45995 Kaskawulsh Glacier - 1989
Last pair of archived shots from the days of Kodachrome, which coincided with my backpacking days in the wildest places I could get into. This is one of Kluane National Park's great valley glaciers, more than a mile wide at its terminus, winding away into the Icefield Ranges where it is born amid Canada's highest peaks.
This was a solo trip, and had its share of challenges. After tiring of forcing my way through tiny aspens on nonexistent game trails, I tried the river flats and quickly bogged down in glacial silt. Almost lost my boots in the muck. It took me five minutes just to turn around. When I climbed back up the bank, there were fresh grizzly tracks; no doubt the bear stopped and had a good laugh. Crossing one alluvial fan after another with my loaded pack, over mud, water, gravel, boulders, deadfall (tree trunks and branches) and other debris washed down the slopes, at one point I just sat there, weeping. Seriously. I really had to make an effort to pull myself together.
My reward was solitude in a majestic setting, with glimpses into the heart of this northern wilderness. I had to climb a hill from my camp for this shot. There is some haze that even a polarizing filter couldn't remove. It isn't the best shot I made that week, but it does suggest the scale of the landscape, and so it slides into the series as my representative shot for 1989. One more to go!
Photographed from a hill overlooking the Kaskawulsh Glacier, Kluane National Park, Yukon; scanned from the original Kodachrome 64 slide. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©1989 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
45995 Kaskawulsh Glacier - 1989
Last pair of archived shots from the days of Kodachrome, which coincided with my backpacking days in the wildest places I could get into. This is one of Kluane National Park's great valley glaciers, more than a mile wide at its terminus, winding away into the Icefield Ranges where it is born amid Canada's highest peaks.
This was a solo trip, and had its share of challenges. After tiring of forcing my way through tiny aspens on nonexistent game trails, I tried the river flats and quickly bogged down in glacial silt. Almost lost my boots in the muck. It took me five minutes just to turn around. When I climbed back up the bank, there were fresh grizzly tracks; no doubt the bear stopped and had a good laugh. Crossing one alluvial fan after another with my loaded pack, over mud, water, gravel, boulders, deadfall (tree trunks and branches) and other debris washed down the slopes, at one point I just sat there, weeping. Seriously. I really had to make an effort to pull myself together.
My reward was solitude in a majestic setting, with glimpses into the heart of this northern wilderness. I had to climb a hill from my camp for this shot. There is some haze that even a polarizing filter couldn't remove. It isn't the best shot I made that week, but it does suggest the scale of the landscape, and so it slides into the series as my representative shot for 1989. One more to go!
Photographed from a hill overlooking the Kaskawulsh Glacier, Kluane National Park, Yukon; scanned from the original Kodachrome 64 slide. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©1989 James R. Page - all rights reserved.