Day 5 in Alaska!

     My last day in Alaska. Time sure does fly! I had been waiting for some fresh snow to take portraits of Sidra, but alas, the only snow we received was a slight dusting in the middle of the night. No snow covered Sidra photos for this year. However, on my last morning, I was able to get some nice photos of her curled up in the snow. I took over 100 photos and I think she was getting pretty tired of my making noise so she would look at me toward the end ... :-)

     It was another overcast day, and warm, and drizzling rain. Sigh. We decided that since it was my last day, another short outing would be nice anyway, and this time everybody went. The Eagle River Nature Center which is really not anything more than a small museum and some walking trails with educational displays on the route. However, the location is fantastic. In fact, the clouds and fog really helped enhance the look of the valley. It gave the whole area a mystical, majestic look which would have been lost had it been a sunny day like yesterday. The rain was also light enough that I was not worried about my camera equipment so I ended up hiking with my full bag. I even took some 'real' photos using my Mamaya C330 twin lens reflex which takes 2 1/4 inch film. Black and white of course. It was a perfect day for that.

     The river up here is more like a series of beaver dams and ponds. There was even a boardwalk over one of the ponds and below we would see where a moose had come through and had a drink and were two foxes had happened by leaving their tracks in the snow covered ice. I was able to get some incredible reflection shots of mountains from this location.

     I also got some fun ones of Sidra who decided to get a drink from the pond and ended up falling in. Not a big deal for Sidra, but on the way home we had to sit in a car and smell that black pond mud stink... It was worth it though, I got some great photos of her up there. All I had to do was remove the leash from the digital photos. I did not take many of her, but what I did get I am quite happy with.

     As we continued up the valley walking along the pond we came across a beaver lodge. It was an active lodge and we could see an entrance point. I thought these were usually under water, but this was on top. Hm, strange.

     I just could not stop taking photos here. More refections of mountains in the water, trees in the water, Sidra by the water ... ;-)  I even put my 80-200 on (which is like a 120-300mm lens on my digital camera) and zoomed in on the mountains shrouded in mist.

      Then, in the not to far distance two wild wolves started to howl. Although wolves are fairly common in Alaska, they are few and far between. Consider that Minnesota, just part of Minnesota for that matter, may have as many as 3,000 wolves where all of Alaska has probably not more than twice that number. It all has to do with food availability - This land just can not support as much biomass as lands further south. So hearing a wolf in Alaska, at least this close to civilization is not as common as it is in the lower 48 where they have wolves. And, these wolves were close. I'm guessing about a mile away, maybe somewhat closer. Of course we would never see them, but every 20 minutes or so, one would start howling. It sounded mostly like just one wolf solo howling. It is early in the breeding season here and perhaps the wolf was looking for a mate. Hard to say, but it sure sounded cool and made a perfect ending for my trip for over an hour we were able to stay and listen to wolves howl until the light started to wayne and we had to head back home.