When we booked our lodge trip, it was going to be 100% bears. Bears and in the morning. Bears before lunch. Maybe even bears at lunch. Mother nature had a different plan this year. The bear viewing was thin. Sometimes we wouldn’t find a single bear. We almost always found something.
Oliver, the owner offered up a couple of options to help fill the time since the bear viewing was less than spectacular. One option was fishing, but given the lack of salmon in the area, that seemed futile. The other option was a trip to a small island they referred to as Puffin Island. It was actually named Duck Island by the surveyors many years ago, though there are no ducks.
Since our puffins on the glacier cruise were hard to photograph, another chance at them would be a good thing. He pulled his boat up on the beach, where we crossed the mud-flats to board. Luckily it had a drop-down set of steps, much like a private plane that would let us easily get into the boat.
Eight quests took the cruise, along with Oliver and his wife. It was about a 30 minute boat ride. We were able to dock and disembark on the beach, surrounded by a tallish mountain and a sea-stack and hundreds of puffins, zipping around, taking off, landing, making puffin noises, paying no attention to the eight invaders to their world.
There were almost too many to photograph. In addition to the puffins (all horned puffins), there were a few other birds. However, the surprise was a small short-tailed weasel. He was extremely curious about these invaders. He would run, hide, then pop-up checking us out, then continue his game of hide-and-seek. Eventually he got board with his toys and went off to do weasel things.
The trip was quite successful, and provided more beautiful Alaskan landscapes. We returned in time for lunch.
After lunch, Belle loaded us up and took us out looking for more bears. Alas, none were to be found. However there was another star there. Three bald eagles took watch over the beach. One was pretty much ignored by every photographer and guide. One was too far out on a sandbar to reasonably get to, but one was a Goldilocks… Just right.
Not only was our ATV of 8 guests there, so were two other ATVs with guests from the other lodge. In mass a dozen photographers snapped away at this eagle. Big 600mm lenses to point-and-shoots with zooms focused in on this one eagle sitting on some driftwood. The light was amazing. The scenery was amazing. It would be hard to not come away with good photos… except the eagle was still a pretty big distance away.
It’s not an ATV
Its an AATV (Almost All-Terrain Vehicle) or a NQATV (Not-quite ATV). One of the crossings that we had to cross had been seriously dug out with all of the ATVs crossing it. Belle’s ATV couldn’t pull both trailers full of passengers, so she would shuttle us over 4 at a time, dropping on one cart.
She then loaded us back up and off we went.
As a group, we would shoot for a few minutes and then take a few steps forward, shoot a little longer, take a few more steps and repeat until the eagle got board posing for the paparazzi and took off. Belle and our ATV group found the eagle again, and about three of us crossed over the swampy meadow to get another view at this eagle. Again, he let us get quite close to him.
About an hour later, we came upon a bear, that the lodge didn’t have a name for. She was a decent size female. We watched as she crossed the meadow, where the ATV couldn’t go. Belle raced us around to the beach and around to a point were she would be approaching the beach. We got out of the ATV and followed Belle into the meadow where our bear was in a small channel, apparently taking a bath. Afterwards, she crossed over onto the beach and we were able to stay ahead of her getting a really good photo op.
At the lodge, they like to name bears based on a physical feature (like Crimp Ear) or Aggrow (Aggressive Sow). When looking at the photos, I noticed that she had a dark mark down her nose. It reminded me of the white diamond mark on a horse, known as a “blaze”. Sherry and I decided to name her Blaze. It’s a great bear name, and it’s an identifying feature, so we hope the name sticks.
Little did we know when the day started, how epic the photography and sights would be today.
We were dealing with cloudy, overcast, and sometimes rainy conditions the entire trip. But there was something else going on. The sun was creating a weather event of its own: Space Weather. The forecast was for strong solar winds this night. Strong solar winds means the possibility of aurora activity. We also had a great situation for seeing and photographing the Milky Way. The moon set before the skies became dark enough.
The fates lined up and we had mostly clear skies. Some clouds were on the horizon, but we had a clear view of everything. Lake Clark is probably the darkest skies I have ever witnessed. The number of stars were insane. The Milky Way was quite visible. Jupiter shined on the eastern horizon. The Pleiades star cluster shined above the more northerly horizon. The Andromeda galaxy was visible in the photographs. The Big Dipper and Little Dipper stood out in the sky, and a green and pink glow started growing to the north west.
Everything it, well at least until my battery died.
Photos of puffins, unexpected weasels, a patient eagle, a photogenic bear and near perfect astrophotography conditions lead to an epic day.