Leon Turnbull Photography

Our final day in Alaska. We took a day cruise out of Whittier on Prince William Sound. It was the most sunny day of our trip! You might think that is good, but it is most certainly not good for photography. The sun was far too harsh. I was hoping for an overcast day on this last day, but it was not to be. Bummer.

Whittier is waterfall madness. My wife figured I was in heaven with all the waterfalls coming off the mountains. I would have been, perhaps, if the weather co-operated, and if I had a kayak (and the time) to explore them. I found it quite difficult to shoot these waterfalls. They are all glacier waterfalls. Falling off the mountains from melting glaciers. In the grand scheme of geological things, they have a very short lifespan. One hundred years ago, most of them probably did not exist, and 100 years from now when the glaciers are melted, they will cease to exist. But for now, in our lifetime, they do exist. We saw tons of waterfalls on this cruise. Many of them are significant waterfalls and worthy to put on my website. But it is impossible to document these waterfalls properly (unless, perhaps like I said, I had a kayak and much more time to do so). All I could really do is document and photograph the major waterfalls on the major glaciers.

The most spectacular waterfall we saw was this one (Northland Falls) coming off Northland Glacier. It is about 500 ft. high. It is really difficult to get a perspective on the size of this waterfall. The glaciers and the landscape here is just so huge. We weren’t really up close to the glacier (or falls), but yet it looked so huge.

The photo was a hand-held HDR shot. It is impossible to use a tripod on a moving, bobbing, boat. And with the sun being so harsh, I knew there was too much dynamic range to take a single shot. So I tried to do a hand-held HDR with 3 exposures (0EV, -2EV, +2EV). Most of the shots I took like this did not turn out too well, but a few turned out ok. I wish I had better light to work with, but what can you do.

Northland Falls was located at one of the main glaciers where the boat was stopping, so I did have a bit of time to take the shot. Most of the waterfalls we saw, the boat just whizzed right by them. No time to stop. No time to shoot. The one exception was a waterfall they called Hidden Falls, a nice but smallish waterfall we stopped at so EVERYONE on the boat could get out on deck and get their picture taken in front of the falls. It was a zoo on the deck. I had the strong feeling that the cruise line just picked out Hidden Falls at random from all the waterfalls along the way as being the one they would stop at on the cruise all the time for everyone to get out on deck and see. There were definitely nicer waterfalls that I would have liked to stop closer to see.

As for the glaciers, well they are just monstrous. We did not see very much calving of the glaciers, however. I was quite disappointed about that. I was hoping to see much more of that on this cruise.
We did see a bit of wildlife on the cruise, but not a heck of a lot really. We got up close to some sea otters, who were playing around the boat. We also saw some harbor seals, and plenty of birds of course. They say the cruises out of Seward are better for seeing wildlife. We’ll have to do that one next time.

3AM.What a beautiful time of the day. Not! Especially after only 1 hour of sleep. It always seems that whenever I have plans to get up early, I cannot sleep enough that night. Why not? Too excited? Something or other. Under normal circumstances, I would have shut off my alarm if I was having troubles getting to sleep. I have been rather lazy lately, in that way. Why? Old age? Something or other. This time, however, I had to get up. My friend Rob was going to be knocking on my door at 3:30AM. We had made plans the previous day to go on a sunrise hike into the Desolation Wilderness. He was bringing along his daughter and her friend. I guess it was actually a good thing that I made that commitment with Rob. It forced me to get my lazy duff out of bed and out into the great outdoors.

The plan was to hike up to the top of Horsetail Falls in the dark, in order to be at the top for sunrise and shoot the alpenglow light on Pyramid Peak, with hopefully a reflection in one of the alpine lakes up there. I was hoping to get to Ropi Lake, but we just didn’t have enough time. It is a tough hike. I was worried it might be too difficult in the dark, but we made it up to Horsetail Falls in pretty good time. The waterfall was flowing very well for the middle of August. I was a bit surprised at that. But it was dark, so of course we couldn’t take pictures (I like this falls better at sunset, anyway). And anyway, we had to slough it up to the top of the falls as quickly as possible. Horsetail Falls is 800 ft. high, and you basically have to scramble straight up the mountain to the top. It is killer, and took a lot longer than I anticipated. We were about 15 minutes too late. When we finally arrived at the top and came into view of Pyramid Peak, we could see that the first light was already hitting the peak. No time to make it to Ropi Lake. We came to Avalanche Lake first, and could see the peak and reflection in the lake. But I thought Pitt Lake, just a little further ahead, might offer a better photo. Big mistake. At Pitt Lake, you can’t even see Pyramid Peak because there is a ridge blocking the view. We quickly headed back to Avalanche Lake to take our photos. We were a bit late. The extra jaunt up to Pitt Lake cost us too much time. It really bugged me too. I should have studied the topo maps more and realized that ridge would be blocking the view of the peak at Pitt Lake. Well anyway, we still had a very pleasant morning and came away with some decent sunrise shots at Avalanche Lake. Now that I know how long it takes to get up there and where to photograph, I will definitely be back up here someday.

