Join me for a virtual tour up the Haines Highway through the Yukon to enjoy the colors of the high country.
I sit here today enjoying a continual string of what a photographer might call an “18% gray day.” There is little to look at outside. A relatively monochromatic dreary and drippy environ that typifies Southeast Alaska in the month of October. I have nothing to complain about. In fact, I am rather enjoying the drab. It is a comforting quilt of soft texture that encourages “nesting.” In fact, I have made good use of the turn in weather. I have turned to indoor projects such as repairing a spare Toyo heater, brainstorming and remediating a fireplace draft issue and addressing the need to install window trim. Not the least of which has been the opportunity to cull through, and throw out thousands of photographic images taken through the season that do not deserve to make the cut. These are things that do not get done while the weather beckons us to explore nature’s greatest earth on show. We know what is coming. Plenty of time to catch up with our list of “things to get around to maybe” during the short days of northern latitudes.
What’s so great about it anyway?
While I am enjoying the grey days of early winter, I turn to colorful images of one of the very best autumns I have enjoyed in years. Alaska is big. It sports a landscape that covers 18 degrees of latitude (1,241 statute miles, 1,078 nautical miles) and 60 degrees of longitude (2,400 statute miles, 2,100 nautical miles). In fact, Alaska is not only the northernmost state in the Union, it is the westernmost AND easternmost state, as it crosses the International Date Line for all practical purposes. (Physically, Alaska spans nine time zones across its width, though the entire state is set to Juneau time). The state has an elevation range of 20,310 feet. I mention all this for a simple reason. One can enjoy autumn for an extended period of time here in Alaska if you are willing to do some travelling. We have enjoyed the rich colors of the tundra in Denali in mid-August, and returned to Haines to revel in the variegation through September and October. Of course there are years when the wind comes along and makes short work of autumn in a day. This was not such a year.
Time for a road trip
Having gone to great lengths to describe Alaska, it turns out this pictorial blog will focus mainly upon a stretch of road that is located largely in Canada. The Haines Highway connects to the Alaska Highway and thereby Southeast Alaska to interior Alaska through a brief portion of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. The Haines Highway peaks out at about 3,000 feet. Between Haines Alaska and Haines Junction in the Yukon lies 150 miles of one of the three most beautiful roads I have ever had the privilege and pleasure to enjoy. It skirts the edge of the Tatsenshini-Alsek and Kluane National Parks in Canada. These parks are the edge of the largest expanse of roadless wilderness in North America. They are contiguous with Wrangell Saint Elias and Glacier Bay National Parks in the United States and combine to form a UNESCO world heritage site. I hope you will enjoy a view of the very edge of this unfathomable expanse of God’s country (wherein God is a bear) as I share and indulge myself in a bit of color on an otherwise 18% day.
Many of the photos are linked to high resolution images on my Smug Mug gallery. Click on the photo, and it may just open up a more detailed image.
Along the Haines Highway, still in Alaska, Saksaia Glacier has always been a favorite, especially when framed within the grand country that hosts this dynamic landscape, be it fireweed or the current display of autumn colors
Started off the season with six cygnets, and we still have six with their parents in the pond at 38-mile. Saw them today on our trip up to Kluane. All grown up. Happiness.
The Haines Pass contains some of the very best glacial morphology I have even seen. After a very warm and dry year, much of the ice in the high country is better exposed (for better or worse) than I have ever seen before.
Now in Canada and climbing toward the summit of the Haines Highway. Morning light rendered a clarity of vision and display that required many pauses along the journey.
Along the pause, this is what happens when you take a couple of pretty naturalist nerds on a road trip to the Yukon. Let’s see what that bear had for breakfast. A great day up to Kluane; colors ablaze on the tundra and foliage in full glory. Between the three of us, nothing escaped our attention.
Climbing into the sub-arctic tundra (ablaze in seasonal glory) we saw the termination dust of new snow early on. As the day proceeded we saw more of this and more than termination dust that was fresh to the day in the heart of Kluane.
The photo-op-stop for the documentation of the termination dust allowed me to see a feature that I had never noticed before. This appears to be a volcanic cinder cone. What would the relationship be to its place within the more recent glaciation that dominated the country?
Moving up the Haines Highway, the termination dust is turning into fresh snow on the peaks, framed in layers of color offered by aspen, fireweed and tundra. Fire and Ice. The layers in such a shot is what attracts my eyes. Quite a parfait complete.
