Alasdair Turner

Hummingbirds /  by Alasdair Turner

The cold weather creates a challenge for small birds, and for the last few days it has been below freezing.  The hummingbird is the smallest of the small birds that we see here in Washington with an average weight of about 4g (a nickle weighs 5g) there is not a lot of mass to freeze.  For them this means they must feed almost constantly in order to have enough calories to stay alive.  For me this means that I have no trouble bringing them in to the feeder and shooting photos of them from the warmth of my kitchen.  Warmth being relative since the window has to be open.  I took this opportunity to practice stopping motion with a flash unit rather than the camera shutter since no camera has a shutter speed fast enough to stop the motion of a hummingbirds wings.  Here are some of the results.   

This fist shot was lit entirely with the flash using no ambient light.  Hence the black background.   

This shot was done the same way but with a longer shutter speed and brighter background light. 

This photo was shot as the previous photo, but the motion was stopped with the flash.  The slight ghosting effect on the wings is caused by ambient light hitting the wings while the shutter is still open before and after the flash goes off. 
The shutter speed was set at 1/250 the flash unit was mounted about 1 foot from the bird on its lowest setting which creates a very short burst of light.  Now the trick will be to get that perfect shot with lots of detail and just a hint of motion on the tips of the wings to add something extra to the shot.

 Stay tuned for more. 

Skiing Mt. Rainier /  by Alasdair Turner

We did a little ski tour of Mt. Rainier out of the Paradise parking lot the other day.  Unfortunately the weather was not the best for either skiing or photos, but the snow was pretty good.












Jason demonstrating perfect ski technique. 

Powder

Nice!

Raven
It really is winter now.  Sub alpine fir, and mountain hemlock at the paradise parking lot. 

Oregon UCLA Game at Autzen Stadium. /  by Alasdair Turner

I made the trip down to Eugene yesterday for the Oregon Ducks stomping of UCLA.  Not really a good game, but certainly a good experience.  Here are a few photos of the evening.

Another first down for the ducks.

Autzen Stadium


The Duck.

It was a pretty night for a game. 

This game was pretty much over after the first two possessions. 

One Last Trip to Mt. Baker Before the Winter Season. /  by Alasdair Turner

Last week I did a final trip to Mt. Baker for the year.  I had a choice of going to either the south or the north side, and because I had not been to the south side all year, that was the choice.  It turned out to be a good choice.  Pretty views, lots of blueberries, and several wildlife encounters with almost no other people around made for a great final trip of the season.

Sunset on the Easton and Deming glaciers on the south side of Mt. Baker. 
The nights are getting long this time of year, so after a lot of sleep we headed up to the glacier to work on some skills.  The hike to the glacier was as pretty as I have ever seen it.  The sun low in the sky makes for great light from a photo standpoint.

The Twin Sisters from the Railroad Grade.
I have not seen a larger population of marmots anywhere in the Cascades as there currently is on the south side of Mt. Baker.  I spent a lot of time bothering these guys.  I have always thought I am not the most patient person in the world, but when it comes to patients, the marmot may be the least patient of all.  After being scared and running into their hole I quickly set up the shot I wanted and waited less than a minute for the marmot to poke his head back out.  It really is amazing that more predators have not figured this out.

The vicious protector of the high alpine.

Curious Marmot

An evening walk in dark and foggy weather made this photo possible.

Looking west at sunset.

The following day I had some time to wander around and  check out some of the other wildlife, and head up to the Park Butte lookout.  With a forecast of 6-8 inches of rain overnight chances were the sky would be interesting making for some good photos, but in typical North Cascades fashion when I got there it was foggy and wet.  

A dusky grouse. 

Fall colours.

The mountain hemlock. 

Western hemlock trees near camp. 

Another curious marmot.

Park  Butte lookout on a Cascades fall day.

I dont see these guys often, but its always a treat when I do. 

A few hours after getting back down from the lookout the weather cleared for what would surely be a sunset to remember, so I ran back up to the lookout for the second time in four hours and shot the following photo. 

