Leon Turnbull Photography

This was one of the funnest things I did while in Alaska: in Girdwood, I went on a hike along Crow Creek to an old hand tram, which required pulling myself across a very high gorge in a little box with only my hands. At the other end of the creek was this small 10 ft. waterfall in a neat little gorge.

I started off the hike at the Crow Creek Mine, an interesting place where you can pan for gold and look at the old miner buildings. It costs money to go in there, but since I was just going on a hike to the hand tram, the lady there was very nice, gave me directions to the trail, and I didn’t have to pay anything. The hike follows through a forest, joining up with the historic Iditarod National Historic Trail. This is not part of the famous annual Iditarod race route, but the historic trail actually goes further than the 1100 miles from Nome to Anchorage, and continues on through Girdwood to Seward, and includes a total of 2300 miles of interconnecting trails.

After awhile of hiking, you eventually come to a dead-end. A massive gorge across Crow Creek that cannot be crossed. Oh, but it can be crossed. Here I find the hand tram, a little cage that you crawl into, and pull yourself across the creek on a pulley system. It is a very neat experience, but at first I found it a little daunting. I’m slightly uncomfortable with heights, and here I am in this little box, pulling myself across the creek, and it is very very high above the creek. Is this thing even safe? It also required a lot of strength for a single person to pull yourself across. Good thing I ate my Wheaties in the morning. By the time I got to the other side, though, I was having balls of fun. That is good, too, because I still had to go back across again.

On the other side of Crow Creek, the trail winds up and down to a neat little gorge on Winner Creek (yes, it is a winner – ha ha). At Winner Creek is a small 10 foot high falls. It is not a spectacular waterfall, but it is in such a beautiful setting. This whole trail is just awesome, definitely one of the highlights of my trip to Alaska. It was raining quite hard here though, making it difficult to photograph.

After visiting this little gorge, it was time to go back across the Hand Tram. I stopped in the middle of the creek to take some photos looking down. See below. Once I made it to the other side, I noticed a couple hikers had come up behind me, waiting to cross on the tram. After I got out, they had to pull the tram back across to their side. But they were pulling it the wrong way, and the tram kept slamming into the structure on my side. I yelled across to them to “Pull it the other way! You are pulling it the wrong way!” But they just didn’t get it. I even tried to help them get it started, but they just pulled it back, slamming it again into the structure. Finally, I gave up trying to help and left them to their own devices. They probably thought I had somehow tied it up so they couldn’t pull it back across. I wonder if they ever figured it out? Come on guys, it is not rocket science!

Here’s a snap of the Hand Tram:

View from the Hand Tram in the middle of the creek:

Rain. Rain. Rain. That’s what it did all the second day I was in Anchorage. As I drove further south, it seemed to rain more and more. I think that is because of the Alyeska ski resort mountain at Girdwood, which probably draws in a lot more moisture than other areas further away. And that is where I was headed: Girdwood. My brother-in-law told us “you have to stop at Girdwood, it is so amazing”. Well, frankly I couldn’t see what the big deal is about Girdwood. It has 1 gas station, 1 gift shop called the “Tourist Trap” (what an awful name, it sure makes me want to go in there – not), and 3 pizza places. That’s it. Well, maybe it would have been nicer had I actually been able to see the mountain, if it wasn’t all overcast and rainy.

Virgin Creek Falls is a small 15 ft. waterfall tucked away in Girdwood on a very scenic, gorgeous, clean flowing, pristine (virgin like) creek. It is located at the end of a private road, but it does have public access to the falls. And it is a short 5 minute hike to the falls. I don’t mind the rain, or hiking in it, though I don’t like photographing if it is raining hard. The rain was sort of off and on, so it wasn’t too bad, though I definitely got a bit wet on this short hike.

Here’s another shot from my first sunset evening in Alaska, along the mudflats of the Turnagain Arm. This one is looking away from the sun, towards the mountains. Alaskan scenery is incredibly beautiful. Snow-capped mountains and glaciers are everywhere, and that includes right along the ocean. It just doesn’t get any better.

