A Carpathian Fall

After a long downhill descent to the ocean from Turnagain Pass the Seward Highway veers ninety degrees to the right, and as it does Carpathian Peak swings into view. As you drive towards it at 90 miles an hour (or 45), a long man made swamp flies by in front of it, giving the illusion of a glassy reflection. Often it looks fantastic but if you stop to capture the scene it turns out to be just that, an illusion created by speed.

Carpathian Peak with fresh snow, the dirty Skookum Glacier flowing off of it towards the Placer River is one of the nicest views you'll see along the Seward Highway, and for me it sort of works as the monument at the edge of my home territory. I've seen so many pictures of this mountain but they are always lazily taken from the road often with a fireweed in the corner of the frame. Being lazy myself, I've come to take it for granted, driving past it time and again during fantastic conditions but always too tired or in too much of a hurry to stop.

The Kenai River on a perfect day. We only saw about one boat for the whole first hour. We noticed the river was moving fast and appeared to be a little flooded. We started to worry if maybe there was something downstream that we didn't know about keeping boaters off the water. Turned out it was just a bad day for fishing, but perfect for a float.

Patrick's raft. Seats two and has an open bottom for drainage.

Fall was fantastic this year and seemed to stretch on without end. Unfortunately i missed a good 10 days of it travelling down to Oregon. But i got to do a few things when i got back, like float the Kenai River twice, among other things. It was the day Patrick and I floated the Kenai that on the way back we almost went nuts at how cool Carpathian Peak looked. Patrick asked me if i wanted to stop, which i did, but i realized i wasn't prepared for the picture, we'd already made some stops, and we were running late to meet our mates at the Double Musky.

The next day though, my birthday, the weather was still transcendant, and i decided to try and return to Kickstep mountain, which hadn't been to in 8 years. Eight years made a big difference. There were some new trails and i bushwacked myself to the wrong side of a hidden canyon i had previously been unaware of.

Tern Lake looking towards Moose Pass on September 25th, 2011.

On the way back Carpathian looked almost as nice as the day before, with the snow just a little less fresh. I put forth the effort to behave like a responsible photographer for once and forced myself to wait for the light to get better. Luckily my sister called out of the blue and we talked for an hour which was just right. I didn't want a highway shot so i waded out into the water. The water, though crystal clear, is far deeper than it looks from the shore. I was only able to get a few feet out into it, but that was mostly far enough to get the shot i wanted, the title shot for this blog.

The mountain just to the north of Kickstep Mountain.

Walking through Kincaid with Maree, Fisher and his friend Danny.

Independence Mine during an unusually snow free October.

While we were up near Hatchers Pass Fisher was enjoying the sun, minding his own business, when a giant rabid Marmot grabbed him and tried to drag him down into it's underground lair. Here he is startled as it grabbed his leg and jerked it down.