The Twin Sisters range from Park Butte lookout. 

A Trip to the Enchantments. /  by Alasdair Turner

Pat and I just spent two days in the lesser traveled parts of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area.  Our cross country journey covered more that 20 miles and some of the most amazing terrain on what may have been one of the most perfect days of weather in Washington this summer. 

A perfect lake with perfect colors. 
Maybe we should just camp here. 
My shadow on the fall larches. 
I think this may be my new favorite spot in all of the cascades!
Our tour took us through a well traveled part of the Alpine Lakes which is the only place we saw any people. 

The Lost World?
Pat on a summit. 
The Enchantments from up high. 
So you may have noticed that I did not really go into depth on where this trip took us.  We had no real plan on this trip.  It was just a trip into the mountains.  It was an adventure to cover some ground we had not seen before.  We did that.  You should too.  Go out and adventure in the mountains and see somewhere you have not seen before.

Mt. Shuksan, Sulphide Glacer, Summit and Skills climb with AAI /  by Alasdair Turner

This last weekend I guided a trip up Mt. Shuksan.  I have said for a while now that photography and guiding go hand in hand, and this trip really reminded me that this is true.  I don't like being out in the rain, but guides in the Pacific Northwest spend a lot of their time putting on a happy face and pretending to have fun in the rain.  Its often cold, miserable, and not really that much fun.  So what does that have to do with photography?  Often times the most dramatic skys and the best views are not found in sunny warm weather, in my experience they are found just after really crappy weather, as the clouds start to break and sun peaks through.  Photography is all about lighting, and this last weekend made for some interesting photo opportunities.  I am fairly sure if I had not been working, I would have gone home due to the weather.  Guiding often forces me to stay in a place and suffer through weather that I would not if I was on a personal trip, which makes for great photos.  Below are some photos from the weekend.

The North Cascades at dusk. 
Mt. Baker at sunrise.
The thing that made this three day trip really great was the fact that we did have one day of good weather.  So on the second day we made a break for the summit of Mt. Shuksan.  Its almost winter up there, and the conditions were more like a spring climb then a early fall climb.
Mt. Baker with a perfect cloud cap on top.
Interesting clouds over the summit pyramid of Mt. Shuksan.
Approaching the summit pyramid. 
Ruth climbing into the belay.
Looking down the route at the group below.
This really feels like winter climbing.  Ruth midway up the route. 
Half way up the route. 
Looking down the summit ridge with Mt. Baker in the background. 
Ruth on the summit ridge with the summit behind her.  She is sitting down because of high winds. 
Mitchel and Matt making the last few steps to the top. 
Summit shot. 
Heading down from the summit pyramid. 
Ruth back at camp after the summit. 
We all woke up some time after midnight with high winds and lots of rain.  I packed the camera deep in my pack surrounded by two garbage bags for the very wet hike out.  Summer in the Cascades is over!

Frogs! /  by Alasdair Turner

I spend a good part of the day yesterday at a beaver pond shooting photos.  I have never really realized the importance of beavers in the ecosystem until today.  The wetlands they create are incredible and the species that live in them is diverse and beautiful.  I got a little carried away shooting photos of frogs.  I was fairly happy with the results.  So here you go.  First few photos are of pacific tree frogs.  The last photo is a frog yet to be identified.  If anyone  knows what it is please let me know. 
Not sure what type of frog this guy is so if you know please let me know. 

Dragontail Peak Backbone Ridge. /  by Alasdair Turner

Last week I did  a great trip to the Enchantments for a bit of rock climbing with Tom.  This was by far my best work trip of the year.  We started with a morning of climbing at Index, on the lower Town Wall.  We climbed Great Northern Slab, Japanese Gardens and Godzilla.  From there we did the drive to Leavenworth and climbed Classic Crack.  The goal of the day was to teach an Englishman how to crack climb.  We tried, but as with all crack climbers first days it was a bit of a struggle.  All in all Tom did a pretty good job despite showing full on British crack climbing technique by attempting to lay back of face climb around all the cruxes.
The next day we hiked into Colchuck lake to use our newly learned crack climbing technique on Dragontail Peak.  Is there any better way to test a new crack climber than to put them on a 30 meter long 5 inch offwidth crack?  Below are some photos of the climb.  
Tom in the offwidth.

