Alaska Archives ~ Rambling ranger

December 16, 2023

Magical Places

University Peak, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve

Well, it’s almost Christmas and Winter Solstice is only a few days away. Kind of reminds me of a Dar Williams song, “Christians and the Pagans”. (Give it a listen) There’s a line in that song, “And you find magic from your God, and we find magic everywhere, ”

I’m a pagan at heart, it’s nearly Winter Solstice, and I do find magic everywhere, especially in the natural world. So here are a few of the places and things I find magical.

Mountains

Denali National Park — A magical alpine landscape

I’ve always been a mountain girl, and it’s not only the big peaks that are magical. I’m in love with the alpine, the land above treeline. Not just the big views, either, but every little detail. Especially the little details. There’s another Lilliputian world there if you look closely, and it’s a magical place.

Alpine wildflowers in Denali National Park. — There’s a whole other world beneath your feet!

.I used to play a game with my visitors when I did Discovery Hikes as a ranger in Denali. I would give them circles of string, about six inches in diameter, and have them enclose a patch of alpine tundra. I would ask them to count all the living species they could find in their circle. Then I would hand out magnifying glasses and have them count again. They always found more the second time around, with that closer look!

Water

Golden Falls, Coast Range, Oregon — Waterfalls are magical. Do you see the face in the rocks to the right of the falls?

Water is life. Literally. Without water, there is no life. It’s a magical substance. And there’s this weird thing that happens occasionally when I photograph waterfalls. Although I don’t see it when I’m making the shot, I will sometimes find a face in the photo (the spirit of the waterfall?) when I open it up to process. That’s what happened in this image. Can you see the face? It’s magical.

Trees

Navarro River State Park, CA — Redwoods are amazing trees.

There are a lot of magical trees out there. Have you ever meditated with a redwood? Or wandered through the fairyland of a temperate rainforest, like you might find in the Pacific Northwest?

Hall of Mosses is a magical trail. — Olympic National Park has some magical forests.

One of the most magical kinds of forests I’ve ever seen are the Madrone/Manzanita woodlands of Oregon’s Siskiyou Mountains, with trees that look like women, decorated with delicate lichens and moss. Magical.

Tidepools

Bandon, Oregon — Tide pools on Bandon Beach

Tide pools are magical places. Especially to me. I’ve been on a mission to find good tide pools, and I’m not always successful. Timing is everything. If you don’t have a real low tide, forget it. But I got lucky last spring, twice; once at Bandon, my favorite spot on the whole Oregon Coast, and then at Cape Perpetua. I scored an awesome campsite with great wildflowers at Cape Perpetua, too.

Ochre Sea Stars on the Oregon coast — Sea Stars are making a comeback!

One of the most miraculous discoveries in my successful tidepooling this spring was that sea stars are coming back! Decimated by sea star wasting disease, it’s been years since there was a healthy starfish population anywhere on the Pacific Coast, but there were a lot of them in Oregon this spring. Brings joy to my heart

Desert

Shakespeare Arch, Kodachrome Basin — Arches are ephemeral.

Arches and natural bridges are pretty magical, too. I listed them under desert to go with my photo, but you can also find them on the coast, products of erosion, sculpted by the waves. In the desert it’s the wind doing the carving for an arch, and water for the natural bridges.

These nature sculptures are ephemeral. beings. You never know how long they will last. The arch in this photo, Shakespeare Arch, is already gone, collapsing a couple of years ago. I’m glad I saw it when I did because it was a beauty, now gone forever.

Another magical product of erosion are slot canyons. All canyons are magical, never knowing but eagerly anticipating what’s around the next bend as you hike up one. Slots just bring the excitement up a notch, with the beauty of their polished walls and the way they have of drawing you in, deeper and deeper.

Springtime in Death Valley National Park — Flowers in the desert can be magical.

A good wildflower season in the desert is definitely magical. To see a landscape that is pretty bleak most of the time, nothing but dirt and rocks, transform into a veritable garden of delight, completely drenched with flowers – well, it’s got to be seen to be believed. Maybe we’ll get lucky this year. Fingers crossed.

Magical Death Valley National Park — It’s not only the quantity of flowers that blows me away, it’s the incredible variety.

