Mountaineering and Outdoor Photography Course /  by Alasdair Turner

I will be teaching a mountaineering and outdoor photography course this summer.  The dates are  going to be August 19-22nd.  The course outline is listed below.  I have been wanting to put this course together for several years and it has finally happened.  There has been a lot of interest in this course so sign up now to ensure a space.



A stunning photograph on the summit ridge of Denali. Photo: Alasdair Turner


Impress your friends with your phenomenal photographs you took while climbing Mount Baker this summer! Our new course, Mountaineering Photography, has added a day to the Baker Skills and Climb Course to work with a professional outdoor photographer so you can take incredible photographs in the mountains!


We will start with the basics of how to carry and protect your camera, how to deal with cold, wet environments, and what camera is the best choice for you. We will then spend some time preparing our climbing and camera equipment for a trip to Mt. Baker. If you are a beginning climber or photographer, there is no need to worry, we will cover the skills you need to safely summit the mountain and shoot photos.



Photographic creativity is one trick to creating great works of art. Photo: Aidan Loehr


Our camp on the north side of Mount Baker is in a stunningly beautiful place for photography and offers a variety of photographic subjects to practice your skills. Here we can work on shooting the perfect landscape photo or basic climber portraits. A healthy population of alpine creatures, including ptarmigan and marmots, are also very common subjects at this camp.



The contrasting colors of the sky and the tent bring enjoyment to the viewer's eyes. Guide Richard Riquelme on Mt Baker. Photo: Alasdair Turner


Our route, which ascends the classic Coleman-Deming Glacier, makes for progressively more interesting photographic terrain as we start our ascent in the dark and summit sometime just after dawn. From here we enjoy great views of our route, the many alpine peaks surrounding us, and the San Juan Islands. On very clear days, one can also get a view of the Seattle metro area. Groups in this program are kept small (usually three to five climbers with one guide or six to ten climbers with two guides), and throughout the trip you will enjoy a very rich learning and climbing experience.



AAI Team walking off the summit of Mount Baker. Photo: Alasdair Turner
Skills Covered in the Course
Climbing Skills
  • Ice axe and crampon techniques
  • Roping procedures for glacier travel
  • Route finding and hazard evaluation
  • Basic crevasse rescue
Photography
  • Which camera is right for you
  • How to carry your camera in a place that is convenient
  • How to protect your camera from all types of weather
  • How to use the available light
  • Fundamentals of photography for the mountains including composition, exposure, and depth of field

Rope team crosses crevasse on Coleman Glacier. Photo: Alasdair Turner
 Program Costs, Inclusions and Exclusions
Tuition for the program includes the guide's fee, transportation to the mountains (except on private trips), and all group climbing equipment (ropes and hardware). You will need to provide your own photographic equipment (camera, film, batteries, memory cards, etc.). Personal equipment is not included in the program cost, but it can be rented from our equipment shop. A complete list of recommended and required equipment will be sent to you upon registration.
We also offer a porter program for individuals who require physical assistance. Contact us for more information.

On this course, we bring you talented mountain guides who are also professional photographers. Photo courtesy of Mike Powers


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One Month in the Life of Golden Eagles in the Nest. /  by Alasdair Turner

 Last year I worked on a project with Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife.  Part of this project involved putting up a wildlife camera on a golden eagles nest.  I have had the photos (all 7000 of them) on my computer ever since and finally decided to look through them and find some of the better ones.  I picked one from each day from when the camera was put up to the day the birds fledged.  It turned out to be almost exactly a month.  All of these photos are property of Wa Department of Fish and Wildlife and are not mine. 





 

































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A few photos from around Seattle /  by Alasdair Turner

 I went over to my favorite bird watching site in Seattle the other day.  Here are the results.  Nothing great, but a few nice shots. 

Savannah sparrow

Killdeer
 
Killdeer
 
Juvenile red tail hawk?  Not positive about this, but im not sure what else it could have been. 

My Favorite Photos of 2010. My year in review. /  by Alasdair Turner

Figured since I don't have any new content in the last couple of weeks, I would add some of my favorite photos from the year.

The year started with an amazing trip to Southern California for the Rose Bowl.  After the game, which was worth forgetting, we headed to Ventura and Channel Islands National Park.  Certainly Southern California's little gem.



 Back to the Northwest for some amazing winter trips in the mountains. 


The Olympics in Vancouver.
 

Bolivia


 

Golden Eagle work with Fish and Wildlife.
Golden eagle on the back of full size pickup truck. 

Close up of golden eagle

Me and the golden eagle

Two golden eagle chicks in the nest. 

More climbing (or maybe not) in the North Cascades.

Nearing the summit of Mt. Baker after climbing the North Ridge

Summer in the North Cascades.
A sooty grouse on Mt. Baker

 Wedding season.  My good friends Matt and Jess.

Election season, and a chance to photograph the president.  
Barack Obama

And an ex President.
Bill Clinton.

The fall in the North Cascades.  
Mt. Baker at sunrise with a lenticular cloud over the summit. 


My beautiful wife who supports my crazy adventures.

A trip to Galliano Island, BC.  Pretty much rained the whole time, but I did manage to take my wife to a swamp to photograph frogs.  In retrospect that sounds really bad.  Who the hell would put up with that? 
A pacific tree frog.


 Back to the North Cascades for work.  I spent almost an hour bothering this guy.  He cooperated with this photo, which I love. 
Hoary Marmot

Fall is football season.  Autzen Stadium night game. 
 

The a trip to Kauai.

 

An early ski trip to Crystal Mountain.  If my dog can learn to fly, then dammit, i'm going to learn to ski in 2011.  

