Hey Folks,
Welcome to the beginning of a lot of chatter about backpacking gear. The first thread is about tents. Specifically, MY tent, the Mountain Hardwear Skyledge 2. I can’t recommend this tent highly enough.
1 – it’s reasonably light. Any 2 person tent that comes to close to 4lbs is light, IMO.
2 – it’s super-easy to set up and take down. Ridiculously easy.
OK OK OK .. I’ll quit posting Denali, or Mt. McKinley, photos in a little while! I’m just glad I finally got some!
This one was kind of unusual for me. I do like this kind of abstract mountain peak photo, but normally I don’t shoot photos like this when the light is really happening. On this particular morning, I had been camped in this location in Denali National Park for several days, already had a number of decent images of alpenglow on the mountain with wider lenses, and decided I would ‘go for it’.
I’m glad I did because I got this one and a couple of other similar images that I really like. The alpenglow was warm and juicy, a real treat.
I used my 500mm lens on my full-frame camera, giving me an effective focal length of 750mm, which required some patience and technique to get a sharp image. The shutter speed was not as fast as I might’ve hoped for, but with some effort I managed to get some sharp photos.
I get asked a lot about whether I call the mountain Denali or Mt. McKinley. I almost never use Mt. McKinley, the mountain’s official name, but almost always go with the local name, Denali. For those of you who don’t know the history of the 2 names, I’ll offer a summary here:
The people who lived in the area prior to the Europeans were Athabascan people, and the name they used for the mountain is “Denali” – it translates, closely, in English as “The Great One”, or “The High One”. The official name, given to the mountain in 1896, is a reference to the former Governor of Ohio, and later President of the US, William McKinley.
The State of Alaska recognises the name Denali, but the official US name is Mt. McKinley.
What’s interesting to me is the difference of abstraction here. One group of people named the mountain after what it is, a great, or high mountain; a tribute to the mountain itself, its grandeur and its majesty. Our culture has failed to do this, and instead named the mountain after one of our own, a senator and later president.
We do this too often, I think.
I have more info on this subject on our Wrangell-St. Elias National Park article.
And it goes further than this; the peak that sits just to the south of Denali, Mt. Foraker, is named after a Senator from Ohio, Joseph Foraker. Again, we can look to the native people for a name that best fits the mountain and mountain range: the name “Menlale”, translates as “Denali’s wife”, or “Sultana”, meaning “the woman” – both a reference to the mountain being slightly smaller than nearby Denali, but equally respecting the mountain itself.
This is one of the most striking examples of how our culture fails to value the land for what it is. We only recognize its utilitarian value, its value to us. We tend to name places and features of the landscape after people we admire – maybe a symbol of respect to people, but a complete disrespect to the land on which we live.
It’s also a lack of respect for the people who lived in the area before us. We fail to honor the names they had for the characters and features they shared the land with. When European settlers arrived here, humans had already given names for the animals and plants, the mountains, streams and watersheds. Our unwillingness to honor those names is just one example of a complete lack of respect for the people who lived here.
For these reasons, I prefer Denali, and Menlale, or Sultana. My mum said she likes those names, too.
Cheers
Carl
PS: You can see more photos from Denali National Park here.
Hey Folks
A little with my Denali series. This one I’ve waited for a long time now, and though the reflection wasn’t perfect, it was WAY closer than anything I’ve come close to so far with Denali. Like I said in an earlier post, I’ve camped at this location many, many nights, and rarely even seen the mountain come out – when I did, it was in bad light, windy conditions, and not conducive to decent photography. This trip I did better than ever before.
Continue reading…
Hey Folks
I thought I’d continue on my little slideshow of Denali photos.
I got to shoot the mountain more this summer, in one short week, than in all of my previous sojourns into the park. Call it good luck, or call it persistence, or call if what you will, I had a great time in Denali. Mt. McKinley is certainly one of the grand mountains of North America, and probably the world.
Wanna join OUR backpacking trip to Denali National Park and Preserve?
Denali so dominates the landscape that when it’s out, shooting any other photo, often even wildlife, makes me feel slightly guilty. Sometimes I’ll take some photos of Mt. McKinley, then look around for other interesting compositions or subjects, particularly if the light is good, but I can’t help look back over my shoulder at Denali, and “What are you thinking, Carl, THERE’S your subject” runs through my mind .. time and again.
I took this photo after breakfast, and was finishing up with a cup of coffee, and I thought that’d be a cool shot, coffee and the mountain. Thank the Lord for a built-in timer on the camera and a solid tripod.
As always, for stock shots, I took a few frames, vertical and horizontal compositions, but I like this one the best. I enjoyed the coffee. Coincidentally, for backcountry coffee, you can’t beat Mary Jane’s Farm – their dehydrated organic coffee is awesome. It tastes like real coffee, with no grounds to clean up or pack out afterwards – that’s always a plus in my book!
I don’t know if they’re still selling it, but I see they have a few new products I’m keen to try out next season here. Bummer if they aren’t gunna do their coffee again!
This photo was taken a couple of hundred yards away from the last one.
Why?
Because it’s not good form to eat near your camp in bear country.
So I set up my tent, and set up a little kitchen/cooking/eating area a short distance away. This one is a little further than normal, across the other side of a small kettle pond, up on a ridge. It’s a pretty sweet view to have dinner/breakfast by.
You can see how tough life is for a backpacking guide.
Cheers
Carl
