Three Bears ... Plus One

Alaskan Bears, Glacier Bay National Park

Raiding the archives once again, I'm doing some more work on a few of the shots from our Alaska trip. Decided to go and poke at some bear (not bare, certainly not in that weather!) shots, thanks largely to seeing the Pentax photographer who was on our trip being highlighted on the Pentax site (click on the "Photos" box). Still think her shot bests ours so I'll blame it on our lack of comparable equipment!

(And if you look closely at the picture of the ship in front of the Marjerie Glacier, you'll see my slightly balding pate hanging over the rail watching the sun rising on the ice wall.)

Reflected Glory

Alaskan peak, reflected in the still, early morning waters of Glacier Bay National Park.

Morning Light

Galcier Face, Illuminated

This was taken very early one morning as the sun was rising and just as light was hitting the face of the Margerie Glacier (Day 7 post below). I think this is one of those images I will have to come back to and try processing in different ways until I find one one I am happy with. This is more tightly cropped just to highlight the band of sunlight, cutting out the mountain and sky behind.

Sunset Cruise

Processed a few more shots from Alaska and started to try some processing in the LAB space in Photoshop instead of the RGB. It seems very powerful on a particular kind of image (canyons and sunsets so far!) and I'm reading a book on these techniques to try and better understand the what/where and why. Anyway, here's one to be going on with.

Day 11: Denali to Fairbanks

Sunrise, Icy Strait, Alaska

Due to catch the train again around 4 pm this afternoon in order to head to Fairbanks where we can catch a plane back home. Yup, the trip is nearly over.

In the morning we took a trip in a jet boat down river to visit a small camp where some of the locals talk about their life here and show us how to pan for gold. Yeah, it was all a bit touristy but what the heck. I view it as supporting the local economy, and in any case I can always stand a trip in something with twin Ford marine engines that can travel at well over 30 mph across shallow rapids (most water it ever needs is 6 feet to get up on it's plane).

One guy who talked to us got by as a trapper in the winter. Seems he gets around $500 for an arctic wolf, $300 or so for a fox and somewhere between $100 and $200 for smaller animals like sable etc. His trap line was handed down to him (not clear from whom) and it seems that Alaska does, from his perspective, a very good job of wildlife management. So there you go.

After panning for gold – and finding the odd fleck or two (which everyone does because they buy-in tailings from old mines) – we headed back to the hotel to catch the train. Or not …

There was a fire on the track above DNP that closed the line, so all trains were cancelled therefore. Anyway, the hotel took charge and after a couple of hours they sorted out some buses to ferry us instead. Once we were on the road it seemed like we were finally on the home straight and good to go, until, that is, the bus broke down! After some messing around the driver managed to reach someone on the radio (nope, no cell coverage where we were) and call up the cavalry to supply a replacement bus. We finally got to the hotel around 11 pm or so, but hey it was still light so it didn’t feel quite so late!

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Anyway, that was about it. Flew back on day 12, getting home just in time for me to drop my bags, get a night's sleep and then straight away head off to Europe on a business trip.

We had a great time, and would heartily recommend the notion of small ship cruising around the Alaska coastline. Both my wife and I learned a lot from a photographic standpoint and I have to say the wildlife was spectacular and very, very co-operative!

Day 7: Glacier Bay

Up early again this morning to see the sun rise on the Margerie glacier. Success! The morning was clear – if very cold – and the rising sun did indeed hit the crests of the glacier, albeit an hour or so later than we were expecting. It’s an almost magical experience sitting alongside the glacier in the dawn light listening to it cracking and groaning as the whole huge mass of ice moves slowly towards the water. In the late 18th century, when Glacier Bay was first charted, the ice spread all the way to the entrance in Icy Straits, closing off the entire area at the head of the bay where we were moored. In effect, by getting this far up the channel we were enjoying the results of a couple of hundred years of global warming!

Mark used his experience of photographing here to guide the captain of the ship to place it in different locations to make take maximum advantage of the sunrise and various views of the glacier.

One area, the John Hopkins Inlet, past the Lamplugh glacier where we paused for a while, was closed off to prevent us encroaching on the breading ground of the Harbor Seals that were active at the time so although we got close (within 6 miles of the face pf the John Hopkins glacier) we didn’t go further up that particular inlet.

