Another beautiful evening at Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona!

A couple of people enjoying a sandy beach along the Colorado River, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.

Descending into the Grand Canyon is such a different experience then standing on the rim.  It is far more then escaping the crowds. It is feeling and seeing the river up close.  It is the change in perspective – looking up at the massive canyon walls instead of down into them.  Your perspective changes with every step into the Canyon – it is an amazing experience!

Sunset last night over the Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.

By the way, in case you are in the area, I’m doing a nature photography workshop at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Gardens this Saturday.  It will be a three hour workshop followed by a two hour photo walk afterwards where you can practice what you just learned.  The price includes admission into the gardens.  I have more then 40 signed up with room for a few more.

We just spent a wonderful couple of nights camped along Bright Angel Creek – the brown tent is ours although we put it away for the second night so that we could sleep under the stars.

Staying in good shape is a requirement of the occupation of outdoor photographer, and we try to either run, ski, bike or hit the gym daily.  Unfortunately Janine and I have both battled some kind of lung infection and haven’t been able to work out at all for a couple of months.  Despite looking forward to this hike for months, we almost pulled the plug fearing we couldn’t pull it off.  At the last minute, we decided to suck it up and do it, hoping our prior conditioning would be enough, and we are both so glad we did!

I’ll share more about the trail in the future, but it is challenging.  The top is over 7,200 feet and morning temps were near freezing.  At the bottom, almost 4,800 feet down, the afternoon temps reached 97!  Like most hikers, we spent a good portion of the afternoon sitting in the creek to cool off.

We hiked down on the South Kaibab Trail, but returned on the Bright Angel Trail.  At over nine miles, the hike out on the Bright Angel Trail is two miles longer then the hike in, but offers more shade and water – two very desirable qualities!  Like most hikers, we got up at 4:30 to pack for the hike out – this was key, especially coming from Alaska where we aren’t used to the heat.

The campground is just across the Colorado River and a short distance up stream on Bright Angel Creek.  It was so peaceful and relaxing listening to the creek, and watching that deer the frequented our camp.  The stars at night were the icing on the cake!

A Sea Otter from last week in Prince William Sound.

We arrived into Phoenix at 2:00 this morning – now packing for the Grand Canyon.  Some weather change!

I haven’t had internet, heard the radio or seen a TV in over a week – I have to get caught up on recent events, hopefully I didn’t miss much!

We have had crazy weather on this trip.  As you can see here, a full on snow storm!  This was the end of April, but we had plenty of cold and snow in May too.  But, we have a great group and have seen lots of awesome stuff including one of the biggest glacier calving I have ever seen at Surprise Glacier.

After crossing Prince William Sound last week, we have now spent the last few days in Cordova.  Today we are flying over the delta which should be an interesting view of the massive shorebird migration.

As I mentioned yesterday – Monday I take off for Prince William Sound and Cordova.  Ten days later, I fly to Anchorage.  Dump my rain gear and Xtra-tuff for shorts and Tevas and fly to Arizona for a month!

Really excited about this trip.  We were able to obtain some hard to get back-country permits to hike and camp down in the Grand Canyon.  We spent one cold winter night there almost a decade ago, and ever since then I have wanted to return with the time to really explore and photograph this beautiful National Park.  Unfortunately, even months ago, reservations for campground and hotels for the North Rim were already full, so we will concentrate on the South Rim.  Didn’t think the North Rim would be the hard one for reservations.

From there, we will spend time in Page, Arizona where I plan to explore more slot canyons and other attractions in the area.  We have also rented a boat for some Lake Powell exploration.  Not a fancy house boat, but a little Lund skiff – big enough for tents and sleeping bags for some beach camping under the stars!

Finally, we will end the trip with a short visit to one of my favorite National Parks – Zion!

After that, it is back to Alaska for summer and it will be on!  The next 5 months should be very busy – just how I like it!

Monday morning will be the beginning of 5 fun weeks of travel for me!  It will start co-guiding a trip across Prince William Sound for a week, and then 4 days in Cordova for the amazing shorebird migration you see pictured above.  Not only will we be seeing shorebirds on the delta, but there are many other things planned including a flight to Kayak Island, a place I have always wanted to see.

I’m excited for a few reasons – first, I’ll be working with 3 good friends and fellow staff members from last winters trip to Antarctica.  It is an unexpected treat to be hired to work with these great guys  again so soon.

Second, the shorebird migration is really an amazing thing to see.  At times there are literally tens of thousands of birds at one time passing through the area in thick flocks.

Third – it is going to be a treat to spend a week in Prince William Sound aboard a beautiful boat like the M/V Discovery.  I love the Sound – and as many times as I have been there, I have never seen it in May – it should look very different with all the snow still on the ground.

