Winter

A nice sunset over the Wilkes Range, a mountain chain at the mouth of the Stikine River between the North Arm of the river and LeConte Bay.

Just after a snowstorm looking at the river delta on a low tide.  The white in the distance is the snow covered ice from the frozen river.  This view overlooks the Muskeg Meadows nature preserve and Wrangell's airport.

I realize this photo isn't too exciting and is even hard to tell what it is but I thought it was kind of interesting.  This was from the beach near my house and is a strip of sunlight shining through a slot in a beached log onto a wet rock beneath it.

These are interesting photos in that they distinctly show temperature gradients on this mountain by differing amounts of snow.  This mountain is actually an island right at the edge of the Stikine River delta where the shallow delta water abruptly drops off into the deep ocean water.  Depth goes from about 10 feet to over 200 in a very short distance.  The name of the island is Kadin Island which was named for one of the many Russian naval officers who came to Alaska in the 1800s.  This island is a little bit over 1800' so it is pretty easy to tell at what elevation the temperature decreased when you know that temperature decreases by about 3.5 degrees F for every 1000' of elevation gained.  This may not hold exactly true here in our marine environment and high humidity air but it's close enough I think.  The photos are dark as this was well passed sunset just after a snow squall moved through.

Another clear cold day with what I thought was going to be an incredible sunset.  The sunset was nice but not what I had anticipated although it was pretty enough for me to stand in the cold wind for an hour to see what it morphed into.