Snow and ice covered berries in my backyard this morning, Seward, Alaska.
I know I have plenty to by thankful for – I hope you do to. Happy Thanksgiving!
Bears and Puffin Photo Tour
A brown bear cub watches and learns how to dig for clams from its mom.
This is the second of three Alaska photo tours we will be offering next summer.
Spending time watching and photographing brown bears up close is an absolute thrill! This is going to be a small group (limited to 4) tour where we will live and breath brown bears pretty much day and night thanks to Alaska’s long summer days. We will be staying in a wonderful lodge in a beautiful setting along the coast. We are near a clear flowing salmon stream with a wonderful snow capped mountain backdrop. Thanks to the wide variety of food sources – salmon, clams and sedges, this area sees a large gathering of coastal brown bears, from huge bores and sows to cute, playful cubs.
I say we will live and breath bears, but actually we will take a portion of one day to travel by boat to a nearby island where we will go to shore for a wonderful opportunity to photograph horned and tufted puffin up close. Our timing should be perfect since the puffin will be actively traveling back and fourth to their burrows with mouths full of fish.
To learn more, check out our page on the bear and puffin photo tour.
Kenai Fjords Photo Tour
Pedersen Glacier, Aialik Bay, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
OK, at last I can announce the first of three different photo tours! I decided that if I was going to do photo tours, they had to be something that I really enjoyed and got excited about, and I can honestly say I think this trip is going to be a blast!
Since I live at the entrance to Kenai Fjords, and spend much of my summer in the Park, a tour here is a natural. The problem is, I didn’t want to be limited to day tours, hotels and restaurants. I have spent many nights on boats in Kenai Fjords, and it didn’t matter if I was on a large fishing vessel, the Park Service boat, a research vessel, or in friends pleasure crafts, every trip was a memorable experience with amazing photo opportunities. By spending the night, we can be in the fjords when the light is best, the animals most active, and with the other tour boats back in Seward- perfect!
So this is a 3 day, 2 night all inclusive boat tour limited to just 3 guests which will maximize our interaction and learning. No point in going on and on, you can read about all the juicy details here: Kenai Fjords National Park Photo Tour.
Stay tuned for a similar, but larger tour (4 guest / 4 days) into Prince William Sound, along with another 4 day, 4 guest tour concentrating on coastal brown bears and puffin!
Our Welcome Home!
Alpenglow on Mt. Alice, Chugach National Forest, Seward, Alaska.
I took this photo out the front door just an hour or so after getting home on Sunday – what a great welcome home! I have hundreds, if not thousands of somewhat similar images of this mountain, I will probably take thousands more – how can I resist?
During long trips and our summer in Alaska I’m getting enough new material to post to the blog 5 days a week. This time of year I’m concentrating on office work, so I might not post as often over the next few months, maybe 3 times a week. I know I have said that in the past and continued posting 5 days a week, but it takes the pressure off if I lower the expectations. 🙂
Correction: Thanks to Aaron below, I now know this isn’t actually considered alpenglow. This is alpenglow.
Alaska Magazine Cover!
Cover of Alaska Magazine, November, 2009.
Having the cover of Alaska Magazine is pretty cool. Check that, it is really cool! We knew we had made this sale almost two months ago, and I was really looking forward to seeing the final result once we got back home – I think it turned out great!
This is a rock ptarmigan in Denali National Park. Willow ptarmigan get all the love in Alaska – they are even our State Bird, so it is nice to see the rock ptarmigan get a little press. 🙂
After a few longs days of travel we are now safely back home – it is great to be back in Seward! The below zero wind chill factor this morning reminded me we were no longer in Palm Springs. But then again, so did the lack of stop lights, traffic, the fresh air, amazing scenery…
The National Parks, Americas Best Idea by Ken Burns
Cameraman Buddy Squires, producer Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns in Aialik Bay, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
I thought I would do a quick reminder that the Ken Burns series on our National Parks will begin airing Sunday evening on PBS.
As you may know, I helped out a bit when Florentine Films was filming in Kenai Fjords back in 2003 – they have been working on this film for sometime. Ken, Dayton and Buddy were some of the most interesting people I have ever met, and could tell fascinating stories about the people they have met and places they had seen thanks to their past projects. What doesn’t come across in the television interviews I have seen is Ken’s wonderful sense of humor – the group of us sure had a lot of fun, I don’t think I have ever laughed so much while out in the field!
I had the chance to see much of the Alaska portion of the coverage of this series and it was really well done. I can’t imagine the research that must go into a project like this. The series talked at length about people like Adolph Murie, Bradford and Barbara Washburn, Charles Sheldon and Joe Quigley – all people that are well known to Alaskans, but may be unfamiliar to most Americans. I look forward to learning about similar people from other parts of the United States who may be unfamiliar to me.
I don’t think I’ll have a chance to watch it right now – we don’t get much in the way of TV right now, and we are kinda busy, but I do look forward to watching it once we are back in Alaska. Here is the PBS site with much more information including times for The National Parks, Americas Best Idea.
Ken Burns pretending to be deeply engrossed by a beach stone as he hams it up for my camera. He was hilarious. At the time I was sorry my flash didn't fire, but in hindsight, I like the silhouette.
Hitting the Road
Sunrise on Mt. Marathon last month, Seward, Alaska. If you look close, you can see the Seward Highway way down in the valley as it comes into town.
I gotta admit, it is really hard to leave Alaska this time of year. Sure, it is the wettest time of year, but a beautiful Fall day in Seward can be really amazing. In fact, last year we ended up delaying our fall trip because we couldn’t pull ourselves away from here. But, I have always wanted to visit and photograph Colorado, and September is a wonderful month in the Rockies. If we waited until after the fall colors in Alaska, we would miss them in Colorado.
So tomorrow we pack, Saturday drive to Anchorage, Sunday fly to Southern California where we spend a couple of days getting our trailer ready, then make the three day drive to Estes Park. I say all that so that I have a built in excuse in case I’m unable to post to the blog next week. Once we are down there and situated, I will resume my regular posts, hopefully with photos of a new region (for me) and exciting adventures! Well, hopefully not too exciting.
What we typically do on these long trips is find a campground with wifi – this way we can set up our mobile office so that we can maintain the office while I photograph the surrounding area.
Our plan right now is to stay for two weeks in Estes Park and photograph Rocky Mountain National Park. Then, down to Gunnison for two or three weeks of chasing the fall colors in the mountains. Once the colors fade, we are going back to Moab – a place we really enjoyed last fall. This year we were able to snag back country reservations for a couple of nights along the White Rim Trail – that should be fun. Those are hard to get, we had to apply months ago.
After that, our trip is less planned. As we head West we will spend a few nights in the Vegas area before hitting the Southern California desert for a week or two. When we return to Alaska in mid November, fall will be long over.
So that is the plan for now – sometimes we follow the plan almost exactly, other times we completely change our minds depending on what we find on the road. So stay tuned to the photo blog for future posts!
Recent Comments