More offwidth fun. 

The top of the offwidth pitch. 
Looking down the route. 
Midway up the route. 
Colchuck lake in the background.
The summit. 
Sunset on the summit usually means its going to be a long day/night. 
We got back to camp sometime after dark, drank beer, ate food and went to sleep.  The hike out the next morning was quite nice and we did a little climbing in the afternoon, which was also followed by beer.
A pika posing for a perfect photo. 
Dragonfly at the lake. 

The trip was ended by a run up OuterSpace the Leavenworth classic.
Tom on the crux pitch with high winds creating some interesting clouds. 

Lunch with President Obama and Patty Murray. /  by Alasdair Turner

I had the chance to shoot photos at Senator Patty Murray's fund raising event in the Westin Hotel in Seattle Yesterday.  Here are some of the photos of the speakers at the event.  



To respect privacy I have not included the individual and group photos on my blog.  If I shot your photo at the event please email me and I will be sure to get you copies of any photos I shot.  

Update on the Golden Eagle Work /  by Alasdair Turner

I mentioned in some previous posts (here, here and here) that I had done some work with the WA Department of Fish and Wildlife on Golden Eagles. Much of that work involved getting to eagle nests and removing any prey remains that were in the nest after the young had fledged. Today I got some the the results of that work emailed to me.
At one nest was the following: 1 coyote pup, 2 pheasant, 1 magpie, 1 crow.  The next nest contained: 3 yellow-bellied marmots, 1 hoary marmot, 1 deer fawn, 1 short-eared owl, 1 chuckar, 1 pheasant, 1 raven, 1 snake, and another unidentified bird.  The third nest contained: 2 coyote pups, 4 yellow-bellied marmots, 1 deer fawn, 1 chukar, 1 magpie, 1 rock dove, 1 snake.
The nest below had no above anchors and the rock below was of such poor quality that every time I tried to leave the ground I would end up pulling grapefruit size chunks of rock down.   I ended up climbing in from the ledge on the left of this photo and tunneling through a very small constriction on the far left of the photo after tossing a large pile of rock that was blocking my way.  Although the rope would have done very little to prevent me from hitting the ground if I was to fall I was more worried about the rock above collapsing as I crawled through. 
Here I am in one of the nests collecting prey remains.  Its also known as picking up dead things and putting them in a bag. 
 One nest still had a young bird in it and as I came to the nest that bird fledged. It was then captured, banded and fitted with a GPS tracking device.
Measuring the eagle before we carried him back to the nest. 

It was then carried back to the nest, but it decided it liked the outside world more and fledged for its second and final time later that day. The map below shows the movements of that bird since we fitted it with the GPS device. 
Courtesy of WA Dept. of Fish and Wildlife
There are many wind turbines in the area where this nest is so lets hope our bird manages to avoid the hundred or so that are there now and the hundreds more that are planned.

We also revisited the nest I placed a trail camera in earlier in the year.  This was to retrieve the trail camera which hopefully had been shooting photos of mother and two young birds for the last month of their time in the nest.  
Here are the birds when I visited the nest for the second time. 
The good news on this nest came before we got the ropes in place when a juvenile eagle flew right over head.  The great news came when we got home to find out there were 6000 photos on the trail cameras memory card and all but the last couple had eagles in them.
A photo from the trail camera showing mother bird, the two chicks and a coyote pup.  (WDFW Photo)
This is one of the last photos of the chicks in the nest.  The next morning they were both gone. (WDFW Photo)  


Although I have not been in that many nests I probably have the distinction of having sat in more of these (legally) than most other people.  The nest are huge, one which I went to was about 8 feet long and 6 feet wide.  The one in the photo just above was typical of sizes which is about 5 to 6 feet wide.  Not all of the nests are as stable as I would like.  I certainly never un-clipped from the rope while at any of the nests (with the exception of one which did not require a rope to get to, but turned out to be the most unstable).  I made the call that if it did collapse it would result in bodily harm but probably would not kill me.

