20 February 2022
On the Southern California Beaches page photo #5481 was added to the Wayfarers Chapel section. Also the Cabrillo Beach section was added in its entirety.
5 July 2021
Added picture #5143 to the Misc. Other Pictures page.
5 July 2021
Added picture #5143 to the Misc. Other Pictures page.
Alaska
(May 2024)
This page contain pictures from my trip to Alaska in May of 2024. This trip was a cruise on the Princess Cruises' Sapphire Princess. We departed from Vancouver, British Columbia and were scheduled to cruised the Inside Passage with stops at Ketchikan, Alaska; Juneau, Alaska; Skagway Alaska; with the cruise portion ending at Whittier, Alaska. We were also scheduled cruise Collage Fjord and Glacier Bay National Park. We were then scheduled to do a land tour of Denali National Park and Kenai Fjords National Park.
Juneau, Alaska
Our first stop on this cruise was Juneau, Alaska. Our first stop was supposed to be Ketchikan. However the ship we were on (the Sapphire Princess) had developed engine problems while returning from her previous trip and had arrived in Vancouver, B.C. late. Thus we had to wait to board for our cruse. This ultimately caused us to miss two stops. The first was Ketchikan. The second stop we missed was the cruising of Glacier Bay National Park.
Juneau, officially the City and Borough of Juneau, is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alaska, located in the Gastineau Channel and the Alaskan panhandle. Juneau was named the capital of Alaska in 1906, when the government of what was then the District of Alaska was moved from Sitka as dictated by the U.S. Congress in 1900. On July 1, 1970, the City of Juneau merged with the City of Douglas and the surrounding Greater Juneau Borough to form the current consolidated city-borough, which ranks as the second-largest municipality in the United States by area and is larger than both Rhode Island and Delaware.
Downtown Juneau is nestled at the base of Mount Juneau and it is across the channel from Douglas Island. As of the 2020 census, the City and Borough had a population of 32,255, making it the third-most populous city in Alaska after Anchorage and Fairbanks. Juneau experiences a daily influx of 6,000 people or more from visiting cruise ships between the months of May and September.
Juneau is unique among the 48 U.S. state capitals in mainland North America in that there are no roads connecting the city to the rest of the state or North America. Honolulu, Hawaii, is the only other state capital which is not connected by road to the rest of North America. The absence of a road network is due to the extremely rugged terrain surrounding the city. In turn Juneau is a de facto island city in terms of transportation; all goods coming in and out must be transported by plane or boat, in spite of the city's location on the Alaskan mainland.
Downtown Juneau sits at sea level with tides averaging 16 feet (5 m), below steep mountains about 3,500 to 4,000 feet (1,100 to 1,200 m) high. Atop the mountains is the Juneau Icefield, a large ice mass from which about 30 glaciers flow; two of them, the Mendenhall Glacier and the Lemon Creek Glacier, are visible from the local road system. The Mendenhall Glacier has been gradually retreating; its front face is declining in width and height.
These two pictures show us entering Juneau harbor. The first is looking back on our path and shows the harbor's pilot ship approaching our ship. The second picture is of a view of the harbor as we approach and shows another cruise ship tied-up in the harbor.
Picture Number: CM1_7457
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 125 Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
F-Stop: f/8 Lens: 82 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7476
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
F-Stop: f/9 Lens: 66 mm
While at Juneau we took a whale watching excursion. The following are pictures of the flukes (tails) of some of the whales we were lucky enough to see.
Picture Number: CM1_7518
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 400 Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
F-Stop: f/6.3 Lens: 300 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7529
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 320 Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
F-Stop: f/6.3 Lens: 500 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7526
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 360 Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
F-Stop: f/6.3 Lens: 300 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7534
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 360 Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
F-Stop: f/6.3 Lens: 300 mm
Skagway, Alaska
Our second stop was Skagway. The Municipality and Borough of Skagway is a first-class borough in Alaska on the Alaska Panhandle. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,240,up from 968 in 2010. The population doubles in the summer tourist season in order to deal with more than 1,000,000 visitors each year. Incorporated as a borough on June 25, 2007, it was previously a city in the Skagway-Yakutat-Angoon Census Area (now the Hoonah–Angoon Census Area, Alaska). The most populated community is the census-designated place of Skagway.
Skagway was an important port during the Klondike Gold Rush. The White Pass and Yukon Route narrow gauge railroad, part of the area's mining past, is now in operation purely for the tourist trade and runs throughout the summer months. The port of Skagway is a popular stop for cruise ships, and the tourist trade is a big part of the business of Skagway. Skagway is also part of the setting for Jack London's book The Call of the Wild, Will Hobbs's book Jason's Gold, and for Joe Haldeman's novel, Guardian. The John Wayne film North to Alaska (1960) was filmed nearby.
The name Skagway (historically also spelled Skaguay) is the English divergent of sha-ka-ԍéi, a Tlingit idiom which figuratively refers to rough seas in the Taiya Inlet, which are caused by strong north winds.
