Apricot Sunrise Reflections – Keku Islands. Kake, Alaska.
Serene, yet expectant, a sunrise of high promise.
The sea remains calm, but seen from above, the rocky Keku Islands streak across the surface of Keku Strait as if racing in blurred speed.
I want to return to this landscape rich with seals, humpback whales, marbled murrelets, and salmon.
Bright Silver Salmon. Juneau, Alaska. August brings Coho Salmon, aka Silver Salmon, flooding back to the streams of Southeast Alaska. Glistening, powerful fish, I love wading out to fly fish or spin fish in the saltwater channels.
Follow the lives and deaths of salmon if you want to trace the paths of nutrients & energy in Alaska ecosystems. Salmon feed everyone-humans, bears, gulls, eagles, shorebirds, other fish, insects, crabs. EVERYTHING.
And salmon die in the streams after spawning, bringing nutrients to forests and other streamside plant communities.
I thank the salmon when they give their lives to me. Eating these salmon unites me with their lives and the endless circle of my generations and theirs. The salmon and I are one with the landscape.
Transfixed by Wonder Light. Icy Strait, Alaska.
If I had been driving in a city, I might have abandoned my car to gaze at the light of gold in Icy Strait.
Fortunately, I simply walked to the stern of the Wilderness Explorer where I remained until my return to earth.
Far into the brilliance, a fishing boat slipped across between the black edges of the terrestrial world.
On an @UnCruise.
Western Hemlock is the most abundant tree species in Southeast Alaska. It can reach an age of over 1,200 years, a height greater than 70 m (230 feet), and a diameter over 2.7 m (9 feet).
Wind is the primary cause of disturbance in the Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest of Southeast Alaska. Wildfires are infrequent and generally small due to the high rainfall, which ranges from 127 cm (50 inches) to over 508 cm (200 inches) per year.
Storms can windthrow large patches of timber, but in old-growth forest (generally over 300 years old), most openings are very small, averaging less than 0.8 hectares (2 acres). With small openings, the pattern of trees in mature forest is a mixture of sizes and ages.
The Western Hemlock tree in the photo has been broken by wind. Because bedrock is close to the surface resulting in thin soils and shallow roots, trees often are uprooted by the wind. Since this tree broke, we know its roots were strong.
It’s easy to focus only on the beautiful green forest of living trees when we walk in the woods. But both standing dead trees and logs on the ground are extremely important ecological parts of the forest.
Many wildlife species depend on dead wood for food, shelter, nesting, perching, and escape from predators. As you hike through the forest, take time to observe the many forms of dead wood. Look for the evidence of use by wildlife.
Like so many of the features of the forest, the values of dead wood also create high quality fish habitat.
Nugget Falls roars into Mendenhall Lake, Juneau, Alaska. Follow the creek as it flows into Mendenhall Lake (frozen), and you can see the foot of the Mendenhall Glacier in the distance.
The snowy peak prodding the blue sky is Mount Stroller White (1,570 m; 5,150 ft). The forested ridgeline in front of Stroller White that ascends to the left is one of the shoulders of Mt. McGinnis (1,289 m; 4,228 ft).
Nugget Creek arises from Nugget Glacier, flowing down a valley that separates Mount Bullard (1,288 meters; 4,225 ft.) from Heintzleman Ridge. My IG Post from 11/27/2017 shows me on cross country skis with Mount Bullard in the background.
A dam and a 198-meter (650-foot) long tunnel were constructed by the Treadwell Company during the heyday of early hardrock gold mining in Juneau. This hydroelectric facility provided electricity from 1912 to 1943, just one of a number of hydroelectric plants that put Juneau at the forefront of early industrial use of electricity, including electric locomotives.
Nugget Falls is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Juneau along with the Mendenhall Glacier. It’s also one of our favorite 30-minute hikes of exceptional beauty and the power of the waterfall.
The sun sets behind the Chilkat Range of mountains as my 18-foot (5.5 meter) skiff named “Footloose” floats at Handtroller Cove, Southeast Alaska. Click the picture for my video taken from Shelter Island, our base for camping and kayaking. The dark low island beyond the skiff is Lincoln Island.
The Chilkat Range in the distance is inaccessible wilderness once you get past the narrow shoreline. Westward, the vast sharp mountains and glaciers give way to Glacier Bay. Fly beyond Glacier Bay, and you’re looking at the Alsek River watershed, the largest continuous designated wilderness in the world. Browse my blog to find a variety of posts about reefs and ecology of the Handtroller Cover area, and also about the spectacular beauty of the Alsek River.
Handtroller Cove is a dimple of an indentation on Favorite Channel, but the junction of Chatham Strait and Lynn Canal, two of the largest channels in Southeast Alaska, must be crossed to reach the Chilkat Mountains from here.
All of the major sea channels in Southeast Alaska follow geological fault lines that run from the southeast to the northwest. The channels have been carved by glaciers during the ice ages, giving them steep shorelines and surprising depths.
The water under the boat is only 6 ft (1.8 m) deep. But between the boat the Chilkat Mountains in the distance, the depth reaches 1,900 ft (579 m). If you imagine what the landscape would look like if there was no water, you would be standing on top of a mountain with steep slopes leading down into a 1900 ft (579 m) valley!
Just home from a six weeks away from my home in Southeast Alaska. Although I had half a day of freshwater boating on Keuka Lake in western New York, and a short saltwater kayak trip in the Atlantic,
I’ve been craving my weekly time on the fjords and channels, the network that separates the islands of the Alexander Archipelago.
So I am grateful to my friend Bob for inviting me on a halibut trip today, one of the most beautiful days of 2017: sunshine, light breezes, and easy water.
A happy day with Bob, his son Nathan, and friend Eleanor. In 7 or 8 hours of fishing, we caught a few halibut (although none as big as my 50 lb. first halibut of 2016) with a smorgasbord of octopus, herring, and pink salmon heads, so a successful freezer-filling day. See the pictures of Eleanor and Bob for examples of our big saltwater reels.
More importantly to me, we anchored where currents from multiple channels mix and flow as the tide changes (a new high or low every 6 hours). These are my favorite saltwater places in Southeast Alaska. With the flood tide bringing in a moderate high tide of 14.6 feet in the morning, and then dropping down to about +3 feet, the currents were strong enough to drag our anchor several times. Look at the textures in the surface of the water in Photo 3: at least a half-dozen different smooth and riffled edges, tiny white-capped waves, the underlying small waves. This place can be extremely crazy in rough weather.
With a bottom that is mixed rocks and sand, shallow near points of land that separate different bodies of water, down to more than 1000 feet deep in Chatham, the lower and upper layers of water mix, making food available for salmon and halibut. I could have taken a new picture every 15 minutes with completely different surface conditions.
I love the spectacular view of the Chilkat Range of mountains on the Chilkat Peninsula that separates Chatham Strait from Glacier Bay. Other than the shoreline, these mountains are rarely penetrated by humans.
Ahhh … sharing special places with friends, the never ending ebb and flow of tides and life, saltwater and wilderness… home…