Alaska Day Five - Kachemak Bay

Kachemak Bay on the southern end of the Kenai Peninsula is home to mountains, glaciers, eagles, and serious fishing. Some images from the last day or so (click on an image to see a larger version). Tomorrow, off by seaplane to Katmai National Park and a date with some big, fuzzy guys.

Kachemak Bay

Eagle on mast, Homer Spit

Looking for lunch

Fireweed and Glacier

Mom and the Kids

 

Dusk, Kachemak Range



Alaska Day Four - Along the Tides

A beautiful day in the Kenai Peninsula....a good day to spend some time along Kachamek Bay and the shore. I spend a good part of the morning on Bishop's Slough. For those who don't know exactly what a slough is (like me), it is a marshy inlet or back-water area of a body of water.

The Kenai region has very significant tides, which can leave exposed great areas of back-water and beaches when the tide is low, making it a wonderful habitat for shore birds. I'm hoping to spend some more time photographing the tide pools later during my stay when the tides are to be very low.

I found this pair (familiar from back in Wisconsin) working the slough.

Sandhill Cranes, Bishop's Slough

Another transplant from southern Wisconsin....

Wild Geranium, Bishop's Slough

Even when watching the slough for interesting features, one cannot ignore the Kachamek Range across Kachamek Bay. Here's an image from last evening as the sun was going down.



Kachamek Range



Alaska Day Three - Down the coast

Time to head to the Kenai Peninsula and the big, open water. I knew that Alaska is BIG. Still, traveling from Willow to Homer took pretty much all day. Of course, excellent scenery does tend to make the trip take a bit longer (and be much more enjoyable).

This was the first day of real rain here in Alaska, so it kept the mountain ranges of the Kenai hid for most of the drive. However, it did create some dramatic skies, as in this image from the Chugach Range (click on the image for a larger view).





Rain, Chugach Range


The weather broke a bit closer to Homer and the southern part of the Kenai Peninsula. Here's an image from the Kachamek Range.



Lupines and Kachamek Range



Alaska Day Two - Denali and Talkeetna

I decided that Denali was not going to get the best of me. With that in mind, I made my way to the south vista in Denali State Park to check out the Alaska Range (and hopefully, Denali itself). In the end, the mountain did win. You can see glimpses of Denali in the photo below - however, she decided to keep hidden again today.

Alaska Range from Denali State Park

In some despair, I headed off for Talkeetna, which bills itself as a "Drinking Town with a Fishing Problem." Actually, it also is a town with some great history and wonderful local art. Here's a couple of snippets from there.



Old signage, Talkeetna Alaska




Flights and Hunting, Talkeetna Alaska

 I would be remiss without talking about the largest member of the deer family, which plays a large role in traffic excitement here in the Land of the Midnight Sun - the moose. Saw two today, however they didn't want to sit for portraits. While most of us in Wisconsin are used to seeing (and largely ignoring) signage similar to the one below for the moose's smaller cousins, when it's a 1,400 pound beast crossing the road one is more apt to pay attention.

Watch for Bullwinkle

Alaska Day One - Hatcher Pass

The first full day of Alaska almost felt like an early summer day in Wisconsin - low 70s and sun. I'm spending some time north of Anchorage, in the Mat-Su Valley. The big prize will be to get some great images of Denali. So far, no luck. The mountain was visible late last evening and I made a run for Denali State Park to photograph the range. However, Denali makes its own weather and decided to cloud over.

So, I take the smaller prizes instead. I spend some time on Hatcher Pass, which roughly connects Willow with Palmer, Alaska. I say "roughly" in the most literal sense - a bouncy gravel road above treeline might make someone decide to go the long way on paved highway.

However, the Pass did pay off with some wonderful high-country flowers. Here's a couple of images.

Dwarf Fireweed - Hatcher Pass

Dwarf Fireweed - Hatcher Pass

Mountain Lupine - Hatcher Pass

Hours 'til Alaska

I'm only hours away from leaving for two weeks of photography in Alaska. I'll be posting images and thoughts as I move from near Denali down to the Kenai Peninsula and in to Katmai National Park to photograph grizzlies.

Just have to share one of my favorite quotes on Alaska and grizzlies. This is from John McPhee in Coming into the Country:

"The sight of the grizzly bear stirred me like nothing else the country could contain. What mattered was not so much the bear himself as what the bear implied. He was the predominant thing in that country and for him to be in it at all meant that there had to be more of the same kind of country all around that. He implied a world. He was an affirmation to the rest of the earth that his kind of place was extant".

Northern Highlands State Forest

I don't think it's truly summer until my first trip to Northern Highlands State Forest in Oneida county, Wisconsin. It is a quarter of a million acres of all that is good and beautiful about Wisconsin....including a great ice cream shop in the woods that is a treat to bike to (one can't live on natural beauty alone - sometimes you need a cone full of blueberry cheesecake ice cream).

Here's a couple of images from this past weekend....hope you enjoy them!




Columbine and Ferns, Muskie Lake



Dusk, Emerald Lake

Loon, Firefly Lake