Photography-Life in Alaska-Random Thoughts
Photography highlighting Alaska, the most beautiful place on earth.
With clear skies tonight we drove up to the parking lot at Flattop high above Anchorage around 7:30pm hoping to get a view of the comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. There were quite a few people waiting and praying the cloud layers would clear. And finally, we could see it! Really fun sharing this once in 80,000 years event with others. What a night.
Another big solar flare hit the night of Oct 10-11. With kp8 strength forecast we were hoping for a big show this time we weren’t disappointed. People around the globe got to see brilliant aurora. People as far south as Florida were seeing it, and friends of mine in Wisconsin got some nice shots with brilliant reds and pinks. Here in Bear Valley, the clouds finally opened up around midnight for about an hour and we got a really dynamic, active show. Not much red, but the aurora was dancing! Click on the images to see them full-screen.
It was great to be out shooting aurora again around 3:30am. Only the second time shooting with the new camera system and lens, so very much still getting used to it. Click on an image to see full-screen.
We love to get in a late-season trip to Denali after the tour buses have stopped running for the year and most of the tourists are gone. Riley Creek campground is open and free and you can drive your own vehicle out to the Teklanika rest stop. We had three days of beautiful weather-in the upper 30’s to mid-40’s during the day and sunny blue skies the entire time. We biked from Tek to the East Fork River bridge and except for a couple of hikers and one or two other mountain bikers, we had the place pretty much to ourselves. Come along for the ride.
We bought a new car in Seattle and are making the drive up for the first time. We took the car ferry to Haines when we moved up. I didn’t take many photos the first 3 days from Seattle to Fort Nelson. Today we’re traveling from Fort Nelson to the Liard River Hot Springs and then spending the night along Muncho Lake. There was a lot of wildfire smoke in the air when we left Fort Nelson—you could smell and taste it, but boy, did we hit the fall colors! The rain lasted until the hot springs and then it cleared up. And we finally got to see buffalo!
