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. (more…)

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, (more…)

Backcountry cross country (XC) skiing in the Mentasta Mountains, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Click the image to see a larger version.

Hey Folks,

Happy New Year to you all! I hope the coming year brings you all the good times you’re looking for.

I know for me the Year got off to a phenomenal start. 12:30am on January 1st had me skiing through the boreal forest for nearly 90 minutes under a gorgeous full moon, just me, the snow, my skies, the big full moon, the mountains and the cold. The temperatures were down around minus 5 (Fanhrenheit) so it wasn’t too bad at all – just perfect for a nice long ski through the Mentasta Mountains in Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve. It’s pretty hard to think of a better way to start the new year – it was possibly one of my favorite experiences yet, absolutely amazing. I got back to the cabin feeling a sense of what it really means to be fully ‘alive’ – Awesome stuff!

This photo is of me on another ski (I didn’t take the camera on New Years Eve) up around the Mentasta Mountains, right at dusk. The wind was fairly whipping by, and the minus 10 temps felt like minus 50 and then some. Ouch!

Best to all,

Cheers

Carl

A grizzly bear approaching along Brooks River, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Hey Folks,

OK, I’ve moved the Image of the Month page to here for now; I’m in the process of overhauling the site, and will gradually either remove or shift the older Image of the Month pages to the blog. I think that will make them easier to  keep a handle on. So that’s the plan, for now. It’s simply too difficult to keep up with the Image of the Month on a static html page, and keep re-writing it, during the summer months when we’re hiking and backpacking all the time. So I think this format will work better. I hope so.

So we can start off the Image of the Month, for December 2009, with this grizzly bear photo I shot last fall, in October, in Katmai National Park and Preserve. (more…)