Home

Last, but not least, I live in a magical place. When I first came to McCarthy, I felt like I’d discovered Never Never Land. It was a place where you never had to grow up, unique, like nowhere else in the world. That was before social media, before McCarthy was discovered by the rest of the world.

Perhaps it’s not quite so magical now, now that it is on the map. With Instagram, there are no longer any best kept secret magical places. But I’ll bet it’s still pretty magic to people who have never been there before, who are freshly discovering it. And after all, it’s the people who play the largest part in making any place magical, and McCarthy is still filled with amazing, kind, beautiful people, people who keep the magic alive.

Ghost Town at the End of the Rainbow — McCarthy is a magical place.

Thanks to Ann-Christine of Leya for this week’s Lens-Artist’s Photography Challenge, Magical.

March 17, 2023

Nature Photography — My Road Most Traveled

I’m a nature photographer. It’s what I do. I go wild for my photography.

Yellowstone National Park — I go wild for photography!

John of Journeys With Johnbo chose this week’s Lens-Artists Photography Challenge, “The Road Most Traveled”. He asks us to showcase whatever style of photography is our go-to, our favorite, our road most traveled.

I don’t think I can define a particular style as my go-to, but I can definitely define a genre. I do nature photography – to the almost total exclusion of any other kind of photography.

Nature photography in Denali National Park. — Nature photography is my genre.

I guess that makes me a bit of a one-dimensional character. Especially since being wild is almost a prerequisite for a photo of mine. Domestic flowers don’t really interest me. I have plenty of opportunities to do pet photography, being a petsitter and all, but I seldom make pictures of my charges. I also have the opportunity to stay in some lovely homes while petsitting. But I rarely take photos of these houses. There are very few farm or country landscapes in my files, and never a cityscape. Like I said, pretty one-dimensional.

Point Lobos State Park, CA — Point Lobos, California

It’s not that I don’t appreciate other types of photography. Most folks have broader interests than mine. Architecture, travel, food, portraits, street photography – I admire what other people are doing in those genres. I enjoy seeing these things through their eyes. I just don’t feel inspired to go there myself.

But if it’s wild – then my interest is limitless. Desert, mountains, seashore, I love them all. Grand vistas to teeny tiny details. Animals, plants, water, rock – I can’t get enough of them. Macro to wide-angle to zooming in, black and white, color and monochrome – all tools and techniques that help me to express my greatest love, the natural world.

Nature photography in Anza Borrego State Park, CA — Plants, animals, waters, mountains – I love them all.

There is one genre of photography that I rather regret not doing my whole life, and that’s people photography, taking pictures of friends and loved ones. I’ve photographed a few friends’ weddings, and taken pictures at 4th of July parades and a few musical events, but that’s it. I have very few photos of friends and family just enjoying life.

Coachwhip Canyon, Anza Borrego State Park — I love it when viewers can visually or mentally “walk into” one of my images.

I do understand why I don’t have many people pictures. I only take people pictures at events where my role is one of an observer more than a participant. When I’m with friends and family, I want to be totally present. Those moments are precious to me. I want to be a participant, not an observer. For me, taking pictures at that time would remove me from living in the joy of the present moment. I would be concentrating on taking a good picture instead. Weird, I know.

Moose in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve — Have you ever seen a big moose hide behind a skinny little tree? I caught this one in the act – in my front yard!

I’m certainly glad others don’t feel that way. I am eternally grateful to the friends and family who do document those moments. You know who you are, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. The older I get the more precious those people pictures are.

Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park, CA — Nature photography is my way of telling these beings,
“I see you. I honor you. Thank you for being.”

As I ponder the role photography plays in my life, I realize it’s a tool to further what seems to be my mission in life, my vocation and my avocation. In my photography, my writing, and my work as a ranger, I seem to be pursuing the same goals – turning people on to what makes a place or a subject special and unique, and encouraging others to be kind to our Mother the Earth. It’s what I do.

Matanuska Peak — Nature photography is one way I turn people on to what makes a place special and unique.

I attempt to capture a scene or a subject in such a way that a viewer can visually and mentally walk into that place themselves, to feel like they could be there even if they’ve never seen it in person. When I know I’ve done that, I feel successful as a photographer.

