Posts filed under Photography

The Past and the Present

April 17th 2015

It's always nice to go through old pictures on the computer and realize how different the season called "spring" can turn out. Last year for instance we had a lot more snow during the wintertime and so it took a bit longer for the snow to melt away, compare to this year.

These pictures below are from late March- mid April last year, I would say we are maybe one or two weeks ahead of last year right now.

And then here below are some from right around now:

Field work will probably begin pretty soon, although not personal fieldwork for me, just the regular baseline sampling to keep it simple. I don't know if I will start going out pretty soon or not, although I am usually not a big fan of leaving for field alone in early spring. Previous years we have been seeing quite a lot of bear activity so I assume this spring wouldn't be different. We have both black bears and grizzlies in the watershed so quite a spread of bears, and of course there is a pack of wolves that are running through the area from time to time too.

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Cabin Life, Alaska, Nature, Photography, Tycho - The Kitty Cat and tagged Alaska Cat 2015 Cabin Life_ Tycho Spring Snow Cabin.

Fall.

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

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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:

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.

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.

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!!