Blogging from Alaska #3

Sept 9

Hi all...

So this is my last week in Alaska before heading back to South Carolina.  I haven't been in Alaska in four years, so it was nice to come back to visit old friends and enjoy the scenery.  

My brother took Pat, his wife, Mary, and I out halibut fishing the other day and we caught enough to have a nice dinner...actually, Pat and Mary caught the "dinner", but mine was too small, so I let him go.  I drove the boat to our favorite fishing spot...and felt good to be on the inlet again.  It was a beautiful day...cool air and great mountain views.  We saw puffins and sea otters along the way and had a right good time. 

On Sunday, Pat and I drove to Hope and hiked the Gull Rock Trail...12 miles of heavy forest along Cook Inlet.  It was an excellent hike but wore me out.  Here's what it looked like most of the way...

It was low tide so we were able to see all of the exposed mud flats.  If I'm not mistaken, Cook Inlet has the most extreme daily tide in the world.  Along the way we stopped to get a few shots of the mud flats, just because they looked so unique...

On Monday we drove back to Kenai but stopped along the way to get a few "reflection" images...

  

  We were fortunate to see swans on Tern Lake...

...and we made it back to Kenai in time to help my brother work on his new garage.  Later in the evening I took Pat to the airport and he flew home...and I'll be helping my brother finish his garage before I leave next week.

I'm wishing you all well and leaving you with one last Alaska sunset....

John

Back to Blogging - Alaska #2

Sept 5...

Hello once again.  It's been a excellent week for hiking the wilds of Alaska.   Pat, my brother, Greg, and I went on three hikes...two which weren't too bad and took us several hours to complete, but then we tackled the very difficult 8-hour hike to Harding Icefield in Seward.  The icefield is basically a 300-mile-long ice cube that covers over 1000 square miles and receives 400 inches of snow each year.  

The beginning of Harding Icefield

The ice is a beautiful blue and can be climbed-on if you have the right gear

In the first two miles of the trail there's a 3500' elevation change...meaning that the trail winds straight up the mountain.  To say the trail was "difficult" wouldn't quite do it justice.  I think the climb was more like "brutal".  And by the time I made it back to the trail head, I felt like someone had beat me with sticks...ha, ha. 

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Greg, me, and Pat at Harding Ice Fields

However, even though I was carrying camera gear, warm cloths, food and water, I made it...and I felt pretty good for being an old man.  One thing I know for sure is that all the exercise I've been doing at the gym really paid off.  I was using hiking poles and the climb sort of felt like a combination of a elliptical machine and stair-master combined.
    

Pat took this picture of my brother and I walking back down the trail...this part of the trail doesn't look too bad...but don't let it fool you because very few sections of the trail were this easy...

We were lucky enough to have a beautiful sunny day and saw several black bears and a few mountain goats...

I was also surprised to find these flowers growing at the top of the mountain...

The following day we took another hike...an easy hike compared to Harding Icefield, but we got some impressive views of this particular area of Alaska...

and along the way we saw some beautiful fall colors...

We also saw salmon spawning...

And finally we got back home just in time to catch an excellent sunset...

Tomorrow Pat and I are heading to the small town of  Hope and plan to hike a couple of more trails....which should make for some nice images.

I'm wishing you all well and will try to get another blog out next week...

Back to the Blog - Alaska #1

Hi blog friends...

Hi everyone...I hope you're all doing great today.  As for me, today I'm back in Alaska and trying to make the "perfect shot".  So, welcome back to my blog...it's been quite a while, hasn't it?

I'll be in Alaska for a month and planning on hiking some of Alaska's best wilderness trails.  And, I'm happy to report that my very good friend and fellow photographer, Pat Gower, has joined me for the first three weeks.  And as you probably suspect, since Pat's such an excellent landscape photographer, I'm trying to pry all of his "secrets" out of him.



So I flew up to Alaska about a week ago and am now enjoying some gorgeous weather.  However, that wasn't the case for the first week as it was cloudy and rainy almost every day.  Still, I surely liked the 60 degree temperatures...which was a very big change from the mid-90's I was having in South Carolina before coming up. 

I lived in Alaska for a number of years, but never took the time to hike any of the fabulous wilderness trails...so for this 4-week trip, that's just what I'm doing.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate with us and we'll get to hike 6-7 of the more scenic trails.

