My 10 Favorite Shots of 2021

During 2021, I retired my Canon 5D Mark IV and upgraded to mirrorless, investing in several new camera bodies and lenses from both Sony and Canon. The aurora came out of its 11-year solar cycle slump and danced frequently throughout the year. I took what may be the first ever shot of a packrafter in front of Denali on the McKinley River. I also finally returned to Trident Glacier to to take all the photos of that area I wish I could have during my 2018 traverse from Black Rapids to Healy. And my guiding business kept me quite busy through much of the winter and fall seasons. Here are my favorite shots from the year, in no particular order.

1. Canwell Glacier Ice Cave

Last summer I found a new ice cave in the middle of Canwell Glacier that glowed beautifully. I guided several customers there in July, August, and September so I got to watch it change slowly as it melted over the summer. (Check my hiking tours page for more info.) I like this particular shot because of the pattern of cracks in the ice and the vivid blue color.

2. Snow & Fall Colors

Winter arrived early in Delta Junction last year. In fact, it arrived before fall was over. Heavy snow fell in September and it never fully melted. This created a unique opportunity to photograph fall foliage with snow. I took this shot with my Sony FE 135mm f/1.8 GM lens, which excels at macro shots of larger objects and has quickly become one of my favorite landscape lenses, even if most would consider it a portrait lens.

3. Packrafting the McKinley River

You’d think a shot like this would have been done before, but as far as I can tell it hasn’t. The McKinley River provides sweeping views of Denali and the Alaska Range, but prospective paddlers will have trouble finding any information about the river and lugging a raft there is a complicated endeavor. I took this shot after crossing Muldrow Glacier and floating from near the toe of the glacier to the McKinley Bar Trail. You can read more about that adventure here.

4. Donnelly Dome Aurora

I carried a new Sony a7S III camera up Donnelly Dome with a gimbal to practice shooting aurora video near the end of aurora season in mid-April. My buddy Brian came with me and we were treated to an amazing show on the climb up. The aurora was a bit lackluster while we were on top of the mountain, but it lit up briefly just as we started back down. You can watch video from this night here.

5. Mount Moffit Sunset Selfie

While photographing sunset high on a ridge above Trident Glacier, I saw the small rock pedestal in this photo still being hit by the sun after the other surrounding rocks had fallen into the shadows. I raced to set up this selfie shot and somehow accidentally set my aperture to f/18, but the shot still looks sharp, diffraction notwithstanding. That’s Mount Moffit viewed from the northeast with a spectacular icefall running below. Read more about this photography expedition here.

6. 40 Below Aurora

I don’t know the exact temperature when I took this photo, but it was no warmer than -35°F. Absolutely bonechilling. I remember having to walk briskly up and down the snowy road I was parked along a few times to stay warm. I was guiding another photographer and our camera batteries kept dying every 20 minutes or so. But when the aurora suddenly began erupting I forgot about the cold and immediately dove into thigh-high powder snow to capture this display unimpeded by trees and without the road in the frame. I didn’t have time to extend the legs on my tripod or attempt to find solid footing for it, so my camera was less than a foot above the surface of the snow with most of the tripod buried in snow. I was shooting with a 35mm lens so the trees in the foreground are a bit out-of-focus but I don’t feel like that matters with such an amazing aurora. If I were shooting wider those curves in the aurora just wouldn’t look as stunning.

7. Black Rapids Glacier

For a couple years now I’ve been taking a handful of customers in good shape with plenty of hiking experience to Black Rapids Glacier. One of my customers in March was my former coworker Gary. We enjoyed absolutely perfect weather that day, and the surface of the frozen lake in front of the glacier was mostly exposed. I feel like I’m on another planet when I’m hiking around Black Rapids Glacier, and I feel like this shot captures some of that otherworldly feeling. See my winter tours page for tour info.

