A waterfall in a small stream near the Upper Marsh Fork River, Brooks Range mountains, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), Alaska. Please click the thumbnail to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey folks,

Here’s another image from our recent trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. this trip was simply awesome. A great group of folks, from Florida, Colorado and Washington, who all carried the most ingredient for a great trip – great attitude. Everyone really clicked, and we had a ton of fun; lots of laughs and good times.

This photo was taken on our 1st night out; we camped on a big alluvial fan that comes out of the mountains, on the west side of the Marsh Fork River. After dinner we hiked up the stream and climbed a small ridgeline for some amazing views back south, to the heart of the mountain range and the contintental divide. The light was really happening, and I was pretty happy with a few of the images I made.

Afterward, the light began to fade and we hiked back toward camp. The sun began to poke through again, for one great show, and I saw this little miniature waterfall that I knew would make a great foreground. The light show only lasted a couple of minutes before high clouds to the north dulled the glow. By the time I’d rearranged this for a horizontal composition, the light was noticeably dimmer on the distant peak. Minutes later, the glow was gone.

This image was taken around 2:00am. Photography in the arctic summer is a challenge, shifting ones mental and body clock to the wee hours of the “night“, to capture the nicest light. Oftentimes I’ll shoot til later and go to bed around 4:00am, or later. They don’t call this the land of the midnight sun for nothing.

Here’s a photo below of Steve, from Colorado, shooting the following morning, around 4:00am. We’d gone to bed, got some rest, and then the sun came around the corner of the range to the north, and lit up the valley. I was up immediately, woke Steve, and we shot for a couple of hours before going back to bed. It’s an absolutely incredible experience to watch the mountains here, in the quiet hours of the “dawn“, and feel the arctic air start to warm. Magical doesn’t describe the experience.

Steve shooting the Marsh Fork River, Brooks Range, ANWR.

What a blast we had! To view some of Steve’s fantasic work from this trip, visit his gallery here. He made some amazing images.

It’s really nice to have another serious photographer along on a trip like this, even the trip is not promoted as a ‘photography tour’ at all. Steve inspired and motivated me to work harder and longer, and to look more closely than I otherwise might. I learnt a lot from watching him shoot.

Cheers

Carl

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

A pacific loon swimming on a pond on the coastal plain, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, Alaska. Waterfowl migrate thousands of miles to nest and breed and feed on the rich coastal plain of the Refuge in summer. (Gavia pacifica) Please click on the thumbnail to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

A Pacific Loon, photographed on a pond on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Taken at the end of our recent trip to ANWR, floating down the Canning River to the Arctic Ocean.

The final evening provided some great light, and some gorgeous Pacific loons (Gavia pacifica) to photograph. Loons are one of my favorite birds, really a beautiful bird, and it’s always a treat to photograph them.

This year we were fortunate to see Common loons, Red-throated loon and Pacific loons, but not the less common Yellow-billed loon. Maybe next summer we’ll be treated to the awesome foursome!

I’ll try to post something soon from our Skolai – Wolverine hike . Until then, I hope you enjoy this Pacific loon photo.

Cheers

Carl

Hikers enjoying horseplay of aufeis, Canning River, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), Alaska. Please click on the thumbnail to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

Here’s a shot from our recent trip down the Canning River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. You can see we had a lot of fun, great spirits, great weather, spectacular scenery and a great, great group of folks. What more could we ask for?

Aufeis is a German word to refer to overflow ice, that typically melts out during the summer, and re-accumulates in the winter. It’s pretty common along most waterways in the Arctic. Here it provided a platform for some tom-foolery. Good fun all the way around.

Minutes earlier we’d been watching a mature bull caribou wander along the ridges of Aufeis; caribou often hang out on the ice to keep cool and stay away from the oft-present mosquitoes during summer’s brief madness. Fortunately this year the bugs were largely gone by the time of our trip, and we all had a great time with no insanity from the mosquitoes.

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

Coastal Plain and Brooks Range, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, Alaska. Please click on the thumbnail to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

I thought’d post a quick promo here for a radio show I’ve been invited to join on lensflare-live. I’ll be talking with Greg Downing and EJ Peiker of naturescapes.net, a fantastic nature photography community and radio show host Dave Warner. The topics for discussion include wilderness and backpacking photography, art, conservation and environmental topics, as well as a discussion of a few images we’ll be presenting on the show.

I’m really talking forward to this conversation. Greg and EJ are photographers I’ve been a fan of for quite some time, and I really am looking forward to talking with them. Dave is a great photographer as well, so the discussion should be a lot of fun. If you have any questions regarding any of these subjects, feel free to join in the conversation online or by calling in. The show is scheduled to be broadcast at 9pm EST, Tuesday, May 4, 2010. You can listen to it here.

After we’ve finished, naturescapes.net will edit the broadcast down, remove all the “ahhh’s” and “uhhmmms” and long periods of silence, and present the discussion as a podcast. I’ll provide a link to there here as it becomes available.

The image above is from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). That seems particularly relevant in light of the horrific Gulf Cust Oil disaster. Hopefully we can learn something of the importance of ecosystems and fragility via this mess.

Please check out the radio show. It should be fun.

Cheers

Carl

Grizzly bear rubbing on a tree, Katmai National Park, Alaska. Please click on the photo for a larger version.

Hey Folks

Welcome to April! The Image of the Month for this month is a grizzly bear rubbing his head on a tree. I photographed this bear sleeping not long before I took this photo, and after he woke up, he strolled directly over to this small Black Cottonwood tree, and rubbed and scratched on it for quite some time. I got a few photos of him standing at full height, which is an impressive sight for a bear this size. I’d estimate him to be well over 9′ tall.

April is the month the bears typically will be waking up from their long winter hibernation, and start moving around again. Won’t be long before my sojourns into the woods will again require my can of bear spray in my pocket. This bear had just awoken, so I thought it might be a good photo of the month for April for that reason.

Bear hibernation is a pretty amazing phenomena. No other animal anywhere near the size of the grizzly can sleep an entire winter away, living off it’s fat reserves, stored up from a summer of eating. Some folks argue that grizzlies (and black bears) aren’t true hibernators, because they actually wake up during the winter, and their body temperatures don’t reach down to the temperatures of other (what we call) “true hibernators”, like the Arctic Ground Squirrel, etc. Other people contend that given it’s size and mass, the grizzly is probably the greatest hibernator on the planet.

However we refer to it, I’m not sure the grizzly cares.

Cheers

Carl

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.

Of course, both the species are cute, but it’s a shame to see the arctic fox, which is such an amazing survivor, threatened by this larger species. Arctic foxes can stand in temperatures down as low as minus 40degrees F, and exhibit no changes in their metabolism at all. That’s insane (the muskox does the same down to minus 70, but they’re MUCH larger body sized, and have incredibly long thick coats – they LOOK like they might be able to do something like that).

I’m hoping I can find this fox den again this summer when I visit the Refuge;  I have a rough idea where it is, and maybe we’ll get lucky and find some new fox kits to photograph. If you’re interested in the ANWR trip, please contact me asap, as we have one space left at the moment. It’s always a treat to visit the Refuge, and I’m keen as mustard to get back there again. We travel by raft all the way from the Continental Divide in the Brooks Mountain range to the coast at the Beaufort Sea, and it’s simply a fantastic trip.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the red fox kits photo above.

Cheers

Carl