Fall

Every Fall i like to go up the Matanuska Valley and see what it looks like. In my opinion it's one of the prettiest drives in the state. I'll admit that in a state like Alaska that's just splitting straws, but the Matanuska Valley is close by for me. I do think that mile for mile, it's prettier than the more popular Parks Highway.

I've driven by this place a million times and always told myself i should stop and take a picture.

On this day, it finally looked just right.

Fall can be tricky up here. Some years it rains most of the season, some years we have big wind storms as soon as the leaves change color, blowing them all away. Some years the leaves change and we have a long stretch of good weather, like this year, but sometimes it doesn't snow in the mountains until after all the leaves have fallen. And finally all that stuff has to happen when it's my day off.

A lot has to come together for a perfect fall. Enjoy these pictures.

 I bushwacked up here with Fisher once to get a late day shot of the Chugach. By the time we started back down it was after sunset, and  something large and noisy in the woods spooked us both so bad that Fisher made me go first!

I really should know the name of this mountain by now, but there's no way for me to get to it, so i've never bothered.

This one is called Castle Mountain. It's a very cool mountain that is hardly ever visible from the road. On this day i finally found a place that offers a good view of it. Unfortunately is was one of those falls when a big wind storm blew half the leaves off the trees before i could get out there. That's OK though, now i finally know where to get the shot when the conditions are right.