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Why YOU should go to Bolivia! /  by Alasdair Turner

The Bolivia trip I did last year was truly a life changing trip.  Its likely I will be going back to Bolivia this year and I wanted to post some photos to show you why Bolivia really is one of the best trips a person who enjoys the outdoors can do.

To start with Bolivia is safe.  I travel everywhere with a lot of expensive camera equipment, and Bolivia last year was no exception.  The first couple of days I left it all in my room rather than carry it around, because I was worried about having it stolen.  On day three I realized that even in Bolivia's biggest city there was a surprisingly small amount of crime.  To put it simply, if you use common sense in La Paz you are likely safer than you would be in any major American city.  The people are kind warm friendly and honest.  No one on our trip had anything stolen or heard of anyone having things stolen.  This does not mean we were careless, but I was no more careful here than I would be North America.

Bolivia is cheap.  When I say cheap what I mean is once you get there it is really inexpensive to buy things.  If you are willing to eat street food then you can get lunch for a lot less than a dollar.  A good dinner at a very nice restaurant is likely $10.  Hotels are also a  good deal and there are plenty of hotels that would meet that standards of North America for cleanliness and comfort. 

Bolivia is Beautiful.  I don't need to say anything here.  Just look at the photos.






Bolivia is fun.  The people of Bolivia are some of the happiest people I have met.  They add to the enjoyment of what would be a great vacation anyway.  La Paz is a big city and the night life is a blast!  Great bars, great restaurants and great clubs. 




Bolivia has great trekking.  Just look at the photos.





Bolivia has great climbing.




So sign up for a Bolivia trip on the AAI website and join me in the country I have fallen in love with.

http://aai.cc/Programs/Location/South-America/

See you there!


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The rest of the photos from Hawaii. /  by Alasdair Turner

Here are the rest of the photos worth looking at from the Hawaii trip.  You will probably notice there are not a lot of palm tree/ beach photos.  This is because I don't really enjoy being burned to a crisp on a beach.  I cant sit on a beach and read a book and find that even slightly enjoyable.  I also don't find the typical beach a particularly stimulating place to shoot photos.  Ill start with a couple of my pregnant wife. 

And another of Susan on the beach.

I did the hike out to Kalulau which was very enjoyable and well worth the trip.  It claims to be 11.5 miles one way, but I think its likely a little less than that.  I would guess about 10.  Either way the trail mile markers are defiantly not accurate.  I did the hike out one day and slept next to the beach and hiked out the next day.

The last part of the trail down to the beach.

The coast line here is very rugged.  Apparently that does not stop the goats from enjoying the view. 

An evening view of the stars from Kalalau beach.   

 A very pretty morning after a rainy night. 

 Part of the coastline.

There are plenty of small creeks along the hike.  

 And a few more birds.  The Nene is a native Hawaiian goose.  It is endangered, but has been reintroduced to Kauai and is subsequently doing quite well. 


This is a Hawaiian coot.  Another native species. 

The negative tides create great feeding opportunities for birds.  This night heron was fishing as we were wading about on the beach 40 yards away.  I made for a great set of photos. 



My favorite, maybe from the entire trip. 


One more bird.  The great frigate bird is an incredible bird that can say in the air for a week.  They have the highest sing surface area to body weight ratio of any bird which likely allows them to spend a lot of time catching thermal updrafts so they don't have to flap their wings much.  Another interesting fact is that they cant take off from a flat surface.  If they land in the ocean they can not take off again.  They pluck fish from the sea in flight.  

More Hawaiian Birds on Kauai /  by Alasdair Turner

 Yesterday I finally found the place to see some native Hawaiian birds.  The taro fields here in Hanalei are filled with marsh birds and of course plenty of the introduced species, but the five minutes that is was not dumping rain did make for some good photo time.

Red crested cardinal

Black capped night heron

Alae 'Ula (Hawaiian Gallinule)

Hawaiian Stilt

Pacific Golden Plover

wedge tailed shearwater

Erckel's Francolin
Wandering Tattler

Some Birds of Kauai. /  by Alasdair Turner

I have spent the last few days shooting photos of birds here on Kauai.  Its nice to be able to shoot photos of birds I have never seen before.  Keep in mind that most of these birds although pretty are actually introduced species to the Hawaiian Islands, and that over 25% of the native birds on Kauai have become extinct.

I will post more photos to this post as I shoot them. 

Lets start with a couple of birds that are natives.


And one in flight.  

And a brown booby

 The Albatross might be the most awkward bird I have ever seen, they are slow and clumsy. 
 Then I saw one fly.  This bird might be the most graceful bird I have ever seen fly.  From the moment this bird took off it never once flapped its wings.

Im not one to disturb nesting birds, but i walked up on this one accidentally.  I shot one photo and left. 

I am still working on getting a good photo of a great frigate bird, but its not the easiest bird to capture in the lens. 

And a non native species.  The cattle egret.  These are everywhere here.

Female white rumped shama

Male white rumped shama


hwamei, melodious laughingthrush
Red Crested Cardinal.

Ok I have to admit I am having a really hard time finding any native birds in this place.  The introduction of many non native species to the Hawaiian islands has decimated many of the natives.  The hike i did over the last two days consisted of sightings of Hawaiian wildlife such as the feral cat, feral goat, domesticated chicken, rats and mice.  I should admit however, that I am staying in a house in Princeville.  Due to a generous friend lodging was free.  Unfortunately Princeville is pretty much an environmental catastrophe of a housing development that would be best off washed in to the Pacific Ocean.  I was super excited to here that the main resort here went bankrupt which as far as i'm concerned is what goes around comes around.  Oh well, I guess I will concentrate on how pretty the non native birds are. 

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!