Well, I feel extremely blessed to have seen Alaska and much of its beauty. I remember the nights where the wind picked up and my tent swayed from side-to-side and I dreamed whether there was a bear snooping outside the paper thin nylon. I also harken back to the moments when I had a little bear cub come within 7 or 8 feet to "check us out" and watching the slowness of the nerve signal from my brain to my hand carrying the message "Grab the flare... and don't move." That moment was horribly disrupted when our guide told it loudly to stay away, and it reluctantly agreed to. Then I remember the 95 mile journey to the center of one of the countries largest National Parks, "Denali," where the powerful Mt. McKinley stands 20,320 ft. It was there that I spent time watching a beaver chew on some leaves just feet away in a lake that , was made famous in the 1940's by Ansel Adams' photography, baffles biologists today by having four different kinds of fish in it. It should be a sterile lake - It was made my a Glacial deposit, and the only stream that connects to it is glacial runoff and they don't contain any fish? Fascinating! Then I move on to Prince William Sound, home for many seals, sea lions, sea otters, whales, porpoises, and birds, but that all becomes nuanced when i think back 17 years or so I remember nothing- hehe, but in the early '90s i do vaguely remember Nat Geo documentaries on the subject. It was the same waters where we traveled, where millions of crude oil coated the habitat of these animals. The Exxon Valdez. However, overall this experience has shed new light on perspective on the wild and the intricacy of nature.

 

Please explore these galleries and see for yourself - what I find truly breathtaking.

 

~Dave