Posts tagged #Colours

High Mountains and deep Valleys in Alaska

 

Flashback Friday

Donnelly Dome

 
 

    Way back when, when I was still living in Alaska, I went on a hike with a friend of mine a couple of hours east from Fairbanks. Fall had been in the air for the past couple of weeks, and we even had some frost in the mornings. Winter is coming. One of the most spectacular things you can do in the mixed forest and the tundra of Alaska is to venture out and see the fall colors. Before you know it the leaves have all fallen to the ground and snow is coming down. We went to Donnelly Dome, which basically is a dome in the middle of a large valley, surrounded by mountains. If you climb it on a gorgeous day, you will have an epic 360 degree view. And we did.

 
 

Fall Colors

    I love the fall colors, and especially that red color that the tundra gets. The area around Donnelly Dome is so beautiful. Tons of small lakes, tundra, spruce, high mountains, rivers and everything in between. And lots of moose too!

 
Posted on March 10, 2017 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Alaska, Flashback Friday, The great wide open and tagged Alaska 2017 Fall Adventures Fall Colours colors Mountains Valleys Wildlife Moose Life in Alaska.

Fall.

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I have been missing in action once again. Sometimes I feel like I want to write a blogpost but I am not really sure what to write about. I have all these pictures I want to show but I have a hard time composing a story about them. This summer felt (and I am pretty sure it was) shorter than usual. At this point today we have already gotten our first frost. This endless summer that just seemed to rain away anyway is gone. It has been really really rainy. The headwater streams in the watershed I am working in have had flows up to 10 times the normal.

 

Even though this summer has been wet, it was still really beautiful, in its own way.

 

And now fall has arrived. But I love fall. I do feel cheated though, what happened to the summer? I guess I have a hard time appreciating fall when summer didn't really happen...

Posted on September 7, 2014 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Alaska, Nature, Photography and tagged Alaska Colours endless summer Fall field Photography with Iphone Summer Fall Adventures 2014 Adventure Nature Environment Fieldwork.

Solstice Hiking - Rainbow Ridge

July 16th

Hiking

    I went hiking for solstice weekend, because what better way is there to celebrate the longest day of the year, than to be outside in the mountains. It had been raining for days, and actually I just heard that Fairbanks broke the record in precipitation for the month of June since 1945, and the most rainfall during a 24 hr period, even breaking a record from 1967 just a couple of days ago. We received about half of the annual precipitation in just around 2 weeks, 6.63 inches....that is a lot of water. And it still rains.

Surrounded by Mountain views

    As we were driving south-ish, it started to clear up a bit. And you could finally see the mountains again. At the trailhead, we had the issue of actually finding the trailhead. We thought we kind of found the trail, but were soon bushwhacking up a steep hill. Little did we know, but on the way down the next day we saw that we basically missed the real trail by half a meter...but when we finally got up, the view was amazing of course, nothing to complain about.

 

    As we continued up the sun hit the ridge just right, and all I could grab was my iphone to snap this lovely picture below:

 
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Feeling like the luckiest person on earth

    The rain could be seen in the distance as we put up our tents and ate a snack. The view from our food storage place was amazing. And I felt complete, surrounded by mountains and braided streams. As the evening progressed the clouds and mountains put on a show for us, a solstice show. It never started to pour down, just a little drizzling. I could say goodnight watching my braided stream and the mountains.

 
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Clear blue skies

    We didn't know what weather to expect the next day, in the mountains anything can happen. But we were surprised to find a mostly clear blue sky. As my friends decided to conquer a steep scree slope, I decided to go on my own little hike along the ridge we were on. I have done enough scree slope hiking to know that I don't appreciate it. 

 
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Ridgeline

    The ridgeline was pretty, and I was smiling my whole way. The solstice weekend was one of the best weekends I have had so far, mostly because I tend to work every single weekend. Getting out in the mountains can do miracles for a tired brain. And who doesn't like mountains anyway? Happy Week!! 

 
Posted on July 16, 2014 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Alaska, Nature, Photography, The great wide open and tagged Alaska Colours Evening Happiness hiking Magic Outdoors Photography Photography with Iphone Solstice Summer Summer Adventures 2014 Nature Mountains Hikes.