Driving the Alcan (Alaska 2010, con't)

Previous posts in this series:

Part 1: http://fredlanga.blogspot.com/2010/07/going-to-extremes-alaska-2010.html

Part 2: http://fredlanga.blogspot.com/2010/07/route-planning-alaska-2010.html

Part 3: http://fredlanga.blogspot.com/2010/07/alaska-trip-2010-days-1-4.html

Part 4: http://fredlanga.blogspot.com/2010/07/hd-video-posted-driving-alaskan-highway...

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Alaska 2010: The Alcan, con't.

Well, yesterday's post of an HD video was a partial success; Posterous erred (and then Blogspot followed) in turning a link into a live embedded low-res video, which I was trying to avoid.

I wanted to point you directly to the Youtube site, which allows HD. The posted video isn't much at low-res; but at, say, 720p and higher, it's much nicer.

Posterous also has a tendency to group photos as a mass attachment, even if they start embedded in running text.

I'm writing this post on an external HMTL editor, trying to see if it makes a difference.

Here's a link to yesterday's HD video page. The video itself should net show up here. If it does, Posterous is out of control. : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLKzQ4hb5dQ

Here's a Tinyurl link to the same page. This should work correctly --- show just as a link --- no matter what: http://tinyurl.com/383esy9.

Now, let's try some photos from the Alaska Highway. These are tiny thumbnails: click on any photo that interests you for a larger version.

It was interesting to see how the light, vegetation, geology and weather varied so much during the day. I started in bright sun on rolling hills.

It was a gorgeous day, and the road quickly passed into near-wilderness.

This was my first view of snow-capped mountains in the distance:

Although this was BC, it still had some of Alberta's "Big Sky" feel to it:

Traffic was very light; a smattering of trucks, motor homes, campers, cars and motorcycles. I could go for miles without seeing another vehicle. The small towns along the way had a bit more traffic.

The land started to show some wrinkles:

Some of the scenery was almost identical to what you'd see in the US southwest:

The Alcan road climbs through Stone Mountain Provincial Park; gorgeous mountains in the northernmost part of the Rockies. Note the orographic rainshowers in the distance; a dramatic sky perfectly suited to the harshness of the rockfaces.

The mountains aren't that tall there (topping out only at 5,000' (1500m) or so) but the high latitude and harsh weather forces the treeline down below even those modest elevations. As I went through Summit Pass, there were summer snowbanks and small glaciers all around.

After passing Summit Lake, the road headed down through some jaw-droppingly vast outwash deltas: A gray landscape with nothing but naked rock mountains and jumbled boulder streambeds to be seen.

It was an awesome drive with great scenery and agreeably challenging roads. I took few pictures through the area because I was too busy concentrating on driving!

Back below the treeline, I spotted this fellow as I rounded a bend:

The northern sunlight was amazing, almost like polarized light. This next shot is the same moose, with a 90 degree shift in point of view.

I think the plant leaves must all be as phototropic as possible there; each leaf and needle aligned, in its own tiny way, square-on to the sun to capture as much energy as possible during the brief summer.

The first moose photo was with the sun behind me, and the sunlight is striking the plant leaves head on; lots of sunlight being bounced back at me.

In the second moose picture, the sun is off to my right; that's the energy vector. From the side, the photo sees mostly the darker edges and undersides of the leaves; as well as between the edge-on fol1age, into the deeper shadows of the forest.

Two photos, a few seconds apart, but with totally different lighting!

In the photo: The moose is a young bull, his nub antlers still in heavy velvet. The photo has an oddly painterly quality to it. Part of it's the strange lighting, and part of it is the moose's coat: His brown summer coat isn't fully in yet, and the remaining spiky, light-colored tufts of winter coat look almost like brush strokes in an oil painting.

I like the effect. In fact, I "oil-ified" the previous image, and deliberately enhanced its painting-like qualities. I'm gonna frame this and put it in my living room!

A few miles later, I drove past Muncho Lake; a flooded river valley with the road notched into rock.

On a small outwash delta, I thought this was a goat, but I later learned it's a young Dall Sheep.

Heading NW through BC, the road got narrower and the scenery wilder.

In some hills, I spotted this critter: a black bear, Ursus americanus.

He/she waddled down to a small pond for a drink. (These are telephoto shots; I was a safe distance away.)

He/she then tracked, found, and pounced on something small to eat.

Here, taking notice of something in the grass tuft:

Found it!

The pounce: both front paws on target!

Further west reminded me of the American West, despite the far-northern latitude.

But, holy smokes, I wasn't expecting this!

A small herd of endangered Woodland Bison (Bison bison athabascae) lives in the area that the Alcan corridor crosses. The bison contentedly munch the grasses alongside the highway.

The highway follows the Liard River for a number of miles. It's a major regional drainage whose waters flow to the Arctic Ocean via the huge Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories.

The Alcan dips in and out of the Yukon several times as the road weaves back and forth across the BC/Yukon boundary. I'm not sure whether this fellow was a Yukon bear or a BC bear. I don't think he cared either way.

When the Alcan first crosses deeply into the Yukon Territories, you finally see the official welcome sign.

I spent the night camping outside Watson Lake, Yukon.

(to be continued)