Nature photography is a meditation for me. It’s how I give praise to Creation. I acknowledge the other beings I share this planet with, both animate and inanimate, by practicing the art of seeing. Focusing my total concentration on a subject or a scene is a way of saying to those beings, “I see you. I honor you. Thank you for being.” I try to capture just a little of the essence of my subject. What makes that being or that landscape essential.

Redwoods National Park — Trying to capture the essence of my subject – rain forest sparkle party!

If others can discover just a little of that essence through my nature photography, then hopefully they too will acknowledge that that thing or that place is unique and essential. Perhaps they will feel inspired to care for it and keep it safe.

Monterey Bay nature photography — Hopefully my images bring a smile to your face!

If my images occasionally fill my viewers with awe for the wonders of the natural world, that makes me proud of a job well done. Or maybe my nature photography will just bring a smile to their faces or a warm feeling in their hearts. That’s a worthy goal, too.

Trillium, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park — I do love making wildflower images!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my musings on the art of nature photography. But I hope you enjoy my images of Nature even more.

Emulating Ansel Adams – Headwaters of the Susitna River, with Mounts Deborah and Hayes

February 15, 2023

North Meets South – Changes In Latitudes

North meets South annually in my life. I migrate. As beautiful as Alaska is in the winter, like the birds and the whales, I prefer to head for warmer climes when the days get shorter.

North meets South in flowers — In the following pairs of flowers, can you tell which is North and which is South?

For years I worked in Death Valley National Park in the winter. People used to tell me, “Wow, you go from one extreme to the other! But I didn’t see it that way.

Sure, there are big differences. In some years I was moving from a park that contained the highest point in North America, Denali, to a park that held the lowest point, the Badwater Basin. But I was actually avoiding the extremes through my travels- escaping the cold of winter in Alaska and dodging the heat of summer in Death Valley.

Blackish Oxytrope — Plants in both places use many of the same strategies to survive.

The predominant colors were different, it’s true – shades of green in Denali and shades of brown in the desert. But the landscapes were surprisingly similar.

In fact, there were far more similarities than there were differences. North meets South, sharing many of the same attributes. When I first applied for a job in Death Valley, an Alaskan friend told me that I’d find it more like home than anywhere else in the lower 48. He was right.

Panamint Valley — The landscapes aren’t all that different.

Immense, open panoramas abound in both. The vastness cannot be described, it needs to be experienced. They are landscapes that make you aware of your own insignificance. Death Valley is the largest park in the contiguous United States. Denali is even bigger. In most places, these landscapes seem endless because there are few to no trees. When I worked in Denali, I lived at the Toklat Road Camp, 50 miles into the park. I was surrounded by alpine tundra, not trees.

There are parallels in many of the geological features. Both contain rugged mountain ranges divided by wide valleys. Alluvial fans and glacial outwash plains look surprisingly similar. The raw, naked geology is exciting. The stories that the rocks tell are so much easier to understand in barren landscapes like these.

North Meets South — A nameless canyon in the Black Mountains

One aspect that delights me is that both parks are filled with countless nameless canyons to explore. These landscapes invite you to wander.

Sometimes you find similar treasures as you explore these canyons. Did these horns come from Death Valley or Denali?

Dall's Sheep horns Denali National Park — Denali or Death Valley?

One way North meets South is through the commonalities of their wildflowers. Both Denali and Death Valley can have phenomenal flower seasons. And plants in both parks use similar adaptations to survive in their harsh environments.

rare penstemon found on Lee's Flat — Both parks host an incredible variety of wildflower species.

Both Denali and Death Valley pose extremely difficult challenges for the plants and animals that live there. Although one place is scorching hot and the other bitterly cold, they share an element that amplifies the effects of both extremes – wind.

Common Lousewort — They’re not all belly flowers!

In both places, the growing season is short but intense. In both, you’ll also find that a lot of flowers grow low to the ground. Belly flowers. They often grow closely in mounds or in mats covering the ground, working together to avoid the drying effects of the relentless wind.

Purple Mat — Growing low to the ground in a mound can protect the flowers from wind and conserve water.

