My view right now. Homer, Alaska.
Remote
Lee Petersen
@leepetersen@alaskan.social
mastodon 4.7.2Photographer writing Alaska hiking, travel, wildflower guides and other junk. Living in Fairbanks, Alaska. Lots of stuff here: http://lwpetersen.com/links
1252 Followers
59 Following
50 Posts
Joined June 24, 2023
SUBSTACK: Field Notes From The North:
WEBSITE ARTICLES AND GUIDES:
PHOTOGRAPHY:
New on Field Notes from the North: a day of wandering Denali's tundra in peak fall color, from Sable Pass toward the Teklanika. Bull moose, bears, and one very strange shuttle driver. (The back half is for paid subscribers)
https://lwpetersen.substack.com/p/late-summer-hiking-and-more-part
Noctilucent clouds over the Alaska Range last Friday night. These form about 50 miles up, at the edge of space, and glow because they're still catching sunlight long after the ground has gone dark.
The downward-facing flower of one-flowered wintergreen (Moneses uniflora), seen from below. The angle shows the star-shaped stigma most flowers hide. Info in my Alaska Wildflower Guide: https://www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-wildflowers/moneses-uniflora-one-flowered-wintergreen/
#alaska #wildflowers #bloomscrolling
Extreme close-up of a female willow catkin blooming in Fairbanks in early spring, its dichotomous stigmas catching pollen. Part of a post I wrote a couple of years ago when I was getting more into macro photography: https://lwpetersen.substack.com/p/willow-macros-getting-closer
#alaska #bloomscrolling #wildflowers
Boosted by @czarbucks@vmst.io
Sea stacks in Spire Cove, Resurrection Bay, near Seward. Erosional remnants, harder rock left standing as the surrounding cliffs wore back.
#alaska #kenaifjords #seward
Icebergs at the calving face of the Columbia Glacier, Chugach Mountains, near Valdez.
Bald Eagle on the beach at Anchor Point near Homer, Alaska.
From my latest post: https://lwpetersen.substack.com/p/homer-sunsets-eagles-and-flowers
#alaska #wildlife #eagle #birding
Anthers opening, revealing pollen on a male willow catkin. Taken yesterday in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Today's view...
Harding Icefield Trail, Kenai Fjords National Park
Planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in March of 2012, taken over a small stand of spruce trees on Murphy Dome.
Prints and wall art: https://photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Alaska-Photos/Landscapes/i-Nn5B92t/A
Alpine forget-me-not (Myosotis asiatica) in the White Mountain National Recreation Area, late June. Alaska's state flower, and one of the more common wildflowers in the alpine and subalpine zones of the interior.
Info in my wildflower guide: https://www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-wildflowers/alpine-forget-me-not-myosotis-asiatica/
A break in the clouds came right at the waterline at Ballaine Lake last night. The warm light reflecting off the ripples rather than a still surface.
More of my recent photos: https://photos.lwpetersen.com/Recent-Photos
The Teklanika River in Denali National Park early this morning.
Late night to early morning walk along the trails at UAF. The horsetail (Equisetum, one of the oldest genera of vascular plants on Earth) collected droplets on each whorl.
More of what I've seen lately: https://photos.lwpetersen.com/Recent-Photos
Macro detail on a male willow catkin last night in Fairbanks. Those yellow spheres are anthers loaded with pollen; the red ones are still waiting to open. Willows are one of the first woody plants to bloom in the interior.
One of the videos from my latest Substack post. One of the (now) smaller glacier caves we visited over the winter was inaccessible to the main chamber because of water.
https://lwpetersen.substack.com/p/three-days-in-the-alaska-range-day
#alaska #glacier #hiking
A cross fox plays with her silver kit, Fairbanks, mid-May. Cross and silver are both color morphs of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes).
https://photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Alaska-Photos/Wildlife
This was quite the spot in the Gabriel Icefall on the Gulkana Glacier, taken earlier this afternoon.
A very active aurora display over a spruce boreal forest in Fairbanks, Alaska, in early February.
Prints and wall art in my aurora gallery: https://photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Alaska-Photos/Aurora-Borealis
Aurora over the Goldstream Valley, Fairbanks, January. A very active night.
https://photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Alaska-Photos/Aurora-Borealis
Pussy willows just started emerging in the Fairbanks area about a week ago, still plenty of snow on the ground. This is an extreme close-up of a female willow catkin. The green-to-redish structures are pistils, each tipped with a branched, 4-lobed yellow-green stigma that receives pollen, usually from insects like bumblebees.
Wildflowers as Art gallery: https://photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Alaska-Photos/Wildflowers-as-Art
#alaska #wildflowers #spring #fairbanks #macro #bloomscrolling
Weekend scenery with friends in the Chena River State Recreation Area. Mostly pretty weather except for about an hour.
Aurora over a boreal forest near Fairbanks, early January. An unexpected geomagnetic storm lit up the sky, with temperatures around -25°F. Nothing seems to move in that cold. The air is always so quiet and still.