Moving up the Haines Highway. I am always taken with this shot. I have taken this one before, and felt compelled today to capture heaven’s offering of great light on verigated yellows and greens as the flora bends to winter’s call. The continuation of the highway into the slides on the mountain carries my eye to a lofty horizon.
The ghost spirit of trees rise to the heavens on the mountains flank, reflecting the children of foliage below.
The road to the First Nation village of Klukshu, along the Haines Highway.
At the end of our journey up into Kluane Kountry, beyond Haines Junction we stopped to see Sheep Mountain and sure enough, it was full of Dall sheep.
The colors in Haines Junction were in full jubilation. I was taken with this spray of vibrance and felt compelled to intoxicate myself in autumn’s mirth.
The colors in Haines Junction were in full jubilation. I was taken with this spray of vibrance and felt compelled to intoxicate myself in autumn’s mirth.
Fresh snow, delightful lighting, shameless flora. Kluane Magic
Fresh snow, delightful lighting, shameless flora. Kluane Magic
The world is the geologist’s great puzzle-box; he stands before it like the child to whom the separate pieces of his puzzle remain a mystery till he detects their relation and sees where they fit, and then his fragments grow at once int a connected picture beneath his hand. -Louis Agassiz
Daily it is forced home on the mind of the geologist that nothing, not even the wind that blows, is so unstable as the level of the crust of this Earth. -Charles Darwin
We may be witnessing the fingerprint of God.
The high country collaring the higher peaks of Kluane National Park outside Haines Junction in the Yukon Territory is screaming in mirthful colors while quiet snows put the elevations to rest.
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face.
-John Donne
Mirthful fireweed giggling under solemn stately stolid birch.
Dezdeash delight, confectionary dreams. Haines Junction
The high country awakens from a slumberous morning, sweeping away the dreams of its collective flora and fauna.
It is such a privilege to be witness to the interplay of light and the season’s whims. So many new and splendid views with each journey along life’s and Haines’ highway.
When you look at the mountains, you think that they are standing still. But they are moving, like the clouds. Such is the manufacture of God, who perfected everything. He is fully Cognizant of every thing you do. – Qur’an 27:88
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand
things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject
and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
-Tao Te Ching
Another run up the road. More morning magic along the Haines Highway
The source is not a thing. It is emptiness or stillness itself. It is an emptiness that is the source of all things. The source is the great womb of creation; pregnant with all possibilities.
While many of the colors of the high country have been lost to frost, the dewy mornings always bring out a fresh bloom of all that remains.
Always a sucker for the reflections. Wonderful complements of greys and color. If it were not for the misty damp mornings, the remaining colors would fade to pale memories.
Three Guardsman stands as a proud tall sentinal on the Haines Pass. I am also taken with how fast erosion is trying to take it down. My geology professor used to maintain that the faster they go up, the faster they come down.
A lovely moment of abstraction on Three Guardsman Lake. Reflection or Rorschach?
High meadows along the Haines Highway. Home to swans and dreams.
A lovely varigation along West Nadahini Creek on the Haines Pass
Perfect parfait landscape near Mosquito Flats and West Nadahini Creek along the Haines Highway
The high country along Haines Highway is nestled under a quilt of soft autumnal colors
Lao Tse said wisely that a good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. I am happy to take my time and let the day fall where it may, particularly in an expansive sweep that challenges my soul to be filled.
“Silence is the language of God. All else is a poor translation. Let silence take you to the core of life.” -Rumi
A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour. Approaching the grandeur of Kluane and the hamlet of Haines Junction from the Yukon’s capital of Whitehorse.
So much to see along life’s highway; a new vision at every turn and a new opportunity to pause and appreciate. Will I get home someday?, or am I already home?
If you enjoyed this year’s autumn celebration, may I offer a few likewise-links:
An expanded collection at: The full Kluane gallery
An appreciation of nature, history and culture is a passion I love to share through photography. Be you a photographer or someone who just appreciates God’s handiwork in the world, if you are coming to Haines I invite you to join me for a private tour or workshop.
….Were you ever out..in the “Great Alone ” ……With a Silence you almost could hear
Robert Service , Bard of the North
I have actually “heard” that silence and it is quite dramatic. Yes, one can “hear” it. It has a presence that even noise (i.e.: Wind) cannot compromise.
I never saw the White Horse!
Absolutely beautiful, Tom. I may have to come up and rent that Su Casa, and become a client.
Chris (from Saline)