Morning

I know a mountain is in front of me only because of what I can’t see. It is a moonless morning and in the place where the peak should be is a black, crag-shaped hole in the heavens, empty of the white points of starlight that puncture the plumb-colored sky behind it. One light moves in the void though, it’s my partner Charlie’s headlamp, dipping and bobbing as he makes his way up the trail ahead of me.
The temperature is in the upper 20s and the snow is old and crusty, perfect for kicking in steps. Our progress is slow but steady; he’ll be at the top in 20 minutes, I’ll be there in 25.
On the summit, the wind finds its way into my jacket and chills my sweaty skin. To the east the sky is brightening over a series of peaks that seem to go on forever. It’s easy to imagine I’m deep in the heart of a remote mountain range, but I only have to turn around to see the truth, that I’m within a few miles of half the population of Alaska. Below, rolling west toward the sea is a carpet of city lights and, if I listen closely, the faint sound of automobile traffic and a barking dog rises to my ear.
Then the wind comes up, the sounds of the city die away and I turn my back to face the rising sun. Like the walls of a great fortress, the peaks of the Chugach Range separate Anchorage from a close and very real wilderness. These mountains are home to wolves, moose, Dall sheep and bear—both black and brown, among other wild creatures. And there are rocky spires, glaciers, high lakes and hanging valleys that beckon further exploration.
Not today though: Charlie and I turn and begin to descend. In a half an hour we’ll be at our cars and soon after, under the fluorescent lights of our respective offices. Not a pleasant prospect, but tolerable given the way we started our day.

Warming tent

My wife is filling in as editor of the Alaska Star and so I've been tapped to provide photos on occasion. I was attending the Eagle River tree-lighting ceremony last Friday, shooting kids with Santa, grumpy reindeer handlers and angelic-voiced kids singing carols. As the evening wound down, the 15 degree F. temperature started getting the better of some of the families so they started migrating toward the warming tent. I saw some interesting silhouettes so I walked over andy pointed my camera at the wall and waited. The shadows waivered, unrecognizable shapes twisted and stretched across the wall, then this father and child walked into the tent and scooted in along the wall. The shadow was just what I had hoped and I shot it with my D300 and a 24 mm zoom. I had to flash it, but kept the power dialed back to about -1.7.

Starting over

I was skiing earlier this evening on the ski trails near my house and wondered if slogging around the same trail system year after year might be a sign of insanity, or dementia at least. The temperature was 20 degrees, just about perfect for skate skiing and I had the trails to myself. I've skied since I was a kid, mostly around the Anchorage bowl and for the last ten years on the Chugiak ski trails just north of Eagle River.
I was skating up a hill when I flashed back to a similar night several years ago when I was cruising the trails with a friend, walking the hills and stopping at the top of each to catch our breaths. Now, a decade older, it seems like I can cover the whole trail system in the time it used to take me to go 10 kilometers. I'm not sure if I'm in better shape or if my expectations have diminished enough to intersect with my athletic ability. I suspect the latter.