I promised last month to provide some more pictures of whales breaching. So here they are. While I usually try to tell a story, since I find myself with so many similar photos of whales breaching that I am just going to post the photos.

I know that is a little lazy on my part, but it was amazing seeing all of those whales and I couldn’t stop taking pictures or even not scan them off of the negatives.

They are impressive creatures.

Here are a whole bunch.

After three months off I am back with more Alaska photos. This month is the introduction the whales of Glacier Bay. An earlier post covered Johns Hopkins glacier. Since the photos were not ordered by time, I do not really know if this is before or after the visit to Johns Hopkins. Click on any image to see a full-sized version.

We were in Alaska in late June and whales were everywhere.

There are humpbacks but also orcas.

I determined that I had been using a wrong basic setting on my film scanner so I went back and re-scanned about 60 photos. That and a maintenance trip to The Other House used up the weekends this month.

So enjoy this animation of a double whale breach.

I’ve scanned a bunch more Alaska photos but haven’t had time to write a post for them. So enjoy this scenic picture of Alaska.

I’ve gotten behind on the Alaska pictures so here is a teaser of a whale breaching.

This is the second in a series of posts based around our trip to Alaska in 2006. The first post covered our visit to Denali National Park. This post will cover our visit to Johns Hopkins Glacier, deep in Glacier Bay. It also includes a fun video of the glacier calving, that is dropping off a big chunk of ice into the sea.

When we left Denali Park, we traveled south by train to Anchorage and stayed overnight. The next morning we flew to Juneau and boarded our ship, the Spirit of Alaska. Run by the now defunct company Cruise West, the Spirit of Alaska was a small ship with only 70 passengers. This is quite a difference from your traditional cruise ship that carries 2,000 or more passengers. It is more intimate and in Alaska, you get to be much closer to the sights and wildlife.

This is the view up into Glacier Bay, looking to the northwest. This picture was taken as we were leaving the bay, but it is an accurate picture of what it would look like when we entered the bay. Click on any picture to get a full-sized view.

As we got into the bay leading to Johns Hopkins glacier, we could see the classic glacier shape snaking up the valley to the mountains beyond.

Back in 2006, we took a vacation to Alaska. We went the whole nine yards, starting off in Fairbanks, overnighting in Denali National Park, and then cruising on a small ship our of Juneau for a week. While this was in the age of digital cameras, I had very good Nikon film camera equipment (Nikon FM2 with a motor drive, 35mm f1.4 and 85mm f1.4 Nikkor lenses) and so I took pictures on film. 13, 36-exposure rolls of them.

These pictures sat in a box in our house in Lake Riverside from that summer until last December. I had been given a high quality film scanner for Christmas and was intent on finally getting to edit and share the pictures I took over 14 years ago.

When I had the film processed, I had Samy’s scan the negatives in fairly low resolution. I loaded these lower resolution pictures into Lightroom and began to select candidates for scanning. Having selected 115 of the roughly 450 pictures, I set about scanning and editing the photos. This post is the first batch.

As I mentioned above, we started the trip in Fairbanks. After a nice visit with my brother-in-law, we started the official part of the tour. There was a river boat ride, a visit with some real sled dogs and their trainer/owner, and panning for gold. I haven’t gotten to those photos yet, and there wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about them since I am omitting photos of the family per my usual policy.

From Fairbanks, we took the Alaska Train south to Denali National Park. It is a pretty four-hour ride with ongoing commentary from a tour guide. Here is a view out of the train window as we round a curve. Click on any picture to see a full-sized version.

Upon arrival at Cantwell at the entrance to the park, we boarded a bus for an six hour or so drive across the park to Kantishna Roadhouse on the far west side of the park. Kantishna Roadhouse is a rustic lodge catering to tourists like us. But the real thrill was the drive across the park. It was overcast and drizzling when we set out, but the views were great.