Many plants in both places are covered with fine hairs, which keep Denali’s flowers a little warmer and protect Death Valley’s from the harsh sun.

The biggest draw for me personally is that both Denali and Death Valley are incredibly wild, something I’m aching for on tame, benevolent Orcas Island this winter. There is something about the harshness of those landscapes that speaks to my soul. And of course, they’re also both awe-inspiringly beautiful.

Thank you, Amy, for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, East Meets West (or North Meets South).

February 10, 2023

Monochrome: Shadows and Reflections

My approach to photography has generally been pretty traditional. My photos are usually realistic, no frills or special effects except perhaps a little color saturation, which I’ve loved since the old-school film days when I used Velvia slide film and underexposed half a stop to get that rich kind of color.

Monochrome reflections — Reflections on the McCarthy Road

But for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Patti asks us to share monochrome images with reflections or interesting shadows. I have a few monochrome images in my files, and found some that work well with this theme. But I’ve had a bit of fun re-imagining some of my polychrome images, too.

Seagull sunset at Beard’s Hollow, Cape Disappointment State Park

Here are a shadow (silhouette) and a reflection shot from Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula. They’re all about the birds.

You might have noticed that the seagull scenic wasn’t quite black & white, more of a blue. Monochrome means one color, not greyscale. Here are a couple of colorful monochrome images. Continuing on the bird theme…

blue monochrome image - living sculpture — a natural living sculpture

Williams, Oregon — Christmas morning, 2021

monochrome Bandon Beach sunset — Bandon Beach

I think the beach may be my favorite place to make monochrome images.

But there are so many nice reflections on the McCarthy Road, too.

Here are a couple of pond lily reflections from the McCarthy Road, one in infrared, one in standard greyscale, under different lighting, portraying very different moods.

Pond lily monochrome — Infrared in late afternoon light

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve — Standard grey scale at midday

I transformed a pink dawn moonset at New Mexico’s Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge into a nighttime moonrise by going monochrome in this image.

Monochrome moonset on the Bosque — B&W moonset on the Bosque looks like a moonrise.

As I look over my catalog, I see a lot of reflections and a lot of interesting silhouettes, but not that many interesting shadows. Shadows can accentuate texture and be quite dramatic in their own right, but I guess I don’t readily “see” their potential when out shooting. Too much of that polychrome mindset, instead of exploring the possibilities of monochrome. Something I’ll have to work on, now that I’m aware of it. But here is an image where strong shadows help to create an impression. In this phot of Jug Handle Arch near Moab, the shadows accentuate the texture and power of the rock as well as the harshness of the desert sun.

My last image is a bit strange. I was exploring the ghost town of Goldfield, Nevada, which has an infamously haunted hotel. I peered into the window of the derelict building and spied an upright piano sitting amongst the rubble. I really wanted to capture a photo of the piano, but the glare from the midday sun and reflections from the brick wall obscured the view. The image I ended up with, though, looks uncannily like the piano is a reflection or even a mirage, oddly appropriate and haunting for a ghost town.

Thank you, Patti, for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Shadows and Reflections in Monochrome.

February 4, 2023February 4, 2023

Messages

Sometimes messages are loud and clear and easy to read. We especially try to do this with warnings.

Sometimes they need a little interpretation.

McCarthy, Alaska — But are generally kind, loving people.

Sometimes we read messages from the past, but can no longer understand them.

Dinosaur National Park — These petroglyphs are nearly a thousand years old.

El Morro National Monument — What does this mean?

Sometimes what might seem like a message is just a coincidence.

Radium Hot Springs, B.C. — Truth in advertising?

But sometimes we think a clear message is just a coincidence.

McCarthy Road mudslide — Melting permafrost due to climate change is trouble for Alaska roads.

Nature sends us lots of messages. Some are easy to read.

messages in the sand — A Kangaroo Rat came by here last night.

This message I read loud and clear every autumn.

The view from my front porch — Leaves are falling all around
It’s time I was on my way

Sometimes Nature’s messages need a little interpretation. For instance, when an animal turns its back to you like this, they’re saying, “I’m pretending you’re not there. Now go away and leave me alone!”