Another thing that is everywhere (apparently) are bears. But I did not see any! I was definitely disappointed about that. But apparently, I was very close to them. You wouldn’t expect grizzly bears to be wandering out on the mudflats. I sure wasn’t. Seeing grizzlies was the least of my worries as I was photographing the sunset here. Maybe it shouldn’t have been though. I read in the paper later that there were two grizzlies out wandering the mudflats one morning. It turned out that I was down in that area and within a couple miles of them on that very morning (two mornings after this sunset shot). But I saw nothing. I have extremely bad “luck” in seeing bears. I just never seem to see any when I am on vacation, no matter where I am. Now, I didn’t really want to encounter any up close whilst hiking, but I would have loved to get a nice good shot of a grizzly bear on this trip, and being in Alaska, I was sure to see some. But alas, it was not to be. Well, technically speaking I did see a black bear. But it was through some lady’s spotting scope that was looking way up on a mountain side. I looked through it and saw a small black ball moving across the mountain. I can’t even count that one.

This is McHugh Creek Falls, a small 20 ft. waterfall located along the roadside on the Turnagain Arm, south of Anchorage.

It is a nice little falls, and easy to get down to. Also, apparently it is very easy to lose your polarizer at. The first evening I was in Alaska and I lose my polarizer in the drink. Ugh! It was definitely not a good start to my trip. I use that filter a lot, especially when photographing waterfalls. It is very helpful to reduce glare on the water. In a way, it was not a huge loss though. I had already marked it for retirement, and had a new one ordered. But the new one had not yet arrived in time to come to Alaska, so I would be missing the old girl for the rest of the trip. Maybe the polarizer knew that it was about to be replaced and wanted to die a peaceful death, laying forever in the creeks of Alaska.

When I arrived in Anchorage, my initial plan was to go to sleep early and wake up for sunrise. The forecast was calling for rain that night, clearing up by the morning. That is not what happened. There was no rain that first night. In fact, it was quickly turning into a very pleasant evening, with fantastic scattered clouds all around. I knew it was going to be a spectacular sunset … somewhere. I made an executive decision to change the plan and stay up for sunset. I definitely made the correct decision. The next day, it rained all morning long.

Now the question was … where to go? I decided to go south of Anchorage and try to find a good spot along the Turnagain Arm. This is a very interesting area, which consists of rather interesting mud flats at low tide. It just happened to be low tide this evening too. There are many warning signs to stay off the mud flats. Why? I’m guessing it is because they are like quick sand and it is quite dangerous. I did see many footprints along them, so it might not really be all that bad, but I had no desire to get my only pair of running shoes all muddy, so I stayed off to the side. I definitely found the right spot for sunset. Any further along the Turnagain Arm, and I would have been away from the good light, from where the sun was setting in the north-west. I found a nice spot and waited.

The thing about this time of year in Alaska is that the sun rises awfully early (4:30AM), and sets awfully late (11:30PM). I found over the week that it is just too hard to get up that early for sunrise, and in fact, I did not get up early very much at all (I never got up for sunrise, but I did get up early a couple times, but only a couple times). It was much much easier to stay up late for sunset, then sleep in. They say that the winters in Alaska are awful and depressing because it is dark for much of the day. I may be wrong, but for photographers, I think that would be perfect. You could easily catch both sunrise and sunset in the winter without losing any sleep at all. In the summer, that is impossible to do. Even staying up for sunset is difficult unless you can sleep in the next day. So anyway, I stayed up late the first day I was there. I was tired from my flight, but not too tired that I could not stay up.

I was the only one out on the mudflats that evening. After the sun had set and I was leaving, I saw a couple guys come down, one carrying a big tripod and the other carrying a big video camera. They were going to video tape the sunset? They were in a hurry to catch some sunset light, but were complaining that there was no view at that location. I told them they had to get right down on the mudflats to see the sunset. There still was some decent color in the sky, but apparently they were too lazy to go down there. Oh well.

Here’s another one. I’m not sure which one I like better: