First day of (somewhat) shooting

Took my first few shots today! Nothing special; in fact, all the locals say the place looks pretty ugly right now compared to what it was in the winter and what it will be in the summer in a few weeks. Breakup (Alaska's short version of spring, named as such for the ice "breaking up" on rivers, lakes, and the ocean) is a pretty ugly, muddy, wet, brown, dirty time. All the snow is melting, but nothing is green yet. Yuck. Anyway, here are some shots. They're all straight out of the camera, since I'm not set up on work computers at the office yet and my laptop is way too old and slow to run Photoshop.

I tagged along a scouting/training/orientation trip with the new summer seasonal staff. The purpose was half to orient the staff with the trailheads and campgrounds to which they might be directing inquiring customers at the visitors center, and half to check out the conditions at said trailheads and campgrounds in order to determine their open/closed-ness and whether or not to send said inquiring customers to said trailheads and campgrounds.

Most of them were in that nasty stage between perfectly frozen over and usable for hiking, biking, snowmachines, 4-wheelers, etc. and all melted and ready to go for summer. Which means, muddy, boggy, icy, snowy. A lot were closed for breakup until early June.

Chena River, right by Angel Rocks:

Chena River, across from Granite Tors

Chena River, right off of the Granite Tors trail

View up on the ridge viewing the greater Granite Tors area and Chena River basin

A young, dumb moose just chillin' in the road

A burned-out area on the Granite Tors trail; supposedly burned in the late 2000's

The (still) snowed-over Granite Tors trail...the snowmelt is long overdue, this should have been clear three weeks ago apparently

So, as you can see, breakup is still in full swing. It's usually summer by now, but it's not yet, because Alaska keeps wanting to be cold. It hovered in the high 30's all day today at these places. Usually it's in the high 50's at this time of year.

Breakup, and, by extension, summer, is late this year.