All the nests I went to had several other nest nearby.  Eagles will often build more than one nest in a given area or on a cliff.  They tend to rotate from one nest to another over several years. The reason for this is not know for sure, but one theory is that parasites build up in the nest over several years and moving to other nests allows them to die off.  We did visit several tree nests which I did not climb to.  That was fun when I was a kid, now it looks downright scary.  Luckily I was with another person who was more that willing to climb tree nests.
Tree nest in Eastern Washington.
I usually don't like to create blog posts without a bunch of pretty pictures since that is what I am supposed to do, but I kind of felt the content of this post makes up for it.  But...  Here is a few pretty pictures just in case.  I shot these all in the last week or so.
Ravens don't often let you get this close. 
Closer still.  I only shoot with a 200mm lens. 

Juvenile Robin

Golden Eagle Nest Work /  by Alasdair Turner

I just got back from a week of working with WA Dept of Fish and Wildlife. The work was some of the more interesting that I have done this summer. I spent the week collecting prey remains from from golden eagle nests in an attempt to identify what the eagles are eating. Eagles will put their nests on cliff faces often in caves to protect them from the weather. Getting to many of these nests was pretty challenging and each presented a unique problem. Some nests have no overhead anchors and very loose rock making for difficult climbing conditions. Once at each nest I would collect any pellets and any remains of prey that were in the nest.

Me sitting in a particularly challenging nest.

I found all sorts of animal parts in the nests including deer faun legs, coyote skulls, lots of marmot skulls, game bird legs, raptor skull, and snake parts. From a non-biologist perspective it appears that eagles will eat anything available and are pretty good hunters.

One of the last nests we did still had a chick in it. Soon after this photo was shot the bird fledged and made a remarkably graceful first flight out of the nest and down to the valley below.


The bird was captured, banded and fitted with a GPS tracking device.

Banding the bird. This is the business end of an eagle. The talons are the main danger in dealing with eagles.

Adding the band.

The eagle with the GPS tracker.

And a couple of eagle portraits.


The eagle then had to be returned to the nest. This involved wading across a creek, hiking up a hill, climbing down to the nest and putting the bird in.

In this photo I am standing in the nest so I can put the bird back. After grabbing the bird I put it in the nest and quickly climbed out. The bird stayed and we left. (WDFW photo)

Wildlife from the last few days. /  by Alasdair Turner

More out of luck than any other reason, I have run into lots of wildlife in the last week or so. I am currently in Eastern Washington doing some work with WA Dept of Fish and Wildlife on golden eagle nests. Although I have not yet run into a golden eagle, I have seen a few other pretty interesting things. Here are some photos.

I am not sure what type of bat this is, but my guess right now is a Townsends Long Eared.

We estimated there were around 100 bats in the cave.

California Quail

Hummingbird Nest

Mountain Chickadee

Red Squirrel.

I am still trying to get a photo of a bushy tailed wood rat, but I cant get him out of the engine to get a photo.

Baker 6 Day Course /  by Alasdair Turner

Here are some photos from a recent trip to Mt. Baker. This was an enjoyable trip despite the weather. It was certainly a memorable one due to reaching the summit in the worst weather I have ever been on the summit in.

Ed practicing his ice climbing.
Iryna practicing hers.
A group heading down from the summit. This weather did not last long.
Our camp.

Ed and Iryna.
Iryna taking advantage of the short stint on good weather.
Iryna.
Dana practicing self arrest.
Ed getting over his fear of heights.
Dana and Lincoln Peak.
Heading to the summit.
On the summit in crappy weather.
Oh look at the wonderful view!

Mt. Rainier Kautz Glacier Climb /  by Alasdair Turner

I am way behind on posting photos from the trips I have done lately, so hopefully I will have a bunch of posts in the next week or so. I will start with my latest trip since it has the fewest photos to sort through.