So after Friday, it might be a couple of weeks until I have the time and internet connection to post again – hopefully I’ll have some interesting bird images to share then!

This is looking back into Lemaire Channel after we had just past through it on our ice-breaker.  The mountains out of the frame to the left rise as high and are as dramatic as the ones you see here on the right side of the channel.  Hard to believe there is even room for a boat to pass through this spot!  This is my favorite area of Antarctica, and fortunately we pass through this channel twice – Southbound and again Northbound.

A Brown Bear cub nursing from its mom.  It is not uncommon to see amazing moments like this on my Alaska Bear Photo Tour.

Since I don’t have anything available in 2013, and I have been getting many inquiries about my 2014 photo tours, we decided we better schedule dates for 2014!  I know it seems like a long ways away, but every year they fill earlier and earlier!

So the biggest change is to my Southeast Alaska / Inside Passage Yacht based Photo Tour.  Because bears have proven to be so popular, I have decided to position this to be a bear tour as much as it is a whale and amazing landscape photo tour.  We are still going to be spending time in some of the best whale viewing areas in Alaska if not the world.  We will also still visit some stunning tidewater glaciers – in fact we will be having a jet boat meet us so that we can get extra close to the icebergs and tidewater glacier in LeConte Bay.

But, we are now going to be spending time in some wonderful bear viewing places including the Anan Creek Bear Observatory where we will watch Black and Brown bears fish for salmon in a beautiful rainforest waterfall.  We will stop at Neets Bay for a visit to one of the best Black Bear viewing areas in the world!  And finally, we will be going to a bit of a secret Brown Bear location that my captain recently discovered.  So now, I believe this week long trip gives you a great cross section of many of the amazing photo opportunities Alaska has to offer.

As the first person to charter this wonderful yacht for the 2014 summer season, I had my pick of the liter when it comes to dates, and I believe we will be going at the absolutely perfect time at the end of July – an extremely popular time here in Alaska!  Follow this link to read more about my Bear and Whale Photo Tour.

Of course I’m also offering my two Alaska Bear Photo Tours to Lake Clark National Park.  The 2014 season will be my 5th year offering this wonderful photo tour.  I could go on and on about this amazing experience.  Being up close to such magnificent animals is hard to describe with words it really is.  That said, you can read far more about it here:  Alaska Bear Photo Tour.  You can also see a video preview I filmed during the August trip my first year of the tour.

Of course if you have more questions, please feel free to email or call.

We may offer some photo tours outside Alaska including my annual  Anza-Borrego workshop – stay tuned.

Sharing this for Janine – it is her favorite penguin photo from my trip. 

Running Zodiacs in this amazing environment was one of my favorite activities down in Antarctica.  Although, walking around the penguin colonies, or taking a hike up an old volcano was also really cool.  Heck, who am I fooling, it is all amazing!

So I’m honored to say Cheeseman’s Ecology Safaris has hired me to return!  It is going to be a wonderful trip that will also include the Falklands, South Georgia and the South Orkney Islands..  Looks like many of the staff from last year’s trip will be returning, including a long time Alaskan friend of mine Hugh Rose who again will be the Expedition Leader.  He does a wonderful job as leader – not a lot of people have 15 years of guiding experience down there like he does.  Little did I know when I meet Hugh aboard a Kenai Fjords Tour almost 20 years ago how that chance meeting would impact my life so many years later!

You can read more about the trip here:  Cheeseman’s Antarctica Trip.  I  believe it is almost sold out.

As a side note, the gentleman taking my photo on the back of the Zodiac is my friend Rawdon who will be joining me on my bear tour for the third or fourth summer in a row!

Underwater iceberg patterns revealed when this iceberg became grounded.   Brown Bluff, Antarctica.

Throwing in a photo of the Escalante region of Utah doesn’t seem to fit with my recent Antarctica theme, but I can explain.

I first passed through the Escalante area more than 12 years ago and loved the region.  I expected to be blown away by the Moab area, Zion and Bryce, places you hear so much about, but Escalante came as a surprise.  It was immediately evident that the photo opportunities were endless.  My intentions were to return for an extended visit to really explore the area.   Lack of cell and internet access has kept us from making an extended visit – the disadvantage to being self employed, although I did spend a brief bit of time photographing the area in 2005, and more recently passed by to visit photographer friend Guy Tal, which reminded me again  how I loved the area.

Fast forward to Antarctica.  I found all the fellow staff members to be extremely knowledgeable, fascinating, and insightful.  One of the staff members was Thomas Lowe Fleischner (Tom), who is a professor of natural history at Prescott College in Arizona.  On the first day of our trip, Tom and I were paired together as part of a group hike into Tierra del Fuego National Park.  On that hike I really enjoyed Tom’s insight, and his ability to explain things in such an interesting way.  From then on I made a point of staying within earshot of Tom when I could, so that I might learn as much as possible.

