Capturing the Moment

Long exposure of all the cascades towards Bingham Falls in Smugglers Notch, Vermont. The crowds are down and the air is crisp here in Stowe, Vermont. The Green mountains have already seen a dusting or two of snow, but nothing serious yet. It feels like winter is around the corner though. This is a great time to get outdoors, visit some waterfalls, and have these beautiful places all to yourself. Just a month ago, the crowds here were immense. Traffic was backed up for miles with all the leaf-peepers coming to see the forest ablaze with the colors of Fall. But now we have entered our 'stick season'.

  I took this shot out of the gondola window as we rode up to have lunch at the Cliff House, high atop Mt. Mansfield. There is a natural phenomenon that occurs in late September, early October here in Stowe, Vermont. All of our deciduous trees turn a thousand different shades of red, yellow, and orange. This is known as Fall Foliage. Thousands of leaf-peepers descend on our small town, many in big buses, just to witness the transformation of our forest. If you happen to catch this amazing sight at its peak, it can look like entire forest are ablaze with color. But, you have to get lucky with timing, as we never know when peak season will be, and how long it will last.

  On our way down after our picnic at the summit. It wasn't the clearest of views, but we did get blue sky for a moment. I was afraid it was going to be much colder up there than it was. Wow. My two kids, Fisher and Catalina, joined me for an epic 7 mile hike today climbing the Monroe Trail up to the summit of Camel's Hump. This was by far the biggest ask of their young bodies yet, as the trail takes you up over 2,500ft to the 4,083ft summit. And its not just the distance and elevation that make it tough, the trail itself is filled with rocks and boulders. Luckily, we are a family of rock-hoppers. By the end of the adventure, I could tell they were both quite tired, but they never gave up. We even had to hustle without stopping at the end in order to not be too late to pick up their younger sister.

  It is not unusual to find huge steller sea lions hauled out on the rocks around Sucia Island. I was surprised to see two smaller harbor seals right next to them on the little rocky outcropping. We made it through the entire 1000+ miles of the famed Inside Passage. We started in Juneau, Alaska, went all through the Canadian 'Great Bear Rainforest', and emerged back in the States at the San Juan Islands. We had a full day to explore Sucia Island, one of my favorites.

Just incredible views on our 9.1 mile, epic paddle from the mouth of Walker Cove, up the fjord to where the Safari Explorer was anchored in the back. East of Ketchikan, in Southeast Alaska, lies some of the most pristine and untouched wilderness in the Inside Passage. Dubbed with the title of National Monument, Misty Fjords is a true wilderness experience. It is known for 2,000ft cliffs rising straight from the water. The sheer rock faces are broken only where the Alaskan rainforest can gain a foothold. Sometimes it seems like trees are hanging on to sheer rock faces. The tide can rise 20ft, uncovering a vast intertidal system, also clinging to the exposed rock faces. While the glaciers that formed these giant fjords have since disappeared, the misty mountains remain, beckoning the avid explorer...or in this case, our expedition guest.

We watched this brown bear catch five salmon in about ten minutes. He is going to get big fast with this kind of diet. Today I took a few hardy guests to one of my favorite hikes in Southeast Alaska. In the middle of the Baranof Island Wilderness is a tiny cove, just big enough to fit our ship for anchor. It is called Ell Cove, and this is the jumping off point for the hike. Just our from the cove is an unusual sight, a beautiful white sandy beach. This is a rarity in the inside passage. As we pulled up to the beach for our dropoff, our skiff driver called out, "bear in the river!." We all looked, and sure enough, right next to the beach there was a large brown bear in the salmon stream. Then we saw another. 2 bears in the river! I turned to the guests and said, "Bears in the river, right over there, looks like a great place to land. Let's go!" Some of the guests thought I was joking. But soon enough we had all landed on the beach. We walked up to a large rocky ...

  There were so many good pictures from our hike up the ridgeline at Lamplugh Glacier, but this one really captures what the hike it like. The higher you get, the more amazing the view... so higher we went. Glacier Bay National Park is one of the hardest National Parks to get to. It is located near the very top of Alaska's Inside Passage, so unless you have access to a boat, you would have to fly into Juneau, take a puddle jumper across to the small airport at Gustavus, then taxi to the National Park lodge over in Bartlett Cove, and ride the day boat nearly sixty miles up bay to where all the tidewater glaciers are. Like I said, tough. But we are on an expedition cruise ship, the Safari Explorer, and we plan to spend two days in the bay, exploring some of these uncrowded spots. One of my favorite adventures here in Glacier Bay is a hard-charger ridge hike at Lamplugh Glacier. Lamplugh used to be a tidewater glacier back in 2015 when I first showed up. It calved ice right into the o...