The eye of the artist

With all the great, technological improvements in cameras, we got some fabulous pictures in Alaska. Still, you realize that some pictures have the "eye of the artist" in composition, focus and lighting. They capture just the right scene or subjects, focus on the right object, zoom in or out to the optimal view. Sometimes this is a lucky coincidence, but many times it is the practiced eye.

I particularly loved the picture below because I think, taken out of context, it looks like an abstract work of art. It got me thinking about how an artist friend once explained her abstract painting class to me. The instructor had told them to hold the brush in their non-dominant hand and squint at the still life with only one eye, in order to extract the essence of the painting--the color and line and texture. 

To me this picture does exactly that--gray, blue and white tones evoke a feeling of sea and sky, but the bands of color seem mixed up--is that gray sea above sky? Where does one start and the other end?

Here is the non-zoom version of the above photo, where you can see the reference points of the mountain and trees and shoreline. It turns out there was no sky in the first picture after all, just an enlargement of the sea along a stretch of the Seward Highway known as the Turnagain Arm. It was a rainy, stormy evening when we came upon this scene and the white water was moving very rapidly compared to the stagnant mudflats by the shore and the settled water further out. It looked like an optical illusion. What is that white sparkling I see? It didn't register at first as movement.

I don't want to claim that armed with my camera and a zoom feature, I could be an Instant Artist, but I started out today on a hike up High Mountain near our house. I was responding to my son Eric's latest blog where he encouraged everyone to "go explore some place near your house that you haven't been to in a long time and let me know what you find!"  I know, I know, getting a little crazy here with promoting each other's blogs!

But, it was a beautiful day, so I looked forward to my adventure. Never mind that I started up the lower path only to discover that it was blocked off with a Private Property No Trespassing sign, just as the trail turned up the mountain. I leaned over the bright orange plastic netting and craned my neck to see if this was the path I knew and sure enough the hulk of an old car lay to the right of the trail, which had always been a "trail marker" of sorts. A new house lay beyond the makeshift barrier and the junk car. And here I thought the recession had curbed some of the overdevelopment in NJ.

I returned to the trailhead and now took the upper path, having fun along the way with my zoomed in and zoomed out photos. Take a look:

 

Still recognizable, as lichens on tree bark--I need a bigger zoom!

This is a little better:

It could be focused better, but I like the textures. It could be an aerial view of a hiking area out west or a multimedia creation in wax and cardboard with highlights of yellow and orange. Here's the picture I started from:

See how you like this one:

 

Ok, blurry, but I like how the shapes light up, as if they are bacteria under a microscope or a strobe of fireflies in motion. Did you guess they are really leaves on trees:?

I may be just hungry, but I'd swear these look like cooked shrimp on the sea floor--how can that be in North Haledon, NJ? Somebody pass me the cocktail sauce.

Oh, they were just squiggly orange seed things on the path. When I picked one up, it had the consistency of a twist of yarn and I momentarily thought some crazy knitter, frustrated with a sweater that didn't work out, had shredded it along the way, ceremoniously tossing the final remnants off the top of the mountain. Or maybe little Hansel and Gretel were dropping threads to find their way back down.

This one would make a nice picture above your modern couch:

Yup, just plain old moss on a rock:

What I thought would be the piece de resistance was a disappointment. Although a beautiful day, the skyline was hazy and I couldn't zoom in enough to lose the representational picture. New York was still New York.

view from High Mountain

the zoom in on the NYC skyline

So, my conclusion is that Instant Artist is not as easy as it sounds. You certainly need a better eye and better camera than I have. But, it was fun and I still love the idea. I'll think about it the next time I'm at MOMA or the MET's modern art section. Yeah, I'll be the one squinting at the art and mentally zooming in and out.

The Bears

You knew I'd have to do a separate blog just on bears. I was obsessed with them and really a little scared after the incidents in Yellowstone and Talkeetna in July.

Happy to report that we had no close encounters -- no bears on the trail---so we didn't need to slowly back away and talk in a soft spoken voice. "Hey, bear, I'm standing down from you. This is your home and see how nicely I'm backing away." Somehow, I could never picture myself doing that calmly.

In Katmai National Park, they are very serious about bears. You get off the float plane and are immediately ushered into the park's bear orientation talk and video. You get a little pin to wear to prove you were thoroughly indoctrinated and presumably a park ranger might stop you if you weren't displaying the pin and had somehow skipped the talk .

