Denali

Wild wolf, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Finally getting a chance to share some more of my photos from my trip to Denali earlier this month.  Look at the difference in the appearance of this beautiful wolf in two photos taken just 7 seconds apart.  The first one looks nice a friendly like a family pet, the second one…

Wild wolf yawns, Denali National Park, Alaska.

This wolf was passing by me at a fast pace – I didn’t think I had too many options except maybe a pan / blur when all of a sudden she stopped and laid down in some really sweet light!  The bottom photo was taken at f/13 thinking I would be panning, the top one was dialed down to f/4 so that I could limit the depth of field, and improve the background and foreground by blurring the distracting elements.

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Polychrome Pass, Denali National Park, Alaska.

A polychrome sky over Polychrome Pass last weekend!

Last week while we were in Denali the photo blog passed the 4 year mark!  In August 2006, it started very slow, but now it continues to steadily grow, and I’m grateful to all the people who follow our travels!  The blog now averages 2,500 unique visitors a day, plus some 800 who subscribe via the RSS feed or email, and another 800 or so who follow via Facebook, and even more via Twitter.  Although these numbers pale in comparison with our main photo website, they are still very significant and growing, and I wanted to take a minute to say thanks!

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Dall Sheep, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Another photo from last weeks trip to Denali.

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Sunset over the Teklanika River valley, Denali National Park, Alaska.

This was a wonderful, long lasting sunset last Friday night in Denali!

For those of you familiar with the movie or the book Into the Wild (Great book and movie by the way) this is the river that Chris McCandless wasn’t able to cross  to escape from the bus – this spot is maybe 15 miles upstream from his location.

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A couple of bull moose in front of Mt McKinley, Denali National Park, Alaska.

It seems weird to call it Mt McKinley since no one, including myself ever calls it that in conversation, but I guess that is the official name.

Anyone who has hiked on tundra can tell you how hard and slow it is to move on such soft, uneven ground.  Well, now I can tell you it is even harder to run on the tundra, especially in Xtra tuffs boots, but that is what I had to do to keep “The Mountain” directly behind these massive moose.  They would take 10 steps to the right, I would have to take 50!

I knew the moose would still be in velvet during this trip.  That initially was disappointing, but in hindsight it did make exposing for them much easier as I didn’t have to worry about blowing out the exposure on the racks which is so easy to do.

Normally I would use a two or 3 stop hard edge graduated neutral density filter here, but I had left mine back in the truck.  So I auto bracketed exposure, and I used Photo shop to manually combine two images captured two stops apart after I returned to the office.

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Wild lynx, Denali National Park, Alaska.

I love these rare animals!  The crazy hare population boom in Denali has definitely crashed, and from all I have read, the lynx population will follow a similar trend with a year lag – so I thought this might be one of my best chances to get more photos of a lynx at least for many years to come – so I was thrilled to spend about a half hour with two of them in Denali last week.  I have a similar image with it looking right at me, but I think I prefer this version with it looking off into the brush.

I had an awesome trip to Denali.  Along with lynx, I had wonderful close up experiences with wolves at least every day, saw huge moose, great sheep, bears, nice sunsets and sunrises, and even had the mountain out a couple of times!

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Grizzly bear sow and cub, Denali National Park, Alaska.

This is a photo from my trip to Denali earlier this summer.  It was a great trip -lots of bears and wolves, two of my favorites as you probably know by now.

I pre-scheduled this as I headed out the door early yesterday morning to make the long drive back up there for more photography.  I’m not taking a laptop, so this will be the last post until Tuesday.

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A bull moose takes a peak at me earlier this summer, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Friday our dedicated server was hacked – someone took down our website including my photo blog and our main photo website.  It is very frustrating, but after a lot of hard work by our web-host (more on that later this week) we were back in action by Saturday.