8. Mount Moffit Sunrise Selfie

Similar to shot #5 above, this aspect shows Mount Moffit at sunrise viewed from the north. A handful of climbers may recognize Moffit’s “Entropy Wall” in this shot. I love the staggering size of Moffit and could spend an entire summer taking different shots like this. In hindsight, I wish I had placed the tripod a bit higher up so I would have contrasted better against the shadowy area on the mountain, but I can’t recall if that was even possible with the cliff bands out of frame to the right.

9. Mount Hayes Sunset

After taking some nice reflection shots of the Alaska Range at Donnelly Lake before sunset, I was winding over the hills above the lake looking for a nice spot to camp away from the wretched mosquitoes. I saw Mount Hayes peeking through the trees and took this shot handheld on a whim. I ended up liking it more than the tripod shots I took beside the water. The trees in the foreground add some depth to the image and frame the mountain nicely.

10. G3 Aurora

On the night of November 3, 2021 a powerful solar storm hit Earth causing one of the best aurora displays I’ve ever seen, and definitely the best one I’ve seen in several years. I was busy shooting video during some of the craziest moments, but when the aurora was less intense and moving more slowly I focused on taking photos. The color in the aurora was really amazing that night. You can see the video I shot from that night on YouTube here.

Across The Delta River

Mount Moffit viewed from near our second campsite, about four miles away from Trident Glacier and five miles from the base of the mountain.

At the end of an exceptionally rainy July, a stretch of clear weather appeared in the forecast and I decided to make the most of it by setting out for Trident Glacier near the base of Mount Moffit with my friend Ryan. Reaching this remote area in the summer requires floating across the wide and braided Delta River unless you have the means to fly in. On the morning our adventure started, I was caught off guard by a reddish haze in the sky on my drive into Delta Junction, and I couldn’t see nearby Granite Mountain even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Wildfire smoke from Siberia had drifted over Alaska, and I hoped it would dissipate by the next day so the haze wouldn’t destroy my opportunity for close-range big mountain shots.

Recent heavy rain made crossing the Delta River more difficult than usual. Typically, I’m able to wade across many of the smaller braids of the river until I reach the largest one (which is always too deep to wade) and I float across to the mouth of McGinnis Creek with ease in my packraft. But Ryan and I had to hike farther upstream than usual to cross one overflowing braid before we rafted across all the rest, hopping out onto gravel bars a few times to drag our rafts into an adjacent braid. Ryan had packrafted several Alaska rivers before but was still struck by the size of the Delta and its strong currents. While the river is mostly devoid of rapids and large wave trains in this area, there are strange whirlpools and clashing currents where the braids intersect that can quickly spin a raft. Several people have flipped or sunk amphibious vehicles, ATVs, and various watercraft trying to cross the river here, so don’t take the crossing lightly.

Crossing McGinnis Creek. The Delta River is in the background with the mountains obscured by wildfire smoke.

After we reached the far side, we stowed our rafts and waded McGinnis Creek in a braided spot. From there, we hiked up the gravel bar and hopped onto an ATV trail that starts along the north edge of the creek and conveniently leads above tree line. Along the trail, I spotted several wood frogs, including one large frog that sat still while I crept very close for a macro shot. I’ve only seen a few wood frogs in Alaska, though I have heard many more while photographing sunsets at small ponds in the spring when males are busy serenading females. After taking my first ever picture of a wood frog, I felt my photography expedition couldn’t be a total failure even if the wildfire smoke failed to clear.

Wood frog.

We followed the trail across wide open terrain to a private cabin with an airstrip. A network of ATV trails originates from the cabin, crisscrossing miles of otherwise remote wilderness. It’s hard to believe people go through such effort and expense to get motorized toys across the Delta River to make their hunting trips easier and feel no shame about leaving ruts everywhere in a place so wild. It’s not like the Denali Highway or other motorized hunting areas with easier access where people enjoy the trails throughout the whole summer for fishing, camping, and other recreation besides hunting. That being said, the ATV trails sure make hiking easier, muddy as they are.

