a remnant of the receding Sanford Glacier. We hiked across the lower portion of the moraine, and then climbed up on to the plateau the following morning. It’s a steep climb, but as is the case so often with climbs like this, so well worth the effort. Once upon the plateau, the walking is easy, and the vast open range of tundra really a great place to visit.

This trek was a first for Natalie, she’d never taken on quite a trip like a backpacking trip in Alaska before, and I admired her willingness to jump right on in with a fly-in trip like the Sanford Plateau hike. Even when we got a little re-routed by high water in the Dadina River, and had a bit of bushwhacking to do in order to get to our landing strip destination, she handled it with aplomb! Far better than I did on my first ever bushwhack through Alaskan alder. Great job, Natalie.

This trip is really a nice walk, and generally gets far fewer visitors than some of the better know hikes on the south side of the park. We didn’t see another hiker on the entire trip. We saw a grizzly bear, found a huge moose rack, and saw bison (and a grizzly bear den) from the plane on our flight back to Glennallen. Don’t let the lower visitation deter you; the views don’t get any better than from the Sanford Plateau, which offers spectacular vista of Mt. Drum, Mt. Zanetti, Mt. Wrangell and Mt. Sanford, all of which stand over 12 000′ high, Mt. Sanford topping out at over 16 000′ high! Snow-capped peaks like these, bathed in warm summer alpenglow, make for great hiking, camping, backpacking, photography, and even reading.

Cheers

Carl