Uh,oh... We've been spotted!

moving into our attached cabin

We immediately saw bears in the river at a distance from our cabin, prompting me to ask where the "electrified Berlin Wall" was. It looked to me like there were the cabins, a meadow and then the river--no wall, no fence, no guards.  I distinctly remember Gary telling me that there was no way bears would be able to enter the lodge grounds!

family bonding bunk beds

Mosquito netting was essential gear

We plotted our strategy and then headed out for a closer look from the viewing platforms along the Brooks River. The lower river was for younger, less dominant males and the females and the upper falls for the male alpha bears, where salmon are more abundant and could pool as they try to jump the falls. This was the end of the salmon run, so usually there were about five or six bears standing below the falls and over the course of an hour you'd see maybe three of them catch fish. There was a lot of drama. One bear caught a fish and retreated downstream a bit to eat it, but was pursued by a bigger bear who forced him to drop the fish--gang behavior!

The NPS bear watchers number the bears and after a few years may give them names. Diver was an old arthritic bear who stood in one spot by the falls and seemed just as pleased to be diving under the water and soaking his old bones, as he was to be catching salmon. Another was called Cinnamon, based on coat color. Before you start getting all mushy and singing Teddy Bear picnic, listen to this story. The ranger said that the previous week a male bear attacked a cub and dragged the runt to the tall grasses where it killed it, to the horror of the tourists on the platform. Reasons for bear infanticide are not well known but the ranger speculated that the cub was the smallest of a litter of three cubs. Sheesh, mother nature can be cruel.

It was a half mile walk to the upper platform first on a trail and then on an elevated walkway. You talk and make noise, so as not to surprise any bears wandering by, especially when there's a turn or less visibility because of high grass. Once on the platform, you can delude yourself into thinking it's like a zoo, but reality checks back in when you have to wait to recross the floating bridge because a bear is within 50 yards of it. One bear started swimming toward us on shore, while we were waiting, so we beat a hasty retreat further up the trail to give the bear his space. All except one guy who kept taking pictures..."This is great." "Gary, let's go we're moving now. Gary, Gary...."

I was really surprised one morning at breakfast to look out and see a young "sub-adult" grizzly right outside the window. He ate some grass, rubbed against a tree, and ambled down the same path we would take to the cabin, before he decided to cross the meadow and return to the river. The scene was repeated the next day with an even larger bear. At least we had the security of a hard sided cabin. In the campground the hardy tent campers, who endured rain and fierce mosquitos, did have an electrified fence surrounding the area. But the three strands of white electrified rope, like a clothesline, didn't strike me as that substantial.

And yet, there have been no fatalities at Katami so far. As compared to Yellowstone or Yosemite (one of those lower 48 places), Katmai was very strict about food and garbage, so bears do not associate humans with food.

In Denali, there are about 3000 brown bears (grizzlies) north of the Alaskan range, where we were and we spied about seven of them on the bus ride from the entrance of Denali to the end of the road 90 miles later at Kantishna.The Denali grizzlies were lighter in color than the Katmai coastal bears, who ranged in shades from dark brown to golden.

There are also 50,000 black bears in Alaska, many in the Kantishna area, but we didn't see any. We took a short hike when we arrived at Skyline Lodge, but when it started to rain and I found myself out of breath on the steep slope, I urged the rest of them to go on to the top without me. I situated myself on a slope with a 360 view and rotated back and forth, clutching my walking stick and chanting: "Hey bear, I'm here, hey big bear." I had my stick cocked like it was a musket and I was looking for the whites of their eyes.

The other scary hike we had was up Dumpling mountain in Katmai in pouring rain--beautiful, lush forest, lots of berries and wild flowers, an area where Katmai bears dig their hibernation dens, a new one each year. We didn't fall into any dens and did a whole lot of singing and yelling to Gary to stay with the group.Luckily, our off key singing scared the bears away or else they were all down at the river, preferring salmon over berries.

On our final leg of the trip, Kenai Fjords National Park, we saw black bears who liked to hang out in the meadow near the lodge and walk along the beach or swim in the lagoon.  No brown bears in Kenai because the Harding Ice Fields above Kenai form a barrier that the black bears are only too happy to negotiate to get away from the brown bears, but the brown grizzlies don't bother to make that trek.

The bears were definitely a trip highlight--the closest I'll ever get (or want to get) to the real wild outdoors.

