The Oceanside



I had one extra day in Alaska, and I decided to take advantage of it. I was in Anchorage and rented a car to go on a drive upto Portage Valley. There is a glacier and a ski resort. I took Alaska Highway 1 to Portage. It is a scenic drive where you find mountains and ocean in a single frame. Of course, the broken pieces of ice from a glacier remind you of global warming.

Burning Mountains

(click on the picture to see the fine details!)

One of the owners of the B&B I always stay at is an amazing pyrographer. Here is his latest artwork (It's top of a bench in the rec-room). It depicts the surroundings as seen from the B&B - frozen Copper river in the foreground of Mt. Sanford (on the left) and Mt. Wrangell (on the right). In winter, you can see moose and caribou walk around if you are, and more importantly if they are lucky (you know, escaped the bullets). A pack of wolves also visits frequently. You hope that they don't cross the frozen river to come visit you personally. Bears are still in hibernation during this time ( which is good, since we have to work outside).

The Sunset


And here is the Sunset which casts pink shadows on the snowy mountains. Hard to say, which one is prettier, the sunset or the mountains in the evening. I have literally taken about 20 shots of the sunset here. No Picasa-editing here, this is what the camera saw. The silhoutte that you see is of the research instrument that we use, and Black Spruce trees.

Sanford and Suns

Here is Mt. Sanford, your everyday, picture-perfect mountain. It provides a perfect background for our research facility as evident in this classic view. (Everybody with a camera on site has a picture like this !)



Enter a few clouds, and the game of light and shadow begins. It brings out the texture in the landscape beautifully. It looks to me like a giant white silk cloth put up for a display, like you can pick it up and fold it !



Mt. Sanford is the tallest mountain in the region, so it also gets the last rays of the sun, which creates this flashlight-from-above effect.



(Note: Does anybody know how to upload multiple pictures to the same blog using hello from Picasa ? I would appreciate your input.)

Mount Drum and its mood swings














Alaska is a land of serene snowy mountains..especially in winter. I was near Wrangell mountains in the Copper River Valley, at a place called Gakona. These mountains change their mood as the day goes by. Here is Mount Drum during the day. I always thought it has the most character among all of them.

The snowy mountains become pink at the sunset and the day slowly and quietly slips into the night.

Two weeks in Alaska

Alaska, a land like nowhere else. Everything is just...beautiful. A nature preserve that we, as human beings, are still to destroy.

I always find the trip to Alaska very reassuring and peaceful. My research takes me to the heart of Alaska - in the middle of nowhere. I always wanted to capture the serenity of it in pictures. During my recent trip, I had a newly bought Minolta Dimage Z3 with me and believe me, I made a good use of it. The surroundings are so picturesque, it is hard to get a bad shot. I will try to share some of the beautiful moments from this trip here.

The Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights, is what Alaska is most famous for. We didn't expect to see much auroral activity this time around since 2006 is the year of solar minimum. But as it turns out, this time we had more clear nights and geomagnetic activity wasn't quite so low as we thought it would be. On one particular night, although it was -20 deg F outside, I could brave the cold to see one of the most spectacular displays I have ever seen.




...and the fact that my camera could capture it, made it all the more special.

Stay tuned for more.