Alaska!

[Pugrpooh]

Wow! Alaska was amazing! We spent 5 nights on land and a 7 night cruise getting back on 8/8. I still haven't gone through my more than 2,600 pictures, but I wanted to post some of my favorites on here.

This trip was the reason I bought my DSLR. I had been thinking about one and really liked my Sony H5 but when I booked a year ago, I knew I really wanted to get some nice pictures so I bought my Olympus E520 with the two kit lenses in October. Then I figured I would need a lot of zoom so I just HAD to get the 70-300mm so I wouldn't miss out on any wildlife shots. As it turned out, I was really glad to have the long reach!

The weather was warm and sunny for the most part, sometimes hazy due to the wildfires and a couple of days that were really smoky.

Our lodge in Fairbanks was on the Chena River.

We visited the Chena Hot Springs Resort where DH went to soak in the hot springs while the rest of us (3 DD's and my parents) went into the ice museum.

This is DD7 trying to warm up by the fire. The artists cut huge blocks of ice from lakes during the winter and the top layer of the ice is opaque. Deeper down the ice is clear.

We saw several moose, including a mother with a calf but they went into the woods before I could get a picture. I must have pushed a button accidentally because all of my moose pics were way overexposed. I found the metering to be set on Hi which accentuates the highlights. I was shooting in both RAW and JPEG but I haven't had much experience editing RAW files so this could probably turn out better than it is, I just have to play with it some more.

I'm really glad we did the land portion too. Interior Alaska is so different than the inside passage where the cruise ships travel. We went on a riverboat cruise in Fairbanks.

We traveled by train to Denali National Park and it was pretty smoky that day.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Beautiful, Lynn. Looks like you had a great time!

Post more as you get them done.

 

[jann1033]

the riverboat photo is very nice... but not sure how i'd like the ice museum, the hot springs look more up my alley especially with fall coming

 

[My2Girls66]

Very nice
Alaska is definitely on my bucket list. I can't wait to see more!

 

[Pugrpooh]

Beautiful, Lynn. Looks like you had a great time!

Post more as you get them done.

Thanks, Linda! It was a fantastic trip. I took all four of my lenses with me but ended up using primarily the 14-42 and 70-300. I found I wanted as wide an angle as possible for the scenery or the long reach for wildlife. I was really excited when I saw how my whale pics turned out at 300mm. I wasn't expecting much because you know what they say about that lens -- don't shoot handheld, best shots on bright sunny days, forget about trying to shoot moving objects with this -- but I got some fantastic shots!

Denali National Park is a place I definitely want to spend more time at. It's 6 million acres with one road through it. We took an 8 hour bus tour into the park. It was raining when we left the lodge, but the further in we got, the clearer it became. The driver said the rain and wind cleared all the smoke and clouds away.

The afternoon we arrived, DH and I walked a trail near the lodge. You can barely see the lodge across the lake here.

There was still a bit of haze hanging around.

I didn't know how I would like the park because when you get into the park it's all tundra. I love trees and lots of vegetation like in the Smokies, but the tundra is completely different. During the first few miles going into the park, there are trees, primarily black spruce.

But then they start clearing out.

We saw one grizzly (too far away to get any good shots), dall sheep (white dots high on the mountains), a couple of golden eagles, snowshoe hares, a ptarmigan, and a bunch of caribou.

Wildlife takes priority here; you're not allowed to interact with them in any way. They want Denali to stay as untouched and wild as possible. So we just had to wait for the caribou to leave the road, with everyone being as quiet as possible.

The scenery was spectacular, but this is what we had to travel to see it.

I was so afraid we'd run into a bus coming the opposite direction. The road didn't look wide enough for two buses to pass each other.

This is Polychrome Pass.

I also put together a panorama in PSE7 after we got back.

The weather was so clear that Mt. McKinley was out. That was the real highlight of the day! It's so majestic and awe inspiring.

Only 20-30% of visitors to Denali get to see Mt. McKinley because most of the time, it's covered in clouds. Since it was clear our driver went several miles further into the park to get a better view. This is as far as we went, 36.2 miles from the mountain.

I made a panorama using 3 photos.

And then my favorite, using four.