After a day of touring around the area watching the sea life amidst calving glaciers and remote coves we headed back towards the entrance to the Bay and the ranger station, dropping off the two native interpreters who talked to us about what their life was like growing up there and also the park ranger who accompanied the ship for the past 24 hours.

Day 6: Glacier Bay

Humpback Diving, Alaska

Sailed into the Glacier Bay area first thing and spent the morning whale watching. And what a morning it was! We literally saw more whales than we could count, though I only saw two breaches and those were off the starboard side of the ship, very early in the morning, and with no warning. After a while, though, you got to figure out the pattern of “standard” whale behaviour. Mostly, the whales we found seemed to be resting on the surface before heading down deeper to feed again. They would sit there for a bit and then, perhaps when we got too close, take off, diving and rising every minute or so to breathe. After three or so cycles they’d then decide to dive deeper, showing their fluke (tail) as they strive for extra leverage and momentum. Wonderful stuff to watch, and often you could hear them calling out to other whales in the area as the cycle went on.

Afternoon was spent ashore in Glacier Bay National Park hiking along the sea-shore. Found the carcass of a dead moose along with signs (read, “pooh”) of moose and bear having been around not long ago. Mark Kelley, the resident photographer on the trip, was kind enough to invite us along on this walk as he took a break from the ship himself. Mark has obviously photographed here extensively and it was great to spend an hour or two chatting with him about his experiences in Alaska and what it’s like to be a pro up here. (“Great” is the answer, if you can hack the climate.)

Another incredibly sunny day. We’ve been so lucky with the weather that at some point it will have to change. The locals claim last summer comprised three sunny days in total....

Day 5: Icy Straits & Elfin Cove

Nirvana: Elfin Cove, Alaska

The morning was spent at sea exploring around Inian Island and in Icy Straits. Saw sea otters, sea lions and some distant whales, plus various sea birds (kittiwakes mostly).

In the afternoon, we anchored off Elfin Cove, a small settlement numbering just 18 people in the winter and a couple of hundred in the summer when the fishing lodges open and tourists come to town. This last winter, they got 24 feet of snow and only just dug themselves out for the final time before spring brought the cruise ships. Seems like half the town likes to have the additional income visitors bring, the other half though values privacy above all else and would much rather we all went away and left them alone. The debate looks set to simmer indefinitely, especially as they have no formal ruling town council in place to bring things that arise to any sort of final conclusion.

The residents were just replacing their generator sets so there was a fair bit of activity going on. Someone talked to one shop-keeper who said it cost her $3,000 a month for electricity in the winter, which I sincerely hope was misheard for her sake! No wonder she was pleased to see us ...

Although isolated, they do get a mail plane coming in when weather permits and of course boats can come in and out more easily (fishing is the main source of year-round employment) but that’s about it. Funnily enough, though, this was one of the places I mentioned where I could get a cell phone signal and downloaded mail onto my PDA.

Day 2: Tracy Arm

Bald Eagle, Tracy Arm, Alaska

Both got woken at 4 am by the motion of the boat changing and ominous scraping noises along the side of the hull. We were entering the Tracy Arm area, due south of Juneau, where ice break-off from the glaciers was starting to appear in the channel.

Early in the morning, we caught the sight of a bald eagle sitting on a big chunk of ice just watching the world go by. Fantastic stuff, but it left me wishing a) I’d brought my longer fixed lens and b) hadn’t forgotten to reset the ISO from 800 where I had it the evening before to catch a shot of a passing whale. Bummer. I cursed Canon – and not for the first time - for not putting ISO indication in the viewfinder.

Spend the morning zig-zagging our way up the Fjord to the Sawyer glacier, which revealed itself as a spectacular wall of blue and white ice rising ahead of us.

We were fortunate also to see a couple of large calving events where big chunks of ice fell away from the main flow into the water.

The ship then turned round and headed back towards Fredrick Sound, pausing only for an hour spent boating around in an inflatable, or at least, that was the plan ….

The first set of three boats went out, taking a block of 30 passengers out towards waterfalls and the rock face. Right at that point, a small rock fall occurred and one elderly lady was hit by a chunk of granite sustaining some kind of painful – albeit relatively minor – injury...

Change of plan: the ship now returned to Juneau, docking in the evening, so the passenger could get proper treatment. We put to sea again around 3:30 am, heading back to where we were originally scheduled to be the next day. Everyone took the change in schedule well and fortunately we weren’t that far from our original starting point.