Here’s a vertical shot from my incredible sunset evening at Lake Tahoe, Bonsai Rock.

I’m not completely happy with my composition on this shot. It was not possible to place the rock (Bonsai Rock) in the frame where I wanted, for where the colors in the sky were happening. Ah well, what can you do. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. I definitely had the cake that night with the incredibly beautiful sunset. Nonetheless, I still think this is a pretty darn good shot.

Speaking of Lake Tahoe, my wife just recently told me about her aunt and uncle that had a break-in at their cabin in Tahoe. It was a break-in from a bear! The bear just walked into the cabin and helped himself to some chocolate while her uncle was sitting there watching TV. Go figure. You gotta love Tahoe. Actually, I do. I wish we had a cabin there. Or lived there. It would sure beat the 100+ degree summers of Sacramento.

Our last sunset evening in Homer. My wife, father-in-law, and brother-in-law and I went back down to Anchor Point to the beach to view the sunset behind Mt. Redoubt. All three volcanoes (Redoubt, Iliama and Augustine) were visible on this evening, though none of them were all that clear. It was a gorgeous sunset and evening.

There were quite a few people out enjoying the evening on the beach. And the bald eagles were enjoying the sunset on the beach as well. However, you will notice that there are no eagles in my nicely composed photograph of the sunset this time. That is because of some dufus that drove down onto the beach in his vehicle. Why do so many Alaskans like to drive on the beach? It is very annoying and sure ruins the peaceful ambience of enjoying a sunset on the beach. This guy drove right down to the water’s edge (I thought he was going to get stuck in the mud), then up the beach, right in front of my camera, scaring away all the eagles that were there in my frame. Then he drove back. Ugh!

Another thing I found strange about Alaskans, is that they would just drive in their cars to an ocean overlook and just sit there in their vehicles. I mean, we’re talking about the middle of the day, not sunset. What is there to see? The ocean and mountains, ok. But how long can you just sit in your car and look at that? Why not get out of your vehicle, walk down to the water, feel the breeze on your face. How can you enjoy the ocean from inside your car? I don’t get it.

I was anticipating seeing a lot of wildlife while in Alaska. And I was hoping to get some good, quality photos of certain animals, especially eagles, moose, bear, and dall sheep. I struck out on the bears and sheep, but I did get plenty of good eagle shots. As for the moose, well I saw quite a few, but I didn’t get the killer photo I was hoping for. This was the best one I got from the trip, and I suppose it is a pretty darn good quality and a very sharp shot, though I’m not sure that it is killer.

I made a little slide show of all the wildlife I saw and photographed in Alaska. I highly recommend you checking it out. It may take a while to load if you have a slow connection:

http://www.waterfallswest.com/gallery/alaska.html

The moose that I did see were usually right along the highway, and it was impossible to stop and take a photo of them. One morning, I even saw a moose running down the middle of the freeway just outside of Anchorage. No kidding. I actually tried to take a photo of it, but of course it was totally blurry. One other time I was driving in the morning around Homer, and I saw a couple moose alongside the road, practically on the road. I stopped to try to photograph them. Another driver, however, came by and blasted his horn at the moose, scaring them away. Why did he do that? Was he trying to help the moose, trying to tell them they should not be on the road (many moose get killed in Alaska by cars), or was he just being a total jerk? I don’t know. I suppose I should give him the benefit of the doubt, but I suspect it is probably the latter thing. This one here was off the road outside of Homer, on a turnout. So I was able to stop and get out of my car to get closer to it and photograph it. I didn’t even notice it at the time, but there were actually two baby moose in the frame as well. They were totally hidden in the foliage, and I didn’t see them until I got home. I cropped them out of this shot so as to focus on mama.