| Monday, November 20, 2023 | | Where in the World has Eve been?!? | Where have I been?
Gee, I am oh-so-glad you asked!
There is a reason I have not blogged here since (yikes) July. I have been doing quite a bit of traveling, and honestly wondered whether those images and stories would be of interest to a readership that comes to OBC for OBX news and pictures, not so much for other places, as wondrous as those places and adventures might be. So I have shared some photos and travelogue snippets over on Facebook, but obviously not here. For those who don’t follow me on FB, here is a condensed version of my last few months.
In mid-summer I learned I had won a private workshop slot with Jared Lloyd, a wildlife photographer who grew up here and whom I have known for more than 15 years. Out of all of his e-magazine subscribers (and he has thousands of those now), his random email prize-selection software picked my address to receive a 4-day workshop, all expenses paid, photographing brown bears during the salmon run in Alaska in September! I flew into Anchorage, he and his partner met me there and off we went to a VRBO house in Soldotna via one of the most picturesque drives I have ever taken, on the Kenai peninsula, and from there, we boarded a float plane every day and headed deep into the remote areas of Lake Clark National Park. And once there, it was, to quote Jared, all bears all the time!
Unlike interior grizzlies, these bears are not overly territorial. Food during the salmon run is so plentiful that the bears don’t waste energy chasing other bears—or humans—from their fishing spots in the rivers and lakes. Once we disembarked from the float plane, we got into small aluminum boats and motored around looking for feeding bears – which were easy to find. Three favorite images from that trip are below and trust me, I could have filled several blog’s worth with just this part of Alaska!
I flew home, was here about four days, and then was off again, this time on a year-long-planned western road trip with a fellow photographer from VA who is also, like me, traveling solo. While each of us has traveled by ourselves and will do so in the future, we both agree now that we are older gals, there is ease and security in traveling together. So we took off on the road to visit the Grand Canyon (Pete’s favorite of all our western trips), Bryce, Zion (my long favorite among all the canyons), and Antelope Canyon (where I had never been). We stayed one night in Tucumcari on historic Route 66 which was not as colorful as usual, having had a hailstorm that damaged much of the neon signage that gave the town its nostalgic charm. But all the canyons were spectacular, each one different but equally astounding. We stayed for my first time actually in the three parks, with cabins at Grand Canyon’s north rim and near the lodges at both Bryce (a short walk to the rim there) and Zion. That gave us ready access to the edges of the day and the best light of the trip, and I returned home with memory cards and my heart full of western landscapes. You will see highlights of that below, too.
I got back just in time to be able to photograph the 6-month old Red Wolf pups alongside the subadults born 18 months ago, several of whom have stepped into a mentoring role for the pups after the breeding male, the father, was killed by a vehicle out on 64, where the wolf had gone to feed on a bear carcass that had in turn been hit and killed but not removed from the roadside in a timely fashion. All the elation of a wondrous month’s worth of travel evaporated with the gut-punch shock of the news of the breeding male’s death (and the further news of deliberate poaching of wolves out in Pungo) and worries over the remaining wolves’ survival and viability of re-establishing a healthy wild population. I am busy working on essays and photographs for a book on Alligator River which Outer Banks Press will publish in 2024, with a target launch date of next summer, so I continue to go to the Refuge a couple times each week.
Now I feel a little breathless, taking you on a whirlwind tour of my last few months. There is more travel coming, so if you don’t mind leaving me a comment below as to whether you want me to keep sharing my adventures off the Outer Banks, or you prefer OBX only content, that would help me tremendously knowing how to blog here going forward. Meanwhile, I will get to work on a blog from the past few weeks of being back home and that will catch you up completely. And as always, thank you again for your interest and support.
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click for larger image | This was our view after we landed in the float plane! That is the Mount Redoubt volcano. |
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click for larger image | After diving or snorkeling, the bears would frequently shake off. Pete's daughter Faith named this one: "Bo Bearek"! |
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click for larger image | What makes this image incredible is that I journaled the night before about this exact phenomenon, sun shafts at Grand Canyon at dawn -- and here it was! |
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click for larger image | With a little assistance and a slow deliberate pace, I hiked down to the bottom of Bryce Canyon (and back up) via the switchbacks of Navajo Trail. |
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click for larger image | A rainy dawn in Zion brought with it the gift I hoped for: a full rainbow over The Towers of the Virgin. |
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click for larger image | While I didn't see the famous shafts of light (wrong time of year), the Secret Antelope Canyon Tour gave wonderful views in one of the slot canyons. |
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click for larger image | The Antelope Canyon tour concluded with a ride out to a private overlook of Horseshoe Bend. |
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click for larger image | Back home in time to witness this tender moment, well back in the harvested fields, between a young Red Wolf pup and a full-grown subadult born in spring, 2022. |
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posted by eturek at 12:23 PM |
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