Glaciers, Cliff faces and cloud covered mountains..

Well, someday I will sit down and write a book about the drive from Anchorage to Seward, but today will leave  you with select pictures. . 

The railroad goes parallel to the highway and close to the water edge. Next time we will definitely go by rail on this same route. Folks we met who had come to Seward on the train said that they stop the train every now and then when any whale sightings happen! 

Apparently the purchase of Alaska from Russia for less than 8 Million dollars way in those days was called the "Seward folly" as people of that day thought "what a waste of good money to buy a land so desolate just because it has a few natural resources".

The place below reminded me of Jurassic Park. Apparently the 9+ earthquake that wiped out Seward in the sixties, originated here and triggered a massive tsunami! Time does heal things.. the place was teeeeeeming with life.

Mr. Seward, I am glad you bought that land and made most of it National parks and sincerely hope that the money minded politicians of today don't sell this back to Russia for a few million again in return for crude. 

The glaciers were a sight to behold. The boat crew fished out a few ice chunks and I got to taste Glacial ice water. Don't know why Global warming so difficult to comprehend for most Americans. What is the loss of a glacier or two, if you are never going to see them in your lifetime?! 

We saw this one break off a huge piece and crash into the water with a thundering sound right in front of our eyes.

Tried to take a few HDR shots of the glacier by stabilizing camera on Boat's side rail. It works as long as the boat is not moving too fast and you are set to a fast shutter speed, high ISO and f >14 (just a tip!).

 

After seeing the Glaciers, the boat took us to one last spot. The captain gave it a lot of hype as a potential "National Geographic Moment". In order to be ready for this I asked one of the crew, what is he talking about and the answer was "he is going to show you a place where Puffins nest on the rock face. It is a rare sight!".  If you have been photographing all day switching lenses back and forth on a moving boat where you can't feel your hands anymore in the cold, what would you do? I switched to the long 400x setup to catch a puffin or two on a rock, given a puffin is a small bird. 

Was totally not prepared for the beautiful scenery that unfolded in an area called the "spires". By the time I switched to a wide angle the boat had moved into the spires. Was hoping he would go back the same way he came, but nope. Ended up on the other side of the boat. Definitely going back to see them at close range on the next trip.

It was indeed a National Georgaphic moment! 

Kenai Fjords National Park

Our first National park visit in Alaska was the Kenai Fjords. We drove for more than 2 hours along AK1 which reminded us a lot of the drive through crescent lake in Olympic National park in Washington..

There is a slough here as the rivers get into the bay and deposit the silt, which happens to be paradise for birds and fishermen as they work on getting as many fish as they possibly can!

The water was freezing cold (you can see the ice on the surface at places) and we have guys with boots in thigh deep water with nets trying to compete with the birds. Truly amazing sight to watch!

Once we reached the park, we went on a cruise to see the Glaciers. Enroute to the Glaciers (the boat ride was 6 hours!) we saw everythign from Bald eagles, golden eagles, seals of different types, whales of different types, bears clawing on the icy slopes trying to get higher, birds by the hundreds of thousands creating a cacophony of unprecedented proportions, and the list goes on and on! 

It was very cold outside and after the first thirty minutes, could not feel my fingers on the shutter release. So was glad to get any pictures given I could not dial in the other knobs like I usually do! Don't think gloves would have made it any better. So my appreciation for those guys who shoot documentaries on snow leopards in the himalays went up 10000%!

Here are some of the Fauna shots...

 

That was no fluke.. Had clicked away trying to track them with the 200mm plus 2x extender all the way at 400x on a moving boat. The rest of the crowd on the boat was busy waiting for a humpback whale to breach on the other side as the whale made circles of bubbles trying to trap food into a bubble net while I was alone on the other side watching the eagles! I did get to see the whale come out and feed as with many other whales..

 

They are very smart the way they hunt in groups for their food. It is a treat to watch them run circles around the fish and finally close in when the circle is small enough. The birds are smarter. They dive into the water and take a big cut just before the whales close in. The bonus for us? We know where the whales are going to surface by watching the birds..

We have gone whale watching in many places but never have we seen so many whales in action so close by like this park! 

