A Favorite Photograph: St Elias Range

Posted byEllenPosted inPhotography, SailingTags:,

I’ve transitioned away from keeping a sailing blog, but hope to write occasional posts, so here’s the start of a little series of the stories behind some of our favorite images.

This is one of my favorite images from our voyages in Alaska because it captures so well so much of what I love about the Great Land. There are the jaw-droppingly huge and beautiful snow-capped mountains, the wilderness of coniferous forest, a calm ocean at dawn, and a hardy little fishing boat heading out to make a living from the sea.

It was autumn when we were moored in this incredible corner of the world, at the edge of the Wrangell-St Elias National Park. When I look at this photo, I can almost feel the cold morning air nipping my nose and condensing my breath as I stood on the dock savoring this view.

It was the first time we’d seen the mountains at all since we had sailed into this bay: it had been raining and blowing a gale for almost two weeks. Then, on this morning, the wind lay down and the clouds lifted to reveal the St Elias range, which includes the second highest peak in America. The contrast of the calm, the silence, and the clearing skies after all the wind and rain of the prolonged storm was stark, and most welcome. Alaska is often like that: the wilderness and the weather can be harsh, but so very worth the effort.

12 thoughts on “A Favorite Photograph: St Elias Range”

    1. Thank you so much! And thanks for the link. Hope you are enjoying sailing in Queensland and were able to do a bit of cruising despite the lockdowns last year.

    1. Thank you! I’ve put a bunch of photos up in the Alaska and Pacific NW galleries, but of course there’s more to come – still haven’t done the other galleries I have planned. And I also plan on writing up more “behind the scene” stories!

  4. Just love your description of the image/scene … makes us feel like we are there with you!

    1. Thank you! More photos already up in the galleries, but I’ll be posting the stories behind more of them soon! Our boat is currently in Hawaii – we sailed her up from the South Pacific- still sorting through about 3 years of photos from there!

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