Prints and wall art: https://photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Alaska-Photos/Aurora-Borealis/i-xGzGWTp/buy
Waterfall along the Prince William Sound Coast near Valdez, Alaska, on a rainy day in summer.
Found this young moose browsing in a seasonal streambed yesterday morning near Fairbanks. The willows are just starting to bud, and the moose are already on them. They'll strip the new growth as fast as it comes in through May and June.
Giant seracs in the Gabriel Icefall on the Gulkana Glacier, Alaska Range. Seracs are towers and blocks of glacial ice formed where glaciers fracture as they move over steep terrain. The dark banding visible through the ice is debris. Rock and sediment compressed into layers over decades of accumulation. In the valley below, the braided channels of Phelan Creek and Summit Lake are visible in the distance.
https://www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-guide/gulkana-glacier-hike/
A little aurora on a starry and very windy night along the Angel Rocks to Chena Hot Springs Trail in the Chena River State Recreation Area.
Prints and wall art available in my aurora gallery: https://photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Alaska-Photos/Aurora-Borealis
Meltwater falls off the headwall above Gulkana Glacier, eastern Alaska Range. Shot from the glacier surface. The pink at the base of the falls is watermelon snow, Chlamydomonas nivalis, a red algae that blooms in snowfields that persist in the summer.
Hiking guide: https://www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-guide/gulkana-glacier-hike/
The terminus of College Glacier in the Alaska Range, and the braided meltwater stream of College Creek draining into Phelan Creek and eventually the Delta River. The debris on the glacier surface is supraglacial moraine, rock that's been carried on top of the ice as the glacier moves.
https://www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-guide/college-glacier-hiking-guide/
Still a few weeks out from wildflower season in the Fairbanks area, but Calypso bulbosa, the fairy slipper, is one of the earliest orchids in the boreal forest. It has a short bloom window in late May. The yellow crest and red spotting on the labellum are the lure for bumblebees early in the season.
Full profile in the Alaska Wildflower Guide: https://www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-wildflowers/calypso-bulbosa-fairy-slipper/
Aurora over the Chena River on the Angel Rocks Trail, early March. The green reflection in the foreground is refrozen overflow water seeping up through cracks in the river ice and refreezing on the surface. It's a common winter feature on interior Alaska rivers, and on this night it turned into a mirror.
Alaska Hiking Guide: https://www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-guide/
The Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) are starting to nest at Creamer's Field. I can never get over how pretty the iridescent patterns on their backs are. Taken last night (May 15, 2026).
Jumbled seracs in the Gabriel Icefall on the Gulkana Glacier, eastern Alaska Range. Seracs are ice towers formed where intersecting crevasses open as the glacier moves over steepening terrain.
https://www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-guide/gulkana-glacier-hike/
Symmetry and texture at the seasonal wetlands pond at Creamer's Field tonight at midnight.
A few more images from Creamer's Field around midnight the other night. Many of the spring migratory birds have moved on, and the swallows are present but quiet. The most noticeable sound was the wood frogs calling from the seasonal wetlands pond. Rana sylvatica is the only frog species in the Fairbanks area, and hearing them at midnight in early May is one of the more reliable signs that spring has actually arrived.
Creamer's Field guide: https://www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-guide/creamers-field/
Replying to
Woolly lousewort (Pedicularis lanata) along Nome Creek on the way to Mt. Prindle in early June.
https://lwpetersen.substack.com/p/overnight-to-the-chimes
#wildflowers #alaska #bloomscrolling #hiking
Replying to
Story and more photos on my Field Notes from the North: https://lwpetersen.substack.com/p/three-days-in-the-alaska-range-day
A partially snow-covered crevasse on the Worthington Glacier at Thompson Pass in the Chugach Mountains. This is exactly why lingering summer snow on a glacier is so dangerous. It bridges over open crevasses like this one and sometimes hides them completely.
https://www.lwpetersen.com/definitions/glaciers/crevasse-glacier/
Aurora over Angel Rocks near Fairbanks, Alaska in late April. Only about a month until it's dark enough here to see the lights again, and I'm making plans to chase them in some pretty cool places this year.
More aurora: https://photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Alaska-Photos/Aurora-Borealis
#alaska #auroraborealis #hiking
Some mosquito bullshit tonight on Wickersham Dome
#hikingsucks
Replying to
Wildflower info in my guide: https://www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-wildflowers/alaska-boykinia-boykinia-richardsonii/
Replying to
@hopeward@sunny.garden Lots of insects! Bees, bumblebees, wasps, yellow jackets, moths, and butterflies.
Day one of three in the Alaska Range. We followed the Gulkana moraine past where I'd been before, found the season's first saxifrage, and let the trip have no plan at all.
https://open.substack.com/pub/lwpetersen/p/three-days-in-the-alaska-range
#alaska #hiking #glacier