Be Good to Yourself

I'm back from America's last frontier and happy to report that the trip was fantastic. Since I was off the digital grid for the last 12 days, this blog is actually an old school, handwritten journal entry, penned while I was in Denali National Park:

Wednesday August 3

This misshapen little wooden pig outside the door to our Skyline Lodge tree house in Denali admonished us: "Be good to yourself." Well, that's exactly what a week in Alaska feels like. Being good to yourself by slowing down, enjoying your family, seeing amazing animals, endless rivers and mountains, big skies, glacial kettle ponds, clouds, fog, purple lupin wildflowers, and sunsets (if you can stay up that late!)

My three boys are off mountain biking and hiking to Wonder Lake in hope of seeing "the mountain" out today and maybe finding some wild blueberries on the tundra. The "mountain" is Denali (the high one) or Mt. McKinley, as it was known prior to 1980. Surprisingly the star of Denali National Park is seen by only about 40% of the visitors on average in August, since Denali, rising from a base of 2,000 feet to the summit of 20,000 is so big it generates its own weather system and is often completely enshrouded in clouds. That was the case when we stopped at the Eielson Visitor Center on the way in and gazed in the direction of the Alaska Range. There was nothing but clouds, although if you stared at them long enough you could swear you saw a cliff popping out here and there.

Is that a mountain or a cloud?

Skyline treehouse

I am relaxing this morning, starting with my breakfast of homemade strawberry-rhubarb jam on toast, cereal and fruit with rice milk and fresh ground coffee. Simple but delicious and the view from my deck looks out over the green Kantishna Valley, the westernmost point in Denali Park, a former gold rush site. 

There's only one road across the six million acre park, which is the size of New Hampshire, or as our bus driver wryly commented "bigger than Slovenia, Israel or Djibouti." We saw abundant wildlife on our six hour bus ride--yes, actual school bus seats you may remember from your childhood--- but the trip went by quickly with several scenic overlook/bathroom/wildlife spotting stops and the slow, deadpan narration of the driver as our comic soundtrack. "Here is Moose Creek. There are over 100 moose creeks in Alaska."  and a little later on: "Here is Fish Creek. There are over a 100 fish creeks in Alaska."

The sun sets around 11 pm but it never gets truly dark. From our cabin room, it's 25 steps up two staircases to the bathroom inside the lodge and no headlamp or flashlight was needed during the night. One star peaked over the horizon at 3 am and although there are no Northern Lights visible in the summer sky, in the eerie light I couldn't help but think of a poem that my brother Peter and my Uncle Dick would never fail to recite at Christmas: The Cremation of Sam McGee. Standing here in old mining country where there were all kinds of crazy fortune seekers and adventurers, like Little Johnny Busia who brewed his own Kantishna Champagne or tough Fannie Quigley, who lived alone until age 74 through the harsh winters in her cabin that still stands, the poem seems apt:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee...

Read the rest of the poem by clicking here.

Sure, I could moil for gold.

Cabin life is fine with me

Don't exaggerate. I only took 200 pictures today, not 300!

COMING Next: the BEARS

Into the Sunset

Trite but true: What a difference a week makes.

After our Campmor shopping trip last week, I thought we were all set:

Mosquito netting hat - check!

Rain suit- check.

Then came an interesting news story this week about the 7 teen NOLS hikers who were attacked by a grizzly bear mother in Talkeetna. Yes, folks, we'll pass by there. Talkeetna is about a third of the way to Denali from Anchorage. My bear anxiety level right now on a scale of 1-10 (low to high) is about 8+. Gary's is a 1. 

HIM: "Think of how many people are in the wilderness, how rare attacks are, blah, blah, blah...".

ME:  "Yeah, but what about the recent attack in Yellowstone, where the husband got killed?"

(I did read that when they saw the mother and cub they just kept hiking, instead of turning back. No way I'd do that.)

I don't even care now if the salmon run has ended early and the bears have already left Katmai. I think I'd be happier not seeing any bears, although seeing them from the comfort and security of the fenced off viewing platforms sounds nice. As for Denali, I don't know if I'll be getting off the bus. There is a ranger hike at one stop, so that might be ok. Do NPS rangers carry guns? Do they at least lead the hike, so they'd take the first hit?

You have to love the comments people have posted after the Talkeetna story online. Here are a few gems and my comments:

"Going to Alaska without a gun? That's crazy talk!" (thank you Sarah P.)

"I never leave home without my 350 magnum." (Is this Clint Eastwood?)

"Did the hikers have bear bells on?" (somehow I don't think it would make much difference to have little,tinkly bells warning a big, angry mother bear...A la Jaws...I think we're going to need a bigger bell....)