Or when the fireweed reaches the top of its stem, it means summer is over.

Summer is over message — Summer is ending!

We ignore some of nature’s messages at our own peril.

Here’s another one we are ignoring at our own peril. Global climate change is real. Sea levels are rising. I awoke one day last month to find that the sea had invaded the yard and the ocean was throwing logs onto the lawn. The homeowners say this has never happened before, but I’m willing to bet it won’t be long before it happens again. Mother Nature is sending us clear messages. You might even call them warnings. We need to pay attention.

Thanks to Wind Kisses for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Messages.

January 13, 2023

Favorite Images of 2022

For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, we’ve been invited to share our favorite images of 2022. I’ve been sharing this year’s favorite images in my last two posts, so I won’t be revisiting those images here. You can go back and look at those posts if you missed them!

One of my favorite images of 2022 — The God rays are still one of my favorites!

But I would love to share some other favorites. A few of them I’ve published in earlier posts, but most are brand new. It seems my favorite images change weekly! Because of the scarcity of electricity and internet access during my summer months in Alaska, I have still not caught up with my image processing for the past year, and I discover new favorites every day.

Cascade Falls Moran State Park, WA — This is becoming my favorite abstract image for 2022.

There are so many photos I haven’t even really looked at yet, including winter in Arches and most of my fall shots from Alaska and Washington State. It’s like Christmas every day for me as I continually find new favorite images.

I saw some amazing places in 2022. One that has been on my mind continually this week is the California Coast. Most winters I spend either January or February on the California Coast. I’m not there this year, which may be a blessing. My heart goes out to all the folks struggling with too much of a good thing, with the atmospheric river and torrential flooding.

I spent the month of February 2022 housesitting in Pacific Grove on Monterey Bay. I was 4 blocks from the coast and made a point of doing photography nearly every day while I was there. That is also the batch of work I am currently processing, so a lot of my favorite images in this post are from that visit.

Another fantastic roadtrip was driving the Cottonwood Canyon Road in Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument. It was on my bucket list for years, but usually this is a road that requires 4-wheel drive. I called the ranger station to see if it would be safe to drive in just a couple of miles to do some dispersed camping and the ranger told me the road was in great shape and my little Toyota truck would make it end-to-end just fine! Quick change of plans for me, I could not miss that opportunity. The highlight was visiting Grosvenor Arch, and it was every bit as beautiful as I had imagined it would be.

I’ve also spent a lot of time in Olympic National Park this year. I haven’t processed the fall images yet, but I’ve included a spring sunset in this collection.

My last post included a lot of my favorites from the time I spent at home in Alaska, but I am revisiting my favorite flower photo from this summer.

Bog Bean flowers — I love the pattern displayed by the flowers and their shadows in this image.

My best sunset/sunrise of the year was traveling south down Canada’s Cassiar Highway. Every image in the series is so rich and so different. That sunset went through every shade a sunset could possibly have. Intense. I did a series on Instagram last week with a few of these images, 7 Shades of Sunset.

This image looks like I tweaked the color in LightRoom, but honest, it was really that red. I did not saturate the color, I even used Adobe Neutral as my color profile. I published a different swatch from that evening’s palette of hues in last week’s post, ‘cuz this one looked too over the top to me. But now I think it is my favorite.

I traveled the Mt. Baker Highway for the first time this fall. Although the conditions were less than ideal due to wildfire smoke, I was amazed at the astounding views and the easy access to hiking in the alpine. I can only imagine how stunning it must be when there’s no smoke. A new favorite place, I will definitely be checking that road out again!

And of course now, I’m on Orcas Island for the winter, where there are some lovely waterfalls. This image is a favorite.

I look forward to seeing what favorite images 2023 will bring. If you have been following my travels on Facebook, though, it seems that Facebook has not been circulating my posts much lately. I urge you to subscribe to my blog instead, so that you won’t miss a post.

Happy 2023!

Tag: Alaska

Magical Places

Mountains

Water

Trees

Tidepools

Desert

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Nature Photography — My Road Most Traveled

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North Meets South – Changes In Latitudes

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Monochrome: Shadows and Reflections

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Messages

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Favorite Images of 2022

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Mountains

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Desert

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