ALASKA
My first trip to Alaska began on September 1, 1998. With some difficulty caused by weather in St. Louis, I flew from my home in Columbus, OH, via Seattle to Anchorage. Approaching Seattle-Tacoma Airport our TWA captain gave us a great view of Mt.Rainier:
The last part of the flight was from Seattle in charge of the woman captain of an Alaska Airlines 737, who got me there just fine. A similarly competent young woman drove four of us latecomers to Seward, where we boarded the NCL ship "Norwegian Dynasty". The ship's captain was male, and, as far as I could tell, he also managed very well.
On our third day we spent a couple of hours close to the Hubbard Glacier, the largest in Alaska. It flows directly into the sea, in a fiord between Cordova and Skagway. Click on the image to see it up close, but be prepared for a wait, since there are a lot of pixels to be shipped to you:
Hubbard Glacier
Close to Juneau, the capital of Alaska, is the Mendenhall Glacier:
Mendenhall Glacier
The Mendenhall currently ends fairly far up in the mountains. Like all the Alaskan glaciers it has been receding during recent decades. It can be seen from a number of places in Juneau, including the campus of the University of Alaska Southeast:
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After I had made arrangements for the cruise, I was lucky enough to run across a posting on the DigiCam mailng list from Larry Buzzell who is a long time resident of Juneau . Larry was kind enough to give me good advice on what to see there. As a result I visited a private salmon hatchery during the spawning season. Mature salmon breed and die (almost immediately) in the fresh water in which they are hatched, but spend their lifespans of several years in the oceans. The hatcheries use the water from the spawning streams, but are much more efficient than the natural habitat in replenishing the sa;mon population
The hatchery had a beautiful aquarium. Larry tells me the next picture is a King Salmon in spawning colors. In the ocean the same fish is brilliant silver with purple reflected tones and a pure white belly. The nose becomes deformed as the fish nears spawning time. Ocean condition fish don't have this hooked jaw:
Larry also tells me the splotchy white bellied one below is either a Pink (humpy) or a Chum (dog) salmon in spawning colors:, and the one with the pink dots is a Dolly Varden, a type of Arctic Char. They are all lovely fish:
The anemones. star fish and other animals that inhabit these northern waters are just as beautiful to me:
After my visit to the fish hatchery, Larryand I met at the bottom of the aerial tramway to Mt. Roberts.
Aerial Tramway ascending Mt. Roberts
This took us above the city. There we climbed on the mountain a little:
Larry Buzzell, Gerry Foley, and Mt. Juneau
A kind stranger took the picture. To keep cameras from banging against each other, I hung his camera around my neck. Then we had a good lunch and great views.
Looking up the channel above Juneau
Even on a cloudy day, Akaskan views can be great:
Mt. Juneau
Click for full resolution
"Norwegian Dynasty" from Mt.Roberts
The beauty I saw during this short stay in Alaska was stern and rugged, for the most part, like this view from our ship as we sailed along the "Alaska Marine Highway"
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An Alaskan View
These photographs were all taken with my
Olympus D-600-L Digital Camera,
and processed with JASC PaintShopPro 5.0, and,
in the case of the panoramas, PhotoVista StitchIt.
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e-mail:
gfoley@columbus.rr.com
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