Hey Folks,
From a short trip to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park over the holidays.
Small piece of trivia – Minus 40deg F is the same temperature as minus 40 deg C.
Cold days indeed.
Stay warm folks,
Cheers
Carl
hey Folks,
Welcome to mount Blackburn, winter, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Cheers
Carl
Hey Folks,
Here’s hoping you’re somewhere special, with people you love and care about, and enjoying the moment. And if ya can’t be with the one you love, well, love the one ya with. And love ’em with everything you got. It’s a good time.
All my best to all you, and thanks so much for a great, great year. Here’s to many, many more of them.
Cheers
Carl
Hey Folks,
A short selection of images. 12 favorites from 2010.
Click on the thumbnails below for larger versions of each photo in the gallery. Continue reading…
Hey Folks,
December is, of course, the month of the 50th anniversary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, so it’s probably fitting that the Image of the Month for Dec, 2010, is from the Refuge. A small kettle pond on the coastal plain east of the Canning River. What an amazing evening this was!
A nice hike across the tundra around midnight, enjoying that magical summer evening of the arctic. I spent some time photographing this small pond, then stayed around and played my flute for an hour or so. Memorable evening.
If you didn’t check out the video tribute here already, take a look. It’s a collection of 50 photos from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge put to some music I recorded (including my flute) to honor the 50 years since the establishment of the refuge.
I’ll be back there next summer, 2011.
Cheers
Carl
If you have a nice, large computer screen and broadband connection, what I REALLY recommend you do is go to my page on Vimeo and click the ‘HD’ button underneath the thumbnail. You can watch and listen to this video in full HD resolution, at 720 x 1280. It’ll take a moment to load, but is (hopefully) well worth the time.
Hey Folks,
50 photos for 50 years!
Dec 6, 2010, marks the 50th anniversary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR. Over 19 million acres of wild lands, the refuge is a treasure, home to thousands of creatures and features; the caribou herds, the Brooks Mountains, the broad coastal plain, migratory birds and countless other gifts to this world. A beautiful landscape that warrants our respect, not our exploitation.
I hope you like this. These photos and this music is my simple tribute to this special place. Happy Birthday ANWR – and cheers to many, many more.
For more ANWR photos, visit the ANWR Photo Gallery. If you’d be interested in joining us for an upcoming ANWR Rafting and hiking trip, visit this page.
Turn up your sound!
Cheers
Carl
Hey Folks,
So, the next piece of news; I’ve finally redone my bald eagle galleries for the site. It’s a tedious chore, but SOOOO needs to be done. Soon (I hope) all the galleries will have the the same updated look, cleaner and easier to deal with, and the best thing — larger photos!
You can browse the bald eagle galleries below:
* Bald eagles
If you take the time to run through, please let me know if you see anything I need to edit, such as typos, broken links, etc, etc. It’s so easy to miss those little things, so please post something if you notice a glitch. I think they’re working OK.
This photo here is from my first trip to Homer, Alaska, and I had an absolute blast. I went with some good friends, from various parts of the country, and most of us hadn’t been to Homer to shoot the eagles before. We had such a good time together. There were virtually no other photographers around, and things were very different to how they became later on, in the last couple of years.
I’m sad to see the opportunity there come to a close, in some ways, but I’m also kinda glad it’s passed, too. Double-edged sword, I guess. I do miss all those birds, though.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the photos. Hopefully I’ll get those other galleries up before too long. Thanks.
Cheers
Carl
Hey Folks,
One of the questions I received via email after I recently posted my backpacking gear list concerned the tarp I carry.
Why, if I’m carrying a tent, do I also carry a tarp? Good question.
Backpacking trips in bear country, and particularly grizzly bear country, means not eating inside a tent. Not ever. We cook, eat, do dishes and store all food quite a distance from where our tents are; the standard distance is 100 yards, but that can vary with the circumstances, IMO. Safe to say that’s a good distance to maintain. The further the better.
When the weather’s bad, the tarp feels like a life saver. That tiny little shelter makes the world of difference when you get to camp. I can get changed out of any wet hiking gear, put on all my dry, warm layers (including some nice warm, dry socks!!! 🙂 ), to go cook and eat comfortably, warm and dry rather than wet and cold and rained on. It’s particularly nice in the morning, knowing I can get up from my tent and go make coffee under the tarp. I wouldn’t go backpacking without a tarp (or similar).
I find 2 hiking poles, or sometimes 4, works well to build a nice shelter to eat under. This is one of the reasons I like the full-size hiking poles, those that max up to 140cm. Many of the more compact lighterweight poles aren’t really long enough to do effective double duty under the tarp – they’re too short. Headroom matters! Continue reading…
Hey Folks
It’s been a busy fall for me, and I’m working on updating all the image galleries on the site. I apologize for the inconvenience, if any, and how it takes. Website work isn’t as much fun as hiking or photographing.
So, the good news? I’ve uploaded and updated the Landscapes galleries on the website. Take a look if you will:
Please let me know if you see any glitches or anything. There’s always little errors that creep in, but I think I caught most of them.
I’m slowly working on getting all the galleries redone; new images, larger images, and a consistent display. Hopefully it’ll be an improvement.
The image to the right here is from Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, high in the Wrangell Mountains. I love getting up high in winter, treeline or above, as the light is sublime. I was super lucky to find this young snow-laden willow sapling, as the first wind after a snowfall will blow the snow from this brush in a New York Minute. Next time I headed up to this area, the snow was completely gone from the willow, it’s bare, winter dormant branches protruding from the snow like rusted fingers.
This coming winter I hope to get some more images like this. Nothing like great light, fresh deep powder and some alpine country for good fun. I’ll have the skis out, the camera handy, and coffee in the thermos!
I hope you enjoy the images in the galleries.
Cheers
Carl
Hey Folks,
Wow, another month has passed by already! So here’s the Image of the Month for November, 2010. No surprises for what kind of photo would be posted this month; after 2 weeks of virtually nonstop grizzly bear photography at the end of September, I could do a whole year of Images of the Month with nothing but bear photos.
So, speaking of bear photos, I might just add that I’ve updated the 2 bear galleries on the website, as I undertake a major overhaul of all the photo galleries here. Tedious work, but they’re such a schmozzle I know I need to do it. (and, I really wanted to use the word “schmozzle” in a blog post). So, take a look at the new gallery .. virtually all new images posted, with larger photos, too. Here’s the Bears #1 gallery. I hope you enjoy some of the images. Oh, and I also added the dates for the 2011 bear photo tour.
So, back to this image; just a nice low angle on a sow racing through the water, splashing her way after some luckless Sockeye salmon. I’m glad I’m not a 5lb fish meeting a 800lb bear!
Hope you like it folks.
Cheers
Carl
