It's Electric!

April 25, 2021. Or, at least high energy electrons streaming down through our thermosphere exciting oxygen atoms and molecular nitrogen that spontaneously de-excite giving off those wonderful green and pink photons! Temperature: 32°F (0°C) | Sunrise: 5:37 am | Sunset: 10:02 pm

Planetary Twilight

Jupiter and Venus shining bright after sunset as twilight takes over on a cold, cold night on Murphy Dome. The "blue hour" lasts a very long time in the interior of Alaska for most of the fall, winter, and spring.

Peaks and Cracks

Crevasses under an unnamed mountain over the Loket Tributary to the Black Rapids Glacier in the Alaska Range.

Autumn in Denali National Park

Mountains south of the Park Road in Denali National Park and Preserve. "Rivers" of yellow wind through the red foliage and "lakes" of green spruce dot the hillsides. I have yet to find a place that I would prefer to be in autumn, even though the season here is incredibly short. The splendid colors only hang around for about a week before the deciduous leaves fall, followed shortly by the snow.

Pretty Lights

Aurora dancing over Angel Rocks in the Chena River State Recreation Area near Fairbanks, Alaska.

Sea Otters

Sea Otters on an iceberg in Columbia Bay.

Backyard Aurora

The northern lights just a few yards away from our cabin.

Ballaine Reflection After Sunset

Silhouetted boreal forest and reflection at Ballaine Lake - Fairbanks, Alaska

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.

Leaves

Near Ammonoosuc Falls in New Hampshire.

Northwest view

The band intensified in the northwest sky, expanding southward.

Bubbles in ice

Methane bubbles trapped in the ice on Smith Lake - Fairbanks, Alaska.

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.

Grizzly Bear - Denali National Park

The brown bear paused from eating soapberries to look around before returning to the river. I can't believe how beautiful, almost human, it's eyes were. This really wrapped up a fantastic bus trip into Denali National Park.

September - The view from US Creek Road

Taken during a late autumn drive into the White Mountains of the Alaska Interior for a dayhike. The White Mountain Recreation Area is incredibly remote, but littered with trails for hiking, snow machining, and skiing. Bordered by the Steese and Elliot Highways the rest of the 1 million acre rec area must be accessed by a handful of mining roads and by trail.

New View

Aurora borealis from our front deck. Fairbanks, Alaska.