Alaskan Wildlife

Here's one more montage of Alaska photos... this time centering around scenery and wildlife. I used my old-fashioned camera with a mega-zoom lens (you know, the ones actually require film, manual winding, and expensive photo processing) to get some wildlife shots. A note if any of you visit Alaska, point-and-shoot cameras are pretty pointless for wildlife shots, as you can still barely see the animsls here. I'm told you can even rent a zoom lens for your camera on the internet.

But nonetheless, these are pictures from our glacier and wildlife cruise out of Seward. The picture on the right is a bald eagle that sat above on a cliff and watched for fish. We spotted several eagles, and this picture definitely doesn't do the scene justice.

You can barely spot three sheep on the cliff to the left. It's quite impressive to see how those animals manage such difficult terrain, and also easy to see why gravity is their number one adversary.

We felt pretty lucky to spot a pod of killer whales, as the park ranger said it was the first day they'd spotted whales since April. We also saw humpback whales, but they weren't nearly as exciting.

You can get a good glimpse at the sea lions lounging on the rocks in the picture below. Our favorite line from the trip came from this encounter. As we neared the animals, the park ranger said something like, "As we approach the sea lions, we need everyone to be quiet. These animals are endangered!" So folks, please, save the sea lions and keep quiet. Turn off your radios for good measure. I hear they are rather nervous critters when it comes to well, you know... I'm sure anyone would be nervous when it came to a crowd watching procreation.

Here's a waterfall streaming down from a glacier. There were several pictures like this along the way. The water is filled with sediment and while it is a beautiful blue, it is very opaque.

We spotted the mama moose and her two babies on the side of the road. From what I've been told, a moose is like a big docile cow normally, but more like a raging bull when it is mad. It was fairly common to see a moose on the side of the road, and we even saw one swimming across a river.

There are more Alaska pictures, but I've shown enough here... suffice it to say Dave and I loved the trip and count it as the best vacation we've spent together.