Chilkat River, Alaska
Friday, November 20, 2009

    We awoke this morning to a very cool crisp day. The temperature at 6:30 am was 18 F and there was very little wind. A lot of blue was showing in the sky and the temperature during the day soared to a high of 22 F.

    We drove out earlier to the Eagle Preserve this morning for a couple of reasons. One was that we have been seeing brown bear tracks in the snow during our treks along the riverbanks. The bears only come out a night, so we hoped we might see a visitor that was still out in the early morning. No luck. We did see a couple of moose cows on our drive out, but there were too far away to try for any photos.

    The other reason for going out early on a partly clear day was to catch that special morning light on the mountains, snow, ice, and water. As was typical for this trip, the eagles were in the trees, but not very active in the morning, but that left us time to try to capture some of the landscape in the low-angle morning light. We saw a sundog pair (pillars of rainbow) along the edge of the river, and the snow-covered mountains were very pretty.

    Scouting around, we found a location where several dead salmon had been beached. It was a bit difficult to hike down to the water’s edge there, but once in place, we set up our tripods, readied our gear, and sat for a few hours in the snow. My hands got pretty darn cold today, not to mention my rear end. My left leg also went to sleep, but you just have to put up with little inconveniences to try and get some good action shots, if you’re lucky. In this case, we were rewarded with some close action. Too close, sometimes, with the lens I was using some of the time.

    Sometimes when there is a congregation of several photographers in one area and the action starts, it sounds like a presidential press conference with all the shutters firing on high-speed repeat!

    All in all, it was a good shooting day and a great way to end a week of wildlife photography. Dinner was again at the Bamboo Room. I should mention that we’ve become pretty good friends with everyone that works there and know all about the owner’s kids, history, the basketball game between the middle school boys and the high school girls, and the play rehearsal lat night. The whole town is nice and as you might expect, here are some interesting characters around. Commercial fishing and tourism run the economy in Haines. Haines has become a Mecca for extreme skiing, where the skiers are lifted by helicopter to the top of the very high and rugged mountains so that they can ski down paths of there own making.

    There was a chance for Northern Lights in the evening, but a layer of high clouds developed and we weren’t able to even see stars. I guess that will have to wait for another trip.

    We decided to have our second critique session on Saturday morning instead of tonight so that everyone would have a little more time to get there pictures processed. We need to be packed up and on our way to the ferry by 11:30 am on Saturday.