 

[annnewjerz]

Looks like you had a great time!

Sometime before we have kids, the plan is to get to Europe and Alaska. We'd be doing 10 days of land in Alaska as opposed to the sea portion, but some of the places you went (including the ice museum, the riverboat and Denali Park) are all on our list.

Can't wait to see more!

 

[Amy]

Great shots Lynn! Please post more.....Alaska is on my bucket list also.

 

[handicap18]

I made a panorama using 3 photos.

And then my favorite, using four.

WOW! Truly AWESOME!!!

GREAT JOB!!

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Beautiful pictures! And how great to get to see Mt. McKinley!!! We were there many years ago and the only time it was visible was from our departing flight. My pictures of it were out an aircraft door window.

I love the 4 picture panorama - just stunning.

 

[prophotogal]

Hey was that 1st pic the Fairbanks Princess Lodge? If so I stayed there 6 years ago (today infact lol)!

My first time to Alaska was a 4 day land 7 day cruise. Second was just a 7 day roundtrip cruise from Seattle. By far the cruisetour (Land + Cruise) was the best. I reccomend that to all who want to cruise Alaska.

 

[Pugrpooh]

WOW! Truly AWESOME!!!

GREAT JOB!!

Give God the credit for that one! Also a little bit goes to PSE7. It wasn't hard to get good pics of a stationary object on a bright sunny day!

Beautiful pictures! And how great to get to see Mt. McKinley!!! We were there many years ago and the only time it was visible was from our departing flight. My pictures of it were out an aircraft door window.

I love the 4 picture panorama - just stunning.

I'm glad I got to see it on my first trip so now if we go back, I won't be expecting it and if it's out again, it'll just be a bonus.

Hey was that 1st pic the Fairbanks Princess Lodge? If so I stayed there 6 years ago (today infact lol)!

My first time to Alaska was a 4 day land 7 day cruise. Second was just a 7 day roundtrip cruise from Seattle. By far the cruisetour (Land + Cruise) was the best. I reccomend that to all who want to cruise Alaska.

It is. We were 3 nights there and then 2 nights at Denali Princess Lodge before boarding the Sapphire Princess. If we get back there, I will definitely have more time on land. There's just so much to see and do!

I'll try and post pictures today of the glaciers from College Fjord and Glacier Bay. They were awesome!

 

[Twigs]

Love seeing your pics! We went to Alaska this past July, the wildfires were going on then too, mainly a factor driving to Fairbanks and up the Dalton Hwy. I love your McKinley shots. We also took the 8hr bus tour in Denali and we did get to see Mt. McKinley but it wasn't as clear as your day, there were some clouds partly covering it, but you could see it at least so we did go further into the park. We had two brown bear fighting in the road in front of the bus, but my shots of them came out blurry as when the lady in front of me stopped taking pics so I could get a shot the bus started to move. Alaska is beautiful beyond words though, I really want to go back.

 

[Golf4food]

Love the panos (and the others, too).

I would love to visit Alaska. A friend from work is going on an Alaska cruise in a couple of weeks and one of the ladies in my choir at church is on one this week!

And all I get is a trip to WDW in four days, lol.

 

[Silent1CB]

An Alaskan cruise is on my bucket list also. However, only when I can afford to include the interior of Alaska too. Especially Denali. From the cruise ship I've looked at, they only spend a few hours in each port each day. That's not enough land time for me.

Those panaromics are great.

 

[Pugrpooh]

It was a long train ride from Denali to Whittier where we boarded the cruise ship.

This lake was right after the train left Denali early in the morning.

Turnagain Arm down past Anchorage. That's all glacier silt, not sand.

The Sapphire Princess! The train goes right up to the dock.

The first two days of the cruise were spent in College Fjord and Glacier Bay National Park. The day in College Fjord was very clear.

Harvard Glacier

This kind of gives you a sense of the size of the glacier.

Lumplagh Glacier is about a mile wide. There's a waterfall in the center of the glacier.

Gotta get back to work! Glacier Bay will have to wait until later. Thanks for looking!

 

[My2Girls66]

Those are awesome! Very cool how that waterfall comes right out of the middle of the glacier.