Tag Archives: Alaska

Photo of the day 2/24/2012 – “Untitled”

“Untitled”
After giving out some tips to someone today about what to see and do in Alaska, I wanted to revisit what was the highlight of my trip…A two and a half hour flight-seeing trip that included landing on a glacier in the Sheldon Amphitheater at the hiking basecamp.

There is so much to tell about this photo. It’s probably worth at least a couple thousand words. I’ll have to save those for another time.

In the photo:
The 50+ year-old plane we flew in.
Huge glacier (name unknown)
Mount McKinley

Above Denali National Park & Preserve
Alaska
June 7, 2010

[Click pic to fit to screen]

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Photo of the day 4/23/11 – “Surprising Beauty”

“Surprising Beauty”

I guess I had seen photos of this place before I went there and must have dismissed them because they looked fake. And much like I wasn’t expecting the desert in Joshua Tree National Park to be so full of life, I really wasn’t expecting this place to be so colorful. After all, they only have a few months here when it is not covered in snow.

Turns out, the best picture I have of this place (until I get some panorama stitching and HDR software) just so happens to have me in it. So while I did edit some of the dullness out of the photo from the partly cloudy skies, I’m lucky to be able to say it really did look much like this.

About the photo:
This was taken from Eielson Visitors Center in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska. To get here, one has to either get the very rare permit to drive in, bike or hike, or like we and most people did, endure a 66 mile ride (one way) to the Center in a school bus on a nearly all gravel road. But while we ended up riding 170 miles in 13 hours in the bus this day, the sights were so incredible that I really did forget I was in a school bus.

June 10, 2010
In celebration of National Parks week

[Click pic to fit to screen]

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Bonus Photo of the day 4/19/11 – “Contrast”

“Contrast”

It probably doesn’t jump right out at you, but the black mass on the right side is a glacier. It contrasts from the glacier on the right not only because it really is black, but because it is two miles wide and is receding, whereas the glacier in the left is white, one mile wide and is advancing.

Margerie Glacier (left) and Grand Pacific Glacier (right), Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska
June 5, 2010
In celebration of National Parks week

[Click pic to to fit to screen]

Location:

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Photo of the day 4/19/11 – “Chipping Away”

“Chipping Away”

By time you hear the crack as loud as thunder of the glacier calving, you probably missed it. You really have to pay attention to catch it.

Unfortunately the photo doesn’t do the grandeur of this amazing place and justice. One easily gets lost in the enormity of it all. To give some perspective, the ice you see above the water is about 250 feet high, which makes the part that calved about 20-30 feet high with the resulting wave about 5-10 feet high.

Margerie Glacier, Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska
June 5, 2010

[Click pic to to fit to screen]

Location:

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Denali National Park @ Eielson Visitor Center 360 video

I’m finally starting to do something with all of the vacation video I’ve taken the past few years. Downloaded Adobe Premier Pro last night and created this.  Technically, it is nothing fancy (I’m just proud enough I was able to download and install the software, and figure it out enough to create a video in under an hour and half) but as you can see, this place is absolutely beautiful.

See if you can figure out where the peak of Mt. McKinley is.  The answer is below the video.

[hdplay id=1 playlistid=1 width=600 height=338]

Mt. McKinley is hiding behind the weather it is making in the center of the screen at about the 20 second mark.

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