Alaska, June 2010
Water Lilies
Waterlilies in pond in muskeg on Pond Island in Southeast Alaska
Starfish
Starfish on the beach in Freshwater Bay, Southeast Alaska
Rock and Ice
Icebergs from the glacier in the Tracy Arm with granite walls in the background.
Colorful Layers
Layers of shoreline vegetation in Southeast Alaska
Exploring icebergs by Zodiac
These are chunks of ice that calved off the tidewater glacier from the Stikine ice field in Tracy Arm, Southeast Alaska.
Male Dall sheep in the Polychrome Pass area of Denali National Park
We were lucky to see them so low - usually they are high up on the mountainsides. Adolph Murie studied the declining population of Dall sheep and this work led to the formation of McKinley National Park which became Denali National Park in 1980.
Mosses
Mosses and riparian plants in tundra stream near Grassy Pass in Denali National Park
Campsite with a view
No, this is not an REI catalog photo; it's our campsite at Wonder Lake in the heart of Denali National Park. This was the closest we got to the mountain and the skies cleared a little on our first night, allowing me to take this photograph (and yes, this was taken at around 9:00 at night).
Wolf Tracks
We did get to see a wolf pack from afar (we even got to see their eight wolf pups playing) but this is the closest we got to a wolf - seeing these wolf tracks in the mud on the park road as we were waiting to catch one of the park shuttle buses near Toklat.
5 am on June 26th, Wonder Lake
It was raining steadily when we went to sleep the night before and it continued to rain throughout the night. Rob woke up at 5 am to take a pee and woke me up to see this spectacular view of the mountain. We then caught another hour of sleep and woke up to steady rain again. This was our last day at Wonder Lake Campground and we had the pleasure of packing up our tent and everything else we brought in the rain.
Fairview Inn in Talkeetna
This is the bar at the Fairview Inn in Talkeetna (taken during the day with a flash). Talkeetna is a funky little Alaskan town where the Denali mountaineering expeditions leave from. Some say the TV series Northern Exposure is based on it (I wouldn't know, I never watched it). We loved the town and our evening spent listening to live music and having a few beers at the Fairview Inn - definitely an authentic place.