alaska, travel, photography, skiing, and what not
Well, been a while again. After a year or so of barely using my DSLR, sold it and got the new GoPro Hero3+. Small, easy to use and I can definitely throw it in while fishing, surfing, skiing, boating, etc. in Alaska and don’t have to worry about ruining it. Tested it out last weekend and was surprised at the image quality while shooting stills. Had an amazing weekend surfing on the the North Gulf Coast enjoying good weather and some unusual summer swell.
Been a while, but time to post some photos I’ve accumulated over the past year. We won a chance to drive our own car into Denali National Park. We scored with amazing fall weather and great views of the mountain. Hard to believe I stood on top of that big pile a rock a few short years ago…
Leaves are all turning and there is termination dust on all the peaks now. Winter is coming. Almost time to start tuning the skis.
No cars were involved this Labor Day weekend. What a nice feeling it was to take off in a small plane out of Anchorage and see everyone scrambling to get out of town for Labor Day Weekend. One stop and two hours later we touched down in Port Alsworth, AK – about 170 miles southeast of Anchorage. It is on the border of Lake Clark National Park. Our friends have a place on the lake there and we had a fantastic weekend fishing, eating, boating and enjoying to cool fall weather. What an amazing place that sees so few people. One weekend was not enough. You could spend years exploring this area and still not see everything. We’ll definitely have to go back. Some photos from the weekend:
Last week I had to drive from Fairbanks back to Anchorage for work. Beautiful weather and what better way to break up the drive – stop and fish Troublesome Creek. The fall colors were starting to come out as well. I met a friend at the pullout and we walked down to the mouth for some fly fishing for coho and rainbows. A few days prior I stopped to fish here and it was raining like crazy and I was harassed by a black bear – this time the sun was out and didn’t see any bears. Denali was out and I caught a handful of rainbows and two silver salmon. No bad days!
A great view from our campsite and the Alaska Highway on the last night of our move north.
We had the great fortune to be camping the night of the “super-moon” in the City of Rocks, Idaho. The moon lived up to all the hype about how bright it was. We lucked out and had zero clouds in the sky all night. Here are some photos – believe it or not, these were all taken at night.
Here are some more photos from our flight last weekend in the Owyhee Mountains, Idaho. It is an amazingly remote area that sees little traffic compared to the rest of Idaho. What an amazing way to watch a sunrise as the earth awakens (we probably awoke some campers as we ripped by at 120 mph). Enjoy!
Earlier this year I had a ski trip fall through and I ended up not taking a vacation day at work. The weather was fantastic – so good that I decided to go fly fishing on the Owyhee River instead of backcountry skiing for a mental health day. I went fishing with my dog (Moose, who is a Pudelpointer). He was pretty good, but would only stay on the bank for 15 minutes at a time. After that he came crashing into the water looking for whatever was swimming around. Overall a great day in the middle of winter and not a bad week because I got to backcountry ski, mountain bike and fly fish all within 6 days. Oh yeah, I worked a bit in the middle of all that!
Here are some of the photos I snapped on the river:
This past weekend, my wife and I went backcountry skiing at Galena Summit, Idaho – which is located about 30 miles north of Sun Valley, Idaho. The day prior was bitterly cold down in the valleys and we expected that weather all weekend. I think the temperature was about -5° F when we woke up. However, when we got up to the pass, the sun was out and the temperature was a balmy +25° F and it almost felt like a spring day in the mountains. We had a fantastic day skiing fresh powder runs on low angle slopes in an area called “Wishbone.” We avoided any slopes above 30° given the weak layers in the snow from cold, dry spells earlier in the season and the persistent avalanche danger. We’ll definitely be back up there for more!
Some photos from the day:
stoltz project 