For our first hike, Pat and I took a water taxi from Homer, AK, and went across Kachemak Bay to hike to Grewingk Glacier...a nice 6.5 mile hike in Kachemak State Park.  We did see a nice Humpback whale on the trip over.  This was a precursor to some of the longer hikes we're planning. 

Kachemak Bay

Grewingk Glacier

Here I am in all my hiking regalia...camera strapped to my chest, hiking poles, my favorite Tilley hat, and feeling great!  

As we've driven around the Kenai Peninsula we've seen a few moose and loads of eagles.  Here's a shot of an immature bald eagle that I just happen to catch as it was coming in to land.

Because the weather wasn't very conducive for hiking, last Thursday I decided to take Pat to Hatcher's Pass, an old hard-rock mining site that's at the top of Independence Pass, near Palmer, Alaska.  It was cold...but invigorating.  Here's a couple of shots I took while exploring there.

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This was the railway that took the gold ore from the mine to the processing plant

Here's whats left of some of the processing building...but aren't there some interesting shapes and contrasts to these buildings?

We also visited my mother in the small fishing town of Ninilchik and early one morning drove up to the historic Russian Orthodox church.  The church is over 100-years old and serves the Russian community at Ninilchik. We got there just as the sun was coming up and it ended up getting some pretty nice photos.

  
Tomorrow my brother, Greg, Pat, and I are heading down to Seward, AK, to tackle the Harding Ice Field...a very difficult 10-12 hour hike, but to a breath-taking glacier high in the mountains.  The following day we're planning on hiking to Lost Lake...a 16-mile trek to high mountain alpine meadows.  Both hikes should allow us to get some excellent landscape images.  We'll see.

It's getting late and I've got to get my hiking gear ready...and camera's cleaned, so I'll close this blog.  I should have another one for you next week. Until then, be safe and enjoy life.

Tanzania Blog - Part 2

Hello again. So how did you like the birds from my Part 1 blog? The birds alone are worth a trip to Africa...although you only see a variety of birds in the National Parks. For this blog I'm going to share with you some landscapes of Tarangire Nat'l Park and Lake Manyara and quite a few animal images...so let's get rollin'...

 Elephants fighting

Banded Mongoose

 Giraffe in the morning fog

Baby monkeys playing...

Cape Buffalo

I liked this image of this Blue Monkey momma and her baby so had to include it.

 This baby baboon was just so cute that I had to share it with you.

 This is what the one section of the park looks like...with animals everywhere. See the giraffes and elephant in the background?

 Young ostriches

 Waterbuck

 Elephants on the march

Rock Hyraxes

Dwarf Mongoose

Baby baboon trying to climb a tree

I took this image of this "journey of giraffes" (which is what you call a group of more than three giraffes) in silhouette at Lake Manyara for my friend and fellow photographer, Bruce.

Monkey contemplating life

Banded Mongoose on the lookout for danger

This was the first lion that ever roared-and-jumped at me...and yes, it was very scary.

 

I added this giraffe because I've never seen a giraffe this color before...almost black instead of brown

 

Hippo

 

This is the lodge I stayed at in Lake Manyara

Zebra stallions fighting. I watched these guys fighting for several minutes...it was brutal and surprises me as to why they don't end up killing each other.

 

This is an image of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the early morning

 

 Elephants feeding in the morning fog

 I thought this was an interesting Baobab tree...still growing even with the hole. Some of these trees can live between 2-4,000 years.

 Here's another landscape from Tarangire Nat'l Park showing the baobab trees. I've never seen so many baobab trees as in this park.

Zebras grazing. There are numerous large herds of zebra in Tarangire, probably numbering into the hundreds-of-animals.

My Favorite of the Week:

I was driving through some very heavy jungle in the early morning when I came upon this Blue Monkey...and the light was perfect. I was actually surprised that I was able to get the photo because it was so dark.

Epilogue: So that's it for my Africa blogs. I hope you enjoyed the trip with me. I've had a couple of people ask me to put out a blog with my favorite images from this trip, which I will try to do that once I get settled down again. I had an enjoyable time in Africa this year and really enjoyed being able to share it with my friend, Pat. OK, who wants to go back with me next year?

So until I can put out another blog, I'm wishing all of you well and thank you for all of your wonderful comments. It's been another great adventure.  John