Once the dust settled all that was lost my Anza-Borrego blog post from last Friday.  That wasn’t a big deal, it was a short one, but I was bummed to lose the comment that went along with it.  I greatly appreciate it when anyone takes time from their busy day to leave a comment but this one was extra special as it was written by David Leland Hyde, the son of the late Philip Hyde.  Philip Hyde was a famous pioneer landscape photographer who was the photographer for many books including Alaska:  The Great Land in 1974, so I thought it was pretty neat to hear from his son.

While I will never understand why really smart people spend their time trying to disrupt other peoples lives by hacking their computers and website, I’m grateful that the damage was minimal.  If anyone else left comments on Friday, I’m sorry I didn’t get to see them.

This is the second time I have been hacked.  You might remember this post:    http://www.my-photo-blog.com/visitor-stats-and-double-crossing-porn-scammers-and-hackers

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Polychrome Pass, Denali National Park, Alaska

Polychrome Pass – one of my favorite areas in Denali.

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Hoary Marmot, Denali National Park, Alaska.

While I was photographing this Dall Sheep recently in Denali, I heard a bunch of rocks sliding down the scree hillside next to me.  I looked over, and this Hoary Marmot came running down the hill and right up to me!  He stopped long enough to stare at me while I grabbed then photo, then it turned and ran off.  Really cool experience.

I’m not sure why he came up to me like that, I’m thinking it was just curious.  He acted like he was used to being feed, but it is very early in the season in an area few visitors are going to be walking, so I don’t think he was feed.  Plus, I don’t think they would like most hand outs.  So, I’m sticking with the curious story.

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A wild wolf with an arctic ground squirrel, Denali National Park, Alaska.

We were fortunate to see wild wolves everyday during our time in Denali last week, but they were often hunting or resting too far away for decent photography.   The exception was this one who shared this squirrel with another wolf just out of sight, and then came back for another look as you see below.

Wolves have long been a favorite subject for me – here are more wild wolf photos.

Wild wolf, Denali National Park, Alaska.

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Does this mean us?

I was photographing this cow with two young calves at sunset in Denali recently when they passed in front of this sign.  I decided to focus on the sign instead of the moose as it kinda looked like they were stopping to read it.  This is a long running restricted area in Sable Pass – an area known for grizzly bears – not a good place for moose calves.

Below is a cow moose near the front of the Park.

Moose, Denali National Park, Alaska.

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Moose cow and calf at sunrise, Denali National Park, Alaska.

If you look close you can see the ears of the calf just behind it’s mom.  This cow and calf ran by us at full speed early one morning last week.  We never could see what it was running from, but it is safe to say, this is a really tough area for newborn moose.  Not only are there predators everywhere, but the vegetation is so tall and thick, this one had a difficult time just keeping up with its mother.

In the photo below is a cow with 3 calves which is some what rare.  She has taken a little different approach hanging out near the campgrounds at the front of the park where the predators are more uncomfortable, and the traveling is much easier!

Cow moose with 3 calves, Denali National Park, Alaska.

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Dall Sheep, Polychrome Pass, Denali National Park, Alaska.

These are such amazing animals – it is hard to believe the steep terrain these guys can traverse with ease!

These were captured last Saturday on my recent trip to Denali, the bottom image just after 4:00 a.m., the above photo much later the same day – around 10:00 p.m.  The days can be long this time of year!

Dall Sheep, Polychrome Pass, Denali National Park, Alaska.

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Grizzly Bear, Denali National Park, Alaska.

We are back from a really fun trip to Denali National Park.  We saw lots of wolves, bears, moose with calves, wildflowers and all kinds of weather – perfect!  I will be sharing more in the upcoming days.

Typically in early June, the landscape is still very brown with gullies still full of snow – it gives the park a zebra kind of look.  Not this year – Denali was incredibly green and we found all kinds of wildflowers – it was beautiful.  I thought it was at least 2 weeks ahead of schedule.  A ranger who lives in the area year around told us that many of the wildflowers were actually 3 weeks early.  So in the desert this spring they were 3 weeks late, here 3 weeks early – crazy stuff.

