Alaska

 

A lone figure strikes out into a huge open expanse of mossy tundra, with a wide blue and cloudy sky and mountains in the background.

I have had the joy of visiting Alaska twice so far. The first venture was with my best friends to visit my sister who was working as a ranger in Kenai Fjords National Park. Before that, we went backpacking on foot in Denali National Park. It is an absolutely unforgettable place lit by an endless arctic sun and there were Grizzly bears, one road, and no trails.

View from the front of a cruise ship looking out onto the sunny ocean with another cruise ship off the in the distance, amid bright waters.

My second time visiting Alaska was a cruise with my grandmother as a kind of memorial celebration of my late grandfather who fished the inland passage on a purse seiner. On the way to Seward we got to see Glacier Bay, and then like most cruise ships we stopped in many coastal Alaskan towns to pause and go on small hikes and appreciate the lichen.

Mountains of the Alaska Range stand in desaturated glory above a river with gravel bars cutting through dark open green tundra.
A boggy tundra landscape with a pool in an opening of the thick mossy peaty ground, with a small mountain ridge in back.
An imposing monument-like outcropping of bedrock projects into the sky on the Alaskan coast near Seward, covered in barnacles and seaweeds.
A portrait of Denali, the tallest mountain in North America, on a rare clear day with the park road curving through open tundra in front.
A closeup of sun dappled lichens of various species, reaching up and sprinkled about in the mossy ground.
A view from on top of a large ice sheet in Alaska with an outcrop of very dark rock in the foreground, and nunataks or mountain peaks.
A serene sky with pure a white ice sheet ice and nunataks, or little tops of mountains poking out the ice beneath the few clouds in the sky.
An epic view of braided gravel rivers cutting across open mossy tundra with interestingly foggy partial clouds from which mountains emerge.
A tidewater glacier in the foreground with jagged glacial ice, and a large snow-draped mountain ridge in the background with blue sky.
A moody grey overcast day looking at gravel bars past the toe of Exit glacier, with bedrock that has interesting white veins visible.
Calving glacial ice falling into the sea, a splash frozen in the photo.
A metallic blue river cuts past a hill of brown soil with verdant green tundra hills on the other side and in the distance.
An open mossy and boggy tundra scene with bright white cloud formations and layers making unusual patterns in the sky; mountains far off.
A closeup of Denali, a gigantic glacially clad mountain, with sloping open tundra in the foreground.
A view of Exit glacier, a large glacier that comes from a huge ice sheet in Kenai Fjords in Alaska. Forest in front and mountains behind.
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