A Mt. Rainier greeting agent. Much more friendly than the Rangers. Actually the rangers were great! Not like North Cascades National Park.

Here is a panorama from our camp. Mt. St. Helens in the distance.
Crossing the Nisqualy Glacier.

Justin, Kate, and Liz.

Another guide services camp below us.

Scott near the summit.

Scott at the summit.

Liz with about ten steps to go.

Fist Bump!

The rappel down the Kautz Ice Chute.

Kate back at camp.

Heading out in less than perfect weather.

A panorama of the entire Muir Snowfield.

American Alpine Institute Bolivia Trip: Part 3 Illimani /  by Alasdair Turner

I am back in the not so sunny Pacific Northwest. While on many hours of flights yesterday I sorted through hundreds of photos from the Bolivia trip. Not only did I sort the ones from the part 3 but I went back and added photos from part 1 and 2 so be sure to go back through the previous 2 blog posts to see some new photos.

The last few days of Part 2 consist of a summit of Huayna Potosi. I got a nice photo of it, but unfortunately did not climb it due to the flu.

Kids when we got off the bus at the base of Illimani.

One of our porters and a horse.

AAI guide Juan with north summit of Illimani in background.

Some porters coming down from high camp.

This lady kind of makes me ashamed to not be carrying my own stuff up to high camp.

Diccon making the last few steps to the summit.

On the summit. Diccon giving the universal "I feel great" sign.

Summit shot.

Heading down with the summit in the background.

The north peak in black and white.
This guy greeted us back to camp. This photo does no justice to how big these birds are.

Leaving La Paz. The houses of the Altiplano catching early morning light.
El Alto and La Paz from the air with Huayna Potosi in the background.
See you next year Bolivia.

American Alpine Institute Bolivia Trip: Part 2 Climbing in the Cordillera Real /  by Alasdair Turner

We just got back from part 2 of the AAI Bolivia trip in the Cordillera Real. This was a great trip in an amazing area and we managed to tag three summits along the way.

The first day we take a boat to an island on lake Titicaca.

Later that day we head up to a base camp which we spent the week at. Here the burros bring all our gear up to camp.

Next day we did our first acclimatization hike. Here Diccon reaches the col with Huayna Potosi in the background.

From the summit we have a great view of Condoriri and izquierda (left) wing. Two days later Danny and Diccon made an attempt at the Izquierda via the huge snow face in the center. They turned around about three pitches from the top due to being short on time.

This is a close up of Cabeza (head) of the condor.

A group shot on the summit of Pico Austria. Over 16,000ft.

The next day we climbed our second summit (Piramide Blanca). Unfortunately the white pyramid no longer has any white and should be renamed the black pyramid. This peak was over 17,000ft.

On the summit of Piramide Blanca. Our campsite is located between the two lakes in the background.

From the summit we could see our next objective. If you look carefully you can see several people climbing the left ridge to the summit.

The other AAI group heading back down the glacier as seen from the summit.

The next day we did some water ice climbing near the base of the glacier. This was good technical practice.

Juans son doing some ice climbing.

Ray after getting down from climbing.

We do things right at AAI. Birthdays in the mountains are important too. A hand carried cake for Jim's birthday.

That night I spent some of the evening shooting some photos.

After a much needed rest day it was time to climb again. On our way to our main goal of the day we climb over a first summit and down the other side. Here another group of climbers head to the summit of Tarija.

Diccon on the summit of Tarija.

Our main objective for the day (Pequeno Alpamayo). The Standard route heads up the ridge split by sun and shade. Our route would be the direct route up the face to the summit. We started just to the left of the rock and after two pitches traversed right below the horizontal band of rock 3/4 of the way up the route. The last pitch followed the perfect snow ridge on the right skyline and finished directly on the summit.

From the top of the second pitch we could see our other group heading up the normal route.

Diccon near the top of pitch 2.

Looking down from the pitch 3 belay.

Diccon nearing the belay.

On the way down.

Heading out the next day

Back at the bus.

Amazing skys on the way back to La Paz.