While at Skagway we took a wildlife excursion. This excursion took us to the Chillicothe River (see the first picture). While there we were lucky enough several bald eagles as well as other wildlife.
Picture Number: CM1_7588
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 200 Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
F-Stop: f/6.3 Lens: 70 mm
The following pictures are of bald eagles we saw in the trees along the river.
Picture Number: CM2_1363
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 200 Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
F-Stop: f/6.3 Lens: 500 mm
Picture Number: CM2_1367_upscale
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 400 Shutter Speed: 1/480 sec
F-Stop: f/5.6 Lens: 500 mm
Picture Number: CM2_1364
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 200 Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
F-Stop: f/6.3 Lens: 500 mm
Picture Number: CM2_1369
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 400 Shutter Speed: 1/480 sec
F-Stop: f/5.6 Lens: 500 mm
Picture Number: CM2_1374_upscale
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 200 Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
F-Stop: f/6.3 Lens: 500 mm
The following pictures are of bald eagles (probably the same ones we saw in the trees) fishing in the river.
Picture Number: CM2_1399_upscale
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 800 Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
F-Stop: f/5.6 Lens: 500 mm
Picture Number: CM2_1404_upscale
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 800 Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
F-Stop: f/5.6 Lens: 500 mm
Picture Number: CM2_1401
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 800 Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
F-Stop: f/5.6 Lens: 500 mm
Picture Number: CM2_1406
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 800 Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
F-Stop: f/5.6 Lens: 500 mm
Picture Number: CM2_1427_upscale
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 720 Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
F-Stop: f/5.6 Lens: 500 mm
The following pictures are of bald eagles feeding in the trees.
Picture Number: CM2_1444
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 720 Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
F-Stop: f/5.6 Lens: 500 mm
Picture Number: CM2_1457
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 1400 Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
F-Stop: f/5.6 Lens: 500 mm
Picture Number: CM2_1452
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 1400 Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
F-Stop: f/5.6 Lens: 500 mm
Picture Number: CM2_1460
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 1400 Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
F-Stop: f/5.6 Lens: 500 mm
The following pictures are of some of the other birds we saw on this excursion.
Robins
Picture Number: CM1_1468
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 16000 Shutter Speed: 1/2500 sec
F-Stop: f/6.3. Lens: 500 mm
Herring Gulls
Picture Number: CM1_7587
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 400 Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
F-Stop: f/6.3 Lens: 300 mm
Collage Fjord
The next place we visited was Collage Fjord. College Fjord is a fjord located in the northern sector of Prince William Sound in Alaska. The fjord contains five tidewater glaciers (glaciers that terminate in water), five large valley glaciers, and dozens of smaller glaciers, most named after renowned East Coast colleges (women's colleges for the NW side, and men's colleges for the SE side). College Fjord was discovered in 1899 during the Harriman Expedition, at which time the glaciers were named. The expedition included a Harvard and an Amherst professor, and they named many of the glaciers after elite colleges. According to Bruce Molina, author of Alaska's Glaciers, "They took great delight in ignoring Princeton." Here we spent several hours just cruising the fjord looking at the various glaciers. Below are pictures of some of these glaciers.
The Harvard Glacier is a large tidewater glacier in Collage Fjord. The glacier has a 1.5-mile (2 km) wide face where it calves into the College Fjord. It is 300 ft thick and covers 120,000 acres of Chugach National Forest. The Harvard Glacier is the second largest glacier in the Prince William Sound, after the Columbia Glacier. It is a popular destination of cruise ships in the Prince William Sound.
Picture Number: CM1_7718
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
F-Stop: f/10 Lens: 95 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7740
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
F-Stop: f/10 Lens: 105 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7721
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
F-Stop: f/10 Lens: 62 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7752
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
F-Stop: f/11 Lens: 50 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7756
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
F-Stop: f/11 Lens: 60 mm
Yale Glacier is 20 miles long. Its width varies from a mile and a quarter to two miles. In its lower portion, the glacier slopes at the rate of 600 to 700 feet per mile, attaining an elevation of 2500 feet three miles and a half from the front, and ascending gradually to 6000 or 7000 foot cirques east of Mt. Glenn. The Yale Glacier, though wider at the terminus, is probably not as long as the Harvard Glacier. It terminates in the Yale Arm of College Fiord, with an unusually irregular front, the south side of the glacier extending several miles further down the fiord than the north side. This terminal cliff is between 200 and 300 feet high. There are well-marked lateral moraines, but no medial moraines. In the absence of a number of large tributaries which supply quantities of ice, and lateral moraines that become medials, Yale Glacier differs very decidedly from Harvard Glacier. The distant tributaries are rather small glaciers cascading from extensive snow fields on the mountain slopes. In the lower part of the glacier there are not many tributaries on the northwestern side, contrasting with a considerable number which descend on the southeastern side from the snowfields and cirques about Mt. Castner and other mountains between College Fiord and Unakwik Inlet.