In the top photo is a sow with an approximately two year old cub.  We started watching them a long distance away.  At one point the sow playfully chased the cub right at us – I couldn’t roll the windows up fast enough!  They seem oblivious to vehicles and buses and hung around us feeding and interacting for a wonderful hour.  Below is a much more distant bear – notice how green it is.

Grizzly Bear near Polychrome Pass, Denali National Park, Alaska.

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Mt. Mc Kinley (Denali to most Alaskan's), Denali National Park, Alaska.

As I try to power away on the office work, I can’t help but to day dream away about Alaska’s upcoming summer – it is why most people live here!  In just a few weeks we will be back in Denali – a time of year that can be great for baby animals.  I’m excited to get back up there.

It seems like in the past week or two we have sold a lot of photos of Denali for various book and calendar projects.  Funny how it works – we might go many months without making a sell for a particular subject like Denali, then all of a sudden we see a bunch of activity – then it can go right back to nothing for months.  You would think it would trickle in, but often it doesn’t.  That is why it really helps to have a wide variety of subject matter.

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Wild wolves at sunrise, Denali National Park, Alaska.

This old photo shot on Velvia slide film is still one of my favorite photos and memories, and as good as any for my annual trip down memory lane.  You see it was eight years ago that I left a wonderful job and took the big plunge into being a full time photographer – a decision I have never regretted.  I could go on, but I would just be repeating what I wrote last year on my 7 Years and Counting post.

I heard about an interesting study reported on the news recently (NBC Nightly News I think).  The researchers interviewed elderly people in retirement homes to find out about their lives, and what brought them happiness and regret.  To greatly paraphrase the results, the thing that universally brought about the most regret was not having taken more risks in their life – risks they may have enabled them to pursue a dream or passion.

To this day I have to remind myself of this – I tend to be a bit risk adverse, and to this day I’m a bit surprised I did take such a huge leap.   I have to give Janine much of the credit for this decision thanks to all her help and support.  It reminds me of the great quote:  “It is better to try and fail then to never try at all”.

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Another Grizzly Bear from last week in Denali National Park, Alaska.

We have taken a few short, 3 to 4 day trips over the last 5 months, but by in large, we have been home working in the office.  After two years with a pretty heavy travel schedule in which we spent at least 200 nights away from home, this office time was very needed!  We have been able to get caught up, and work on a number of proactive marketing opportunities that we never seem to have time to pursue.

Now I’m looking forward to taking a trip and completely engrossing myself into photography.  October is a perfect time to travel – it is wet and dark here in Alaska, fall colors will be gone, but snow has yet to arrive.  On the other hand, it is a perfect time in the Southwest – warm days and cool nights, fall colors and few people.  The best thing going for Alaska in October is the aurora borealis, but we are still at the bottom of the activity cycle, so like last year, good lights are not nearly as likely.

So where are we going?  Good question - we aren’t even sure!  We will fly to Palm Springs and go from there.  We have some things scheduled in Las Vegas near the end of the month, but before then, I think we will head to Southern Utah – you can’t go wrong there.  It is really tempting to return to Zion, as we had such a fun time there last year, but we need new coverage.  We are leaning towards Moab - I have spent a couple of days there in the past, but really haven’t scratched the surface of that red rock area.  Two weeks there could be really fun and productive.  Wherever we go -  I should have plenty of new blog material! 

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Fall tundra colors reflecting in a pond, Denali National Park, Alaska.

I don’t know if this really “works”, but I kinda like it.  At first, I focused on the surface of the lake, but I didn’t care for the results.  I then tried focusing on the reflected image and not the surface - this created more of a colorful, abstract image.

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Hiking in Denali National Park, Alaska.

Fall has to be the best time for hiking in Denali – not only is it beautiful, but there aren’t any mosquitoes!

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