I'm still excited about the trip and the relaxation breathing seems to be helping, so I'm definitely going to get on the plane. (Getting off may be another story).I am wondering if we need to re-visit Campmor and stock up on bear spray, bear bells (big ones), guns, ammo, etc...

Highlights to come:

Driving past Wasilla (photo ops!)

Looking at the Katmai bears, from a very safe distance

Pictures of hiking and no bears!

Kayaking at Kenai Fjords

Eating fresh caught salmon (every day?!)

Circling Mt McKinley (in a plane that's too small!)

Being digitally free - no Internet or Email for 12 days

Hiking the Valley of 10,000 Smokes (while high?)

Staying up until it gets dark at midnight

Wearing my new rain suit (every day?!)

Surviving without a private bathroom

Gary buying coffee mugs and tee shirts wherever possible

Eric complaining about his parents' slow transition times

Scott frustratingly searching for a cell phone signal

Missing Beth, who can't come.

  

Summer of Eric Part II

Can you believe we're approaching the one year anniversary of the Summer of Eric cross country expedition that started all this crazy blogging? To celebrate we have Part II of the expedition. We ended in California last year, so this year we're going all the way up to the 49th state - Alaska! Not driving this time, but taking a quick 10 hour flight to Seattle and then Anchorage, our base city. From there, we have separate hops to three national parks: Katmai, Denali and Kenai Fjords and we're hoping we don't get stuck, if the ridiculous posturing in Washington DC shuts down the government and our parks on August 2.  If you don't hear from me by Labor Day, please send out the huskies.

I'm taking it easy today in anticipation of an exhausting but exhilarating shopping trip to Gary's favorite store, Campmor. It is fun to be such loyal customers that you're greeted by name, as you enter the hiker's paradise on Route 17. And who doesn't hear the words "brand new rain suit" and not feel chills running up and down their spine? Is it from imagining the 40-60 degree temps in the rain or fantasizing that you are a great explorer, conquering America's last great wilderness?  I already have my zip and go pants, two sets of long underwear, a heavy fleece, hat, gloves, low cut hiking boots, polypro tees and UV protected long sleeve shirts. Gary easily has twice as much gear and clothing as I do, but somehow I think he'll find some new essential items. The challenge of this trip is we're supposed to pack lightly to facilitate travel on small planes, even smaller float planes, Park Service buses and cozy accommodations in cabins and lodges. Eric, who comes home for the holidays with all essentials stuffed into a backpack, should have no problem, but Scott and I may struggle and Gary's already relying on the ingenious idea of using the rental car as extra closet space, packing a light travel bag and an overstuffed supply bag.

I've always felt the planning and anticipation of a trip adds as much fun and excitement as the actual event. Last year I distinctly remember saying that while all the summer travel was great, I'm a beach girl and prefer not to stray too far from the Jersey shore during July and August. The summer just flies by too quickly. I had stated my case, so I was surprised to see books on Alaska suddenly appearing on the coffee table last January: Frommer's and National Park Service guides, Histories of Alaska, Alaska-the Last Frontier, the Quiet World, the Road to Denali, etc. Gary's reply: "That's the only time of year you can go there."  He threw himself into the planning and arranged the entire trip. You didn't really think we would take the popular cruise on the Inside Passageway/Glacier Bay that everyone else raves about, did you? No, we are striking out on our own. I did check the itinerary and noted we seemed to have no accommodations one night, but that turned out to be an errant confirmation email that was temporarily lost in cyberspace. I want to be a little surprised, so I didn't delve too deeply, especially after some disturbing revelations. 

Me: "You mean we're riding in a small plane and then transferring to an even smaller float plane?"

Gary: "Well, yeah."

Me: "You mean we ride on a Park Service school bus over gravel roads for 90 miles and it takes 6 hours?"

Gary: "Well, yeah."

Me: "You mean we visit Katmai to see bears scooping salmon out of the river at the end of the salmon run? What if the bears leave early?"

Gary: "They won't."

Me: "You mean we won't have a bathroom in our cabin?"

Gary: "Well, yeah."

I only use the facilities 3 or 4 times a night, so trooping off to the nearby lodge (with bear bells ringing) shouldn't be a problem. "Just don't drink anything after 4 pm," a friend suggested. As for the Katmai bears leaving early, a friend who lives in West Milford confirms that NJ black bears are finely attuned to the garbage pickup schedule and very punctual about appearing on the correct night. So as long as global warming doesn't end the salmon run early this year, we should be ok.  Are you listening, bears? Wait for the K family to arrive.