After crossing another mile or two of open terrain full of berries and wading through a rushing creek, we began ascending a grassy ridge shortly before sunset. I still couldn’t see the mountains through the haze, so I stopped worrying about finding a scenic spot to camp. We arrived at a flat spot on the ridge and pitched our tents. The wind picked up overnight and by 6 a.m. it was rattling my tent so hard I couldn’t sleep. One of the pole’s on Ryan’s tent snapped. I broke my tent down and crawled over to a low spot out of the wind and dozed for a while in the warm morning sun.

Caribou antler shed with Mount Moffit in the background. We found several sheds and bones on the trip and passed signs of bear, moose, caribou, wolf, and sheep.

With the wind howling and the mountains beginning to emerge through the haze, we continued up the ridge. We passed a large granite tor that provided a short respite from the wind, then continued until the ridge joined with a steep tundra slope leading to a higher alpine ridge. A lone caribou climbed up the slope ahead of us, effortlessly gaining elevation and seemingly uninterested in posing for pictures. About half-way up the slope teeming with wildflowers we stopped at an idyllic stream and ate lunch. It was so warm I briefly thought about sunbathing there the rest of the day instead of hiking.

Relaxing near camp with views of McGinnis Peak and Mount Moffit.

On top of the alpine ridge we found a caribou trail and plenty of recent tracks. We continued about a mile along the ridge until it descended several hundred feet to a pass below. With over four miles left to Trident Glacier and quite a bit of uphill and downhill left if we continued forward, I stopped to evaluate our options. While the haze on the mountains had improved significantly, a layer of wildfire smoke still lingered low on the horizon, and I knew it would probably kill the best sunset and sunrise light. Ryan, who brought 10 or 20 pounds too much gear (including a drone, a DSLR with a tripod, a camp chair, a gun and bear spray, a full wardrobe, etc., etc.), couldn’t hike very fast on the uphill sections, and, while he still would have pushed on, I didn’t think we would have been able to hike 16 miles back to the Delta River the next day to avoid rain in the forecast and the need to stretch our food supply. So, we pitched camp with some impressive views of McGinnis Peak, Mount Moffit, Moby Dick, and Mount Hayes, and I did my best to catch a few cool shots of the mountains despite the lingering haze. The wind died down after sunset and I slept great on a cushy bed of spongy tundra.

The unnamed 12,000+ foot mountain between Mount Moffit and Mount Hayes, unofficially named “Moby Dick”.

The next morning, I caught a few detailed shots of the big mountains draped in dramatic shadows before the clouds blocked the sun for the rest of the day. After we packed up, I started hiking back along the ridge by myself to capture some shots of Ryan from a distance in front of Mount Moffit and Moby Dick. As he approached me, two caribou appeared out of nowhere between us. They walked right past me, disappeared over a hill, then reappeared a few minutes later as they crossed the drainage down below.

Caribou.

The route on our return hike led entirely downhill so we kept a comfortably fast pace. We encountered two moose on the way and Ryan stopped to gather blueberries and salmonberries for his wife. I noticed some fresh bear scat on the trail just before we hit the tree line but luckily we avoided a bear encounter. Once we reached the river and retrieved our rafts, we waterproofed our gear and carried our rafts upstream far enough to ensure we could cross the main braids with plenty of room to maneuver. Ryan brought a drysuit so he stayed comfortably warm, but I wore shorts and tennis shoes, so my lower half froze every time I waded one of the braids as we plodded across. We reached the final braid just before sunset and casually floated along it for five minutes back to the truck we left parked beside the river.

I wanted to make this trip in 2019 after being thwarted by rain during my 2018 traverse from Black Rapids to Healy, but I declined to because of the persistent wildfire smoke that covered Interior Alaska most of the summer. It’s a bit ironic that I was thwarted by wildfire smoke this summer when Alaska has had a particularly quiet wildfire season and record-setting rain. I guess I’ll just have to try again in 2021.

Taking in the sunset after packrafting across the Delta River at the end of the trip.