Looking for a hiking guide to the Castner Glacier? I don’t usually start venturing into the Alaska Range until March. The temperature becomes a bit warmer, the snow is deeper and more supportive, and we...
Jenn and I managed to do a bit of aurora watching in mild(er) temperatures early in the morning on February 1st. I had been keeping my eye on the real-time aurora cameras, and the northern...
One of my best friends, Jenn from New Hampshire just made her second visit to Fairbanks, this time braving the bitter winter temps in hopes of seeing the aurora. After I picked her up at...
“Spruce Ballroom” — photo of the week ending January 24, 2015 | Purchase Print Snow-clad spruce trees at sunrise. Sunrises have to be one of my favorite things about Fairbanks, next to the aurora, and...
Welcome to the Alaska interior, and welcome to the boreal forest. This is a unique biome. Coniferous trees dominate the landscape, yet stands of birch and aspen remain plentiful in many places. The leafy trees...
“Northern Lights” — photo of the week ending January 10, 2015 | Purchase Print After about 20 minutes of bright aurora bands filling the sky, it seemed like the display was fading, the brightest bands...
Aurora Blog Purchase Print Where do I even begin? I mean, the title kind of says it all. As I sit here writing, I am purely exhausted. I was driving to the post office this...
Sitting at the computer last night, I had given up any hope that we'd have any good aurora this weekend, so I started writing a trip plan for 2015. I flipped to my tab with...
My last "photo of the week" for 2014 . . . I'm crazily excited to see what 2015 will bring! The "blue hour" - that period of twilight before the sun rises and after it...
This is the first year we've had pine grosbeaks regularly at the feeder, sometimes up to 6 at a time. It's been at least 8 days in a row now, so I'm hopeful they'll be...
The big dipper and north star is the subject of the Flag of Alaska (designed by 13 year old Benny Benson in 1927, when Alaska was still a territory). I thought it would be nice...
Fairbanks is dark in the winter. The official length of the day on the winter solstice is 3 hours, 41 minutes, and some change. Luckily, we benefit from having a lot of twilight, long sunrises...
Last night I strapped on my snowshoes to take a walk around Murphy Dome. It's not really my favorite spot, but it's a convenient location with a good view and a mostly dark sky. It's...
It seems like every night the clouds roll in fast, no matter how nice of a day it may have been. I still managed to catch some brief glimpses of the aurora before the clouds...
Early last week I took a photo-walk downtown, shortly after we finally had our first significant snowfall. There has been some snow on the ground since early October, but things were beginning to look a...
It wasn't very easy to see the stars when the moon was shining so brightly, but you can still make out the big dipper over the road. The big dipper is the constellation on the...
From October until April we live in a mostly monochromatic world. The sky makes some pretty dramatic colors at sunrise and sunset, but in the middle of the day (for all 3 hours of it)...