Did I mention the seals and birds that were creating quite a ruckus? Well, the rules prohibit the boats from going too close to the them. Also the rock faces underneath the boat (you can see images the captain shows on a monitor) are jagged and projecting out and it is not safe to go too close to the rocks!

The big 9+ scale earthquake that pretty much wiped out the area apparently was epicentered at Prince William Sound, the place where we saw the zillion birds and seals. This place was amazing and pristine in its beauty that it took our breath away! The sub zero winds helped with that task as well..

 

We also saw this black bear which had just come out of hibernating and was clawing away at a rock face trying to get up there on ice and wet rock. Just imagine.. you have just been sleeping for six plus months and are hungry, you come out of your den and realize you are disoriented, chose a rock face for a long sleep and have to make it out to find food and you have a bunch of tourists cliking away at you. . . no wonder they have rules for minimum distance..

When we came back from the glacier it was heart warming to watch the big guy who had made it past the ice field and into more steep rocks where he seemed more comfortable..

The scenery pictures are yet to be worked on. When I go back and look at those pictures, somehow there is a longing to just stop everything and go back there.. someday, someday... we will get to spend an entire summer in Alaska.. Just San, me, some hot Chai and no schedules to meet, no planes to catch anywhere.. 

It could happen...anything can happen!

A new year begins..

With more pictures..

from the day trip to Elkhorn Slough..

There was a good chance of rain so the entire camera gear did not make it to the hike. We will definitely visit this place again at sunset!

Bridge to nowhere!

We got some great clouds. It had just stopped raining..

This was funny if it wasn't dangerous. One minute, I am sitting down on the tracks taking photographs and suddenly there is a train horn and this commuter train goes through.. no gates, no restrictions! It was cool though..

We did catch some birds but they were more impressive on the binoculars than on the 200mm zoom through the lens. Why cant we just take digital pictures off of what we see with those awesome binoculars?! 

There were many other birds that either looked like versions of sparrows or egrets and a bunch of hummingbirds and the whole place was filled with bird sounds. 

Will strongly recommend a walk around the slough as a day trip.. weather permitting!

Death Valley trip Panoramas

Day 4 trip photos are here..

Day 5 of the trip was our return from Ridgecrest to San Jose with a stop at Lake Isabella for 15 minutes to enjoy the serene waters. There were two other vehicles there and the rest of the way we did not cross a single vehicle on either side for almost a good 20 miles!

It was a beautiful drive along the Kern river which at places was moving rapidly and having calm waters to catch reflections of mountains.

These stitch shots are actually really large. Each of them is ~ 100 Mb and the originals are 12000 to 16000 pixels wide by 3000 to 5500 pixels in length. Have resized them to a 1200 pixel max width for the website. 

They were all made by composite merging 8-21 photos all taken in portrait orientation while panning the landscape in full manual mode with the same setting for all the photographs. 

An example is below:

You get one gigantic image from which you crop the right section and play with it to get this...

Plan to print one of these as a 8 foot by 2 foot poster which should still be good at 96dpi ! 

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. We sure will go back and look at these pictures as our new screensaver.

Would definitely recommend an extra day or two for Death valley trips to enjoy the Kern river, the lake etc. on the way in and see other things like Titus canyon, Racetrack Playa etc. 

Knowing what we know now, next time we will probably stay inside death valley at the expensive furnace creek inn for at least two of the 5 days and will be renting a jeep in advance!

Blue Angels

We did not really enjoy the blue angels show this year as much as last .. but did get a few great pictures with Alcatraz in the backdrop. 

Last year we could not find parking and were outside the city hall. This year we succumbed to the city fleecing and paid a good 30 bucks to park near Pier 39 so we could watch the planes go between the Pier and Alcatraz.

The crowd was overwhelmingly a "smoking" crowd and there was nothing we could do. If it is one or two folks you can request them to kindly move away, but if it is a group of 15-20 people around you lighting up, what do you do?

You hope the show gets over fast and you get a few good pictures!

 

and my favorite.. a shot that was accidentally taken by tracking the planes towards the sun. Managed to salvage it using the HDR toning utility in photoshop that gave this a cool effect!

Next year we watch them live on TV!