Nikon D50 | 105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR | f/7.1 | 1/320 sec | aperture priority mode
Captured in Seward, July 2007.
Until I saw this and read Eiger Dreams, I didn't realize that people were actually crazy enough to climb them. While this is by no means a stunning photograph, I think that was these climbers are doing is stunning. It's shot under a typical late November sun, low to the horizon, giving the entire day a flattering sunset-like light quality that I miss so much.
Well apparently, Denali liked to thumb its nose at me, because no matter what, even if I could see the mountain from Anchorage, by the time I would get to Denali it was shrouded in the clouds it made itself. I moved away from Alaska never having achieved this dream - no matter how many times I stopped at the overlook just outside of town or went to the Susitna River beach, plaintively raking my eyes across the horizon, the mountain wasn't there.
That is, until Cory and I visited this summer. We had been mostly foiled the day we went into the park itself, but the next day, on the way home, the MOUNTAIN WAS OUT! We stopped off at a handful of viewpoints, finally getting the pictures I had waited so long for, and by the time we pulled into Talkeetna Cory was famished. I, of course, still wanted my beach shot of the mountain and Cory tried to tell me that we would go down there after lunch, but oh no, I had learned my lesson during my time living in Alaska: if you have an opportunity to see or do something, you had better do it right then, because the opportunity can vanish very, very quickly and you never know when you'll get it again. So I dragged him to the river's beach, got my photo, and then we went to lunch at Cafe Michele (holy crap, who knew there was fine dining in Talkeetna??? This place was awesome: fantastic quality food with the laid-back Talkeetna attitude) and by the time we had finished our excellent meal, the mountain was completely shrouded again.
In Alaska, you take what you can get when the gettin's good.
Mickey Mouse bear looked to be a yearling cub, but mama was nowhere to be seen. By rights she probably should have been teaching him how to fish. Instead, he was going at it alone, and let's face it: he was not a good fisherbear. What he lacked in skill, however, he totally made up for in heart! He made more attempts at salmon than any other bear we saw that day, and even though we all wanted so badly for him to succeed, the fish just weren't swimming his way. During the hour or so we were on the lower viewer platform where he was fishing, there were many times where he perched up on a rock, bounded off across the river, stuck his face in the water, and tried like hell to catch some lunch. But even when he had just stuck his whole head in the water, his ears - oh, those ears - would still be disproportionally huge and fuzzy. In every photo I took of him (and there are probably hundreds) his ears are his most distinctive feature and they just make me want to go up, give him a huge hug, and fuzz up those ears even more.
Those fuzzy, fuzzy ears make me forget that he could - and would - totally eat my face.
My first exposure to this area was when I was around eleven years old during a family vacation to Grand Teton National Park. We were staying in Jackson Hole and my parents became transfixed by the Thomas Mangelsen gallery there. I was totally taken in too and remember standing in front of his iconic photograph Catch of the Day, completely awed. Shortly after moving to Anchorage, I learned that that picture, and many others like it, were taken just a couple hundred miles away from my house. You had to take a float plane to get there, but you could get there all the same. I tried to talk my Mom, whose favorite animal is the Grizzly, into doing it and I redoubled my efforts once a couple of my friends took the trip and came back gushing about the experience, justifying the cost with cliche-sounding but totally true phrases like "once in a lifetime experience," but for some reason she resisted.
Fast forward to this last summer when Cory and I took a two-week vacation back to Alaska. In addition to the hikes and restaurants that were on our must-do list two big summertime experiences I missed out on during my time there: Denali and Katmai. Convincing Cory of Denali was no big thing: he was almost as eager to do it as I was. Katmai, however, took some doing. Eventually, though, I got him to agree to it, as apparently my once-in-a-lifetime logic (not to mention my stubbornness and persistence) began to justify the cost.
We contacted Steve Jones, the same pilot that my friends Dave and Amy used on their trip, and before we knew it we were on our way to the Alaska Peninsula. Let me tell you, I cannot recommend him enough. He was friendly, extremely knowledgeable, and a very proficient, experienced pilot: the trifecta Alaskan bush and float-plane pilots. He even remembered Dave and Amy from nearly two years before. He was also experienced with what happens on the ground: for instance, he knew to keep herding me along when I saw the first batch of mama/cub groupings far from the falls because if you stopped anywhere, you risked getting stuck there if a nearby bear necessitated a trail closure. So we pressed on until we got to the viewing platforms.
Words can't even begin to describe the experience we there, but luckily I took over 1,000 (yes, more than one thousand) pictures that day. If a picture is worth a thousand words then I have more than a million collected that should tell the story pretty well. I'll begin with one of the photos I took once we had gotten to the much-desired upper viewing platform, one of a brave mama bear breaking the rules of bear society, fishing with three cubs in tow so that she could continue to feed them. I gotta say, I like her style: just standing there, waiting for a fish to jump into her waiting jaws. I wouldn't do it much differently myself!
Though the park looks completely different in the fall when compared with summer, it's no less beautiful. It's far more severe, hinting at what the winter will bring, the colors muted as the tundra scrub dies.
So in a freak occurrence last summer at the dog park, Sienna was actually posing pretty for me (well, she had dirt caked all over her tongue, but she is an Adventure Dog) for this long stream of photos when she heard something behind her and I managed to get this random action shot. I'd have to say that it probably captured her character better than all those unnaturally still ones of her - even though you can't see the ever-present mud.
I'm especially fond of Mt Susitna near the equinoxes because the sun sets behind the mountain, casting gorgeous silhouettes. However, it's hard to get a real appreciation for the mountain unless you get outside of the city a bit. I managed to do just that on my hike to Wolverine Peak. The trail offers spectacular views of the city and the angle is just right to catch the Sleeping Lady watching over Anchorage. I love the view so much that this very nearly became the masthead for this summer over on Life in a Northern Town. Alas, it's a real challenge for something that is allegedly sleeping to portray the same joi de vivre exhibited by Sienna, so Susitna was barely edged out of place. Better luck next time to the Sleeping Lady.
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