Picture Number: CM2_1488
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 160 Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
F-Stop: f/8. Lens: 200 mm
Harvard and Yale are only two of the many glaciers in Collage Fjord. The pictures below are two others. Unfortunately, I do not have names for these two glaciers
Picture Number: CM1_7732
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
F-Stop: f/10 Lens: 60 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7777_HDR
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 250 Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
F-Stop: f/9 Lens: 30 mm
Cruising to Whittier
Whittier is a city at the head of the Passage Canal in Alaska, about 58 miles southeast of Anchorage. The city is within the Chugach Census Area, one of the two entities established in 2019 when the former Valdez–Cordova Census Area was dissolved. It is also a port for the Alaska Marine Highway. The population was 272 at the 2020 census, having increased from 220 in 2010.
Whittier is notable for its extremely wet climate – the town receives 197 in of precipitation per year on average – as well as for the fact that almost all of its residents live in the Begich Towers Condominium, earning it the nickname of a "town under one roof.”
These pictures were taken while we were cruising from Collage Fjord to Whittier, Alaska in the Gulf of Alaska.
Picture Number: CM1_7608_HDR
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 250 Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
F-Stop: f/6.3 Lens: 300 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7631
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 200 Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
F-Stop: f/8 Lens: 140 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7616_HDR
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 250 Shutter Speed: 1/2500 sec
F-Stop: f/6.3 Lens: 300 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7633
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 200 Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
F-Stop: f/5.6 Lens: 210 mm
These final two pictures were taken at sun rise in the Gulf of Alaska.
Picture Number: CM1_7665_HDR
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 250 Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
F-Stop: f/8 Lens: 70 mm
Train to Denali National Park
Upon arriving in Whittier we were taken by train to Denali National Park and Preserve. This train is operated by the Alaska Railroad which operates freight and passenger trains in Alaska. The railroad's mainline runs between Seward on the southern coast and Fairbanks, near the center of the state. It passes through Anchorage and Denali National Park, to which 17% of visitors travel by train.
These pictures are of misc. scenes while we were on the train to Denali National Park.
Picture Number: CM1_7832
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 250 Shutter Speed: 1/4000 sec
F-Stop: f/8 Lens: 72 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7918
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 250 Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
F-Stop: f/5. Lens: 102 mm
Denali National Park and Preserve
In April 1916 a bill was introduced in the House and Senate to preserve the Denali region as a national park, by Delegate Wickersham in the House and by Senator Key Pittman of Nevada in the Senate. Much lobbying took place the following year, and on February 19, 1917, the bill passed. On February 26, 1917, 11 years from its conception, the bill was signed in legislation by the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, thereby creating Mount McKinley National Park.The name of Mount McKinley National Park was subject to local criticism from the beginning of the park. The word Denali means "the high one" in the native Athabaskan language and refers to the mountain itself. The mountain was named after newly elected US president William McKinley in 1897 by local prospector William A. Dickey. The United States government formally adopted the name Mount McKinley after President Wilson signed the bill creating Mount McKinley National Park into effect in 1917. In 1980, Mount McKinley National Park was combined with Denali National Monument, and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act named the combined unit the Denali National Park and Preserve. At that time the Alaska state Board of Geographic Names changed the name of the mountain to Denali. However, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names did not recognize the change and continued to denote the official name as Mount McKinley. This situation lasted until August 30, 2015, when President Barack Obama directed Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell to rename the mountain to Denali, using statutory authority to act on requests when the Board of Geographic Names does not do so in a "reasonable" period.
The following pictures are of Mt. Denali. They were taken from the train taking us to the park. They show the mountain from several different views and from different sides. We were told that in general only 30% of the time is any part of Denali visible, as it is generally hidden by clouds. In addition, only about 10% of the time is it FULLY visible. So, as you will see from these pictures, we were very lucky to have the visibility that we did.
Picture Number: CM1_7867
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
F-Stop: f/10 Lens: 75 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7879
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
F-Stop: f/10 Lens: 130 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7895
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 200 Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
F-Stop: f/6. Lens: 160 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7899
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 140 Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
F-Stop: f/8 Lens: 90 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7989
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
F-Stop: f/10 Lens: 116 mm
Picture Number: CM1_8009
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
F-Stop: f/10 Lens: 95 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7876
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
F-Stop: f/10 Lens: 130 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7886
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 180 Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
F-Stop: f/8 Lens: 140 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7896
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 140 Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
F-Stop: f/8. Lens: 90 mm
Picture Number: CM1_7966
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
F-Stop: f/10 Lens: 116 mm
Picture Number: CM1_8004
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 100 Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
F-Stop: f/11 Lens: 100 mm
Picture Number: CM1_8032
Date: May 2024
Camera: Nikon D7100
ISO: 140 Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
F-Stop: f/8. Lens: 145 mm