Tom is also an author and it turns out that one of Tom’s books, Singing Stone, was about the natural history of the Escalante Canyon region (Capitol Reef National Park, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Glen Canyon NRA).  I love natural history books, and have many shelves of them.  But, most are guide book in style, with page after page of animal tracks, wildflowers or birds.  Tom was kind enough to share his book with me which I recently finished.

What I loved about Tom’s book is the story telling nature that covers all those things you wonder about when visiting the area.  I felt like I was hiking around the area with Tom as he explained things I asked about!  Not just birds and geology, but the history, the plant life, effects of management decisions and more.   It was fascinating – I wish there were similar books on other regions!

So what causes the dark streaks you see on the canyon walls?  Which adult hummingbird builds the nest and raises the young?  You will just have to read the book!

A wall mural, Ushuaia, Argentina.

Ushuaia, Argentina.

Friends who had been to Ushuaia had told me it reminded them of my hometown of Seward, Alaska.  Sure enough, it did for me too.  A wet, snowy tourist town on the ocean, surrounded by mountains and National Park lands.   As the plane flew into the town’s airport, I was surprised at how even the geology seemed very similar – a far change from Buenos Aires, a town we had just flown out of 3 hours earlier.   At some 70,000 or more people, Ushuaia is far larger then Seward, but I did find myself feeling somewhat at home there despite the language and cultural differences.

Ushuaia is often billed as the Southernmost town in the world, although there is a small community nearby in Chile that disputes that claim for good reason – since they are further South.  One of the things that did surprise me, despite being about as far South as you can get in this World – further South then any place in South Africa, New Zealand or Australia, they really aren’t that far South.  Seward Alaska for example is far further North of the equator then Ushuaia is South.  Ushuaia’s latitude places it a little South of the Southernmost city in Alaska, Ketchikan.  So we didn’t have the crazy long days of sunlight like we do in the summer in Alaska, or like we would soon find in Antarctica.

Ushuaia is the typical starting point of most boat tours to Antarctica including ours.  There is a steady supply of interesting tour vessels into town – again, much like Seward, although many are icebreakers nothing like we typically see here.

Few Antarctica trips have the time to attempt so head South of the Antarctic Circle.  Of those, ice keeps many from making it.  Of the few that are able to reach this remote portion of Antarctica, most don’t have the permission to visit this amazing historical site that is been pretty much left undisturbed for over 50 years!   We were very fortunate to make it this far South, and that our EL Hugh Rose was able to work out permission to visit!  It was fascinating seeing just how people lived down here so many years ago.  Here is the interesting story on this location taken from the sign on the side of the building:

This relatively unaltered British scientific base from the late 1950′s provides an important reminder of the science and living conditions in the Antarctic during this period.

It was established in 1956 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) as Base W and closed in 1959.  The base was primarily built for ongoing survey, geology and meteorology work, and contributed to the science programme of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957.  The normal occupancy of the base was 8 to 10 people.

The location of the island contributed to the base’s short history, as the sea ice was seldom firm enough to allow travel to the peninsula.  Ironically, when the time came to relieve the base in 1959, difficult ice conditions meant that the ship was unable to reach the island.  The base was secured for winter and the FIDS team were forced to sledge over 30 miles over the sea ice in order to reach the ship, taking with them only the minimum of their belongings and scientific records.  Apart from being briefly occupied for 6 month in 1965/66 by a visiting party of three from Stonington Island, who became stranded when the sea ice went out, the base has remained unoccupied since 1959, and much of the original contents are in place.

The site remains in relatively good condition and consists of the main hut, emergency store, dog pens, anemometer tower and two steel radio masts.  Many original materials can be found inside the main hut and scattered around externally, providing an evocative insight into the way the base was occupied during this period.

Whale bones on Jougla point on Wiencke Island, Antarctica.

I understand that this whale didn’t just die here, but this is from a collection of whale bones from around Antarctica and include humpback and blue whale bones.

An unexpected career change has just lead to a sudden opening into my most popular photo tour – this trip was sold out by last October!  I already have a list forming of people interested in 2014!

Plus, thanks to an airfare war – I’m seeing some of the cheapest airfares to and from the Lower 48 then I have seen in years!  So if you don’t already have summer plans, this just might be the perfect time to come to Alaska and experience these amazing animals up-close!  To learn more go to:  Alaska Bear Photo Tour.

Adelie Penguin, Brown Bluff, Antarctica.

It was always fun to watch penguins enter the water.  Typically, none of them wanted to be the first to jump in – presumably out of fear of being eaten by a lurking Leopard Seal hiding out under the iceberg.  Once one went safely, they would all go.  Although the first one to jump usually wasn’t extra brave, but typically pushed in by the gathering mob behind it.