Black Rapids Panorama

This photo was taken near a USGS marker above the Black Rapids Glacier. Center top you can see the Loket tributary flowing into the main branch of the glacier. The rocky moraine in between is where we camped for 15 days. The lake bottom center is a large, ice-dammed marginal lake that drains every year causing the glacier to speed-up slightly from the increased water pressure at the base. Andrew is off to the left, also enjoying this view.

August - Mt. Shand

The south face of Mt. Shand (12,660 feet, 3859 meters) in the Alaska Range. That's about a mile of vertical, exposed rock.

Loket

Flying over the Loket tributary to the Black Rapids Glacier in the Alaska Range in the Turbine Otter. This was the location of our campsite for a week in April 2013. It was quite a bit colder and windier than the previous year - like 60mph winds at -20 degrees F cold.

Alpenglow

Alpenglow disappears slowly on a peak in the Alaska Range. Incredible pastels filled the sky and glance a few of the higher ridges and peaks during the "blue hour".

Bare ice

Cool surface streams, some still snow covered. You can see the snow line further up.

Black Rapids

Water running on the surface of the Black Rapids Glacier glistens in the evening light shortly before sunset.

Icescape

Looking across the Black Rapids Glacier into the Loket tributary.

New stream

On the Black Rapids Glacier in the Eastern Alaska Range. Eventually the slushy blue streaks in the snow from a few days before this gave way to water channels in the ice beneath the surface. Sometimes they find old channels from previous years, sometimes they don't. In the summer of 2014 we spent two weeks camped on the glacier and had to cross many of these streams. It was still early in the melt season which meant that there weren't any moulins yet to drain the water for the surface. This meant that to get across the glacier we had to jump over many of these streams, a handful of which were quite wide. My knees would often be swollen and sore at the end of the day. I was always more comfortable jumping to my dominant, right leg, but when I didn't mix it up I paid for it later. I started jumping all the small streams to my left leg, and only to my right if there were consequences for missing a jump.

Fresh Snow - Blue Sky

I was out on the Loket Tributary to the Black Rapids Glacier in the Alaska Range on September 3, 2014. About 6 inches to a foot of fresh snow helped make for some stunning contrast against the rock and sky. Unfortunately, It won't be safe to return until the snow is solid enough to support body weight over crevasses and moulins. This was the nicest day I've had out there this year! Nikon D7000 | Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 EX lens | f/11.0 | shutter speeds 1/160 - 1/320 (aperture priority mode) | Exposure Bias -1/3 EV | ISO 200

McGinnis Peak - Fresh Snow

In the short summer, water scours the glacier surface creating a ripple-like surface on the ice going down-glacier. At the end of the season, when the first major snow falls the rough surface becomes once again smooth. This was taken at the end of the day when I could really see the shadows from those ripples. It kind of looks like little waves on the glacier.

Refilling the Channel

Water flows from the surface of the Black Rapids Glacier into a channel along a medial moraine. A few meters upstream a large moulin was draining the bulk of the water that had originally carved this passage that was a little bit over my head.

What. A. Day.

Peaks above the Loket Tributary in the Alaska Range.

Trinity Basin Panorama

Just another beautiful day in the Alaska Range. Peaks in the Trinity Basin between the Black Rapids and Susitna Glaciers. 6"x24" or 10"x40" recommended print size 12"x48" max for 250 dpi resolution Suggested paper print or float metal formats

landslide and pond

Water backs up behind a natural dam on the Black Rapids Glacier. This dam formed from one of 3 enormous landslides that cover the entire width of the glacier. The landslides occurred in 2002 after a 7.9 earthquake on the Denali Fault that runs along the length of the Black Rapids Glacier. While the debris cover itself is not very thick, a few meters at most, the rock insulates the ice beneath it so there is less melt in the summer months compared to the surrounding ice. The height difference between the top of the debris here and the ice surface I took this photo from is due almost entirely to the difference in the amount of melt of insulated and non-insulated ice over the previous 11 years.

Atmospheric optics over the Black Rapids Glacier

I photographed this awesome sight while doing field work out on the Black Rapids Glacier in the eastern Alaska Range. The view is to the southeast and you can see the Loket Tributary flowing into the main branch of the glacier center right. Living in Fairbanks (a little under 100 miles north of here) we get to see a lot of optical phenomena from ice in the atmosphere. In the winter we frequently see halos and parhelia (sun dogs). It’s pretty rare to see the tangent arc and even rarer to see a parhelic circle – the line that continues ‘horizontally’ from the sundog. At times this made a full 360° circle around our heads from camp. The stitching together of this 14 image panorama was not fun and it isn’t perfect, but I think it came out nice enough.

Flying over the Loket Tributary

A large glacier tributary to the Black Rapids Glacier in the Alaska Range

Pulling Radar

Skiers dragging radar lines across a glacier to measure ice depth.

Mt. Shand Panorama

Mt. Shand in the Alaska Range from the Black Rapids Glacier. Cropped to print at 10"x40" at 300 dpi.

July

Rocks insulate the snow and ice beneath as the ice melts around them. This leaves big boulders standing on thin ice platforms. Eventually they fall off, but the ones that are left standing are pretty cool. On the Black Rapids Glacier in the Alaska Range.

Glacierscape

A small, yet fast stream near the northern lateral moraine of the Black Rapids Glacier in the Alaska Range. McGinnis Peak on the right dominates the skyline in this area.