Lee Petersen

Mt. Prindle via Nome Creek - Alaska Hiking Guide Trail description and map for a popular 2-3 day hike up Mt. Prindle from Nome Creek in the White Mountain National Recreation Area. Great views of tors and valleys.

Tors like these form when subsurface granite weathers along natural fractures over millions of years, then the softer surrounding rock erodes away, leaving the resistant core standing.

My hiking guide to the area: www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-guide...

Several tall, jagged granite spires rise dramatically from a tundra hillside against a deep blue sky. The spires are heavily shadowed, giving them a dark, almost sculptural silhouette. Patches of snow cling to ridgelines in the distance. Dry golden grass and scattered rocks cover the foreground slope.

The Windchimes, enormous granite tors on the shoulder of Mt. Prindle, in the White Mountains northeast of Fairbanks.

#alaska #hiking #mountains

Promotional graphic for a Substack newsletter post. The top half shows an olive green panel with white serif text reading 'A rest day, a plate of bacon, and photos from 15 years ago' and a subtitle 'Notes from a morning that didn't go as planned.' Below that, the URL lwpetersen.substack.com and the italic newsletter name 'Field notes from the north.' The bottom half is a landscape photograph of an Alaska mountain range with rolling tundra, scattered spruce trees, and soft golden light across the valley floor.

Couldn't focus this morning. Made bacon. Went through old photo folders. Wrote about it in Field notes from the north: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/a-rest-day...

#photography #alaska

A narrow dirt trail stretches into the distance through a tall boreal forest, disappearing into soft white fog and diffused golden light at the far end. Tall spruce and birch trees line both sides of the path. Early autumn color is visible in the low shrubs and ground cover along the trail edges, with yellow and orange leaves scattered on the dirt path. The overall light is warm and hazy. UAF trail system, Fairbanks, Alaska, September.

September light through fog on the UAF trail system, Fairbanks, Alaska. The light doesn't last long like this.

#alaska #fall #forest #fairbanks

A vivid winter sunrise over a snow-covered boreal forest in Fairbanks, Alaska. The sky is filled with a layer of altocumulus clouds lit in deep red, pink, and orange tones near the horizon, fading to blue-gray higher up. Snow-laden black spruce trees are silhouetted across the frame, with two tall heavily snow-covered spruce framing the left and right edges. The foreground is deep snow with low shrubs poking through the surface.

Altocumulus make for great sunrises. Boreal forest in Fairbanks, Alaska, early winter.

#alaska #sunrise #forest #fairbanks

The faint red at upper left is atomic oxygen emitting at 630nm, high altitude emission that's often invisible to the naked eye but shows up in long exposures. The crimson edges along the lower curtains are from molecular nitrogen, though a bit oversaturated from the exposure. Taken January 20, 2026.

Brilliant green aurora borealis fills the upper two-thirds of the frame during a strong geomagnetic storm over the Goldstream Valley near Fairbanks, Alaska. Multiple curtains and ribbons of light converge and swirl across the sky, with an intensely bright white-green region in the upper right where the bands overlap. A faint red glow is visible at upper left, and subtle crimson edges line the lower portions of the aurora curtains. Snow-covered black spruce trees are silhouetted across the bottom of the frame against the glowing sky. A scattering of stars is visible in the darker upper left portion of the sky. January 20, 2026.

Aurora during a Kp7 (G3) geomagnetic storm over the Goldstream Valley, Fairbanks. This display lasted well over an hour at this intensity.

#aurora #alaska #auroraborealis #northernlights

Snowflakes on Red Fleece Lee Petersen offers prints and wall art from images of Alaska landscapes, aurora borealis, wildlife, glaciers, and more. Travel, Adventures, and Life in Alaska.

Prints and wall art in my Macro Portfolio: photos.lwpetersen.com/Macro/Macro-...

A single snowflake rests on red fleece fabric, photographed in extreme close-up. The crystal displays a classic six-armed dendrite structure with intricate branching patterns along each arm, including smaller side branches and flat hexagonal plate sections. The snowflake is nearly but not perfectly symmetrical — subtle differences are visible between the arms. The crystal is translucent and colorless, picking up a faint pink tint from the red fleece background, whose individual fibers are visible in soft focus beneath and around the snowflake. A small detached crystal fragment is visible near the lower left. Fairbanks, Alaska.

Look closely. This snowflake isn't perfectly symmetrical. They almost never are. Each arm grows under the same conditions, driving them toward symmetry, but wind, temperature and humidity variations across a crystal, and mid-air collisions, introduce variation.
#alaska #snow #macro #snowflake #ice

Me at 45 years old trying to climb like my stupid competition team kids. I'm too old for this shit.

"Should be" without any measure of doubt. In my humble opinion, the chance of impeachment proceedings with this Congress is zero.

U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for “Armageddon,” Return of Jesus Advocacy group reports commanders giving similar messages at more than 30 installations in every branch of the military

Killing in the name of...

jonathanlarsen.substack.com/p/us-troops-...

A cow moose stands partially hidden in a dense thicket of green and yellow-green willow shrubs, her large body filling most of the frame. She holds her head low and forward, her long distinctive nose pointing toward the left as she browses on the vegetation. Her large ears are relaxed and splayed outward. The late summer foliage surrounds her on all sides, with warm golden backlight filtering through the leaves and catching the fur along her back and ears. Her dark eye is calm and focused downward on the willows in front of her.

A cow moose grazing on willows in late August in Denali National Park.

In my Wildlife Gallery: photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Al...

#alaska #wildlife #moose #denali

Since the Dow is under 50,000, can we talk about the Epstein files again?

Aurora from the Tors Trail Aurora from the Tors Trail

My latest photo of the week post: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/aurora-fro...

#alaska #auroraborealis #photography

Bright golden sunlight filters through a stand of snow-covered black spruce trees in a boreal forest, the sun sitting low on the horizon at center frame. Large rounded snow mounds and smaller snow-laden spruce fill the foreground. The sky is pale blue above and warm yellow near the horizon. ADMA trail system, Fairbanks, Alaska, March 1, 2026.

I caught a little sunlight on the first day of March. We now have over 10 hours of daylight in Fairbanks, Alaska. Of course, it's -42°F this morning, but it is supposed to warm up a bit.

More of my recent photos here: photos.lwpetersen.com/Recent-Photos

#alaska #winter #sunlight

A field of large rounded snow mounds fills the foreground in front of a dense stand of stunted, snow-laden black spruce trees under a pale blue twilight sky. The snow surface has a lumpy, organic texture from vegetation buried beneath. Fairbanks, Alaska.

A boreal forest of tall, slender black spruce trees stands against a pale blue twilight sky. The upper branches of several trees on the right catch the last warm golden light of sunset while the rest of the scene is in cool blue shadow. Large rounded snow mounds and small buried shrubs fill the foreground. Fairbanks, Alaska.

A bare, snow-covered dead tree leans dramatically to the right against a deep blue twilight sky, its twisted branches reaching upward. A flat snow-covered pond or clearing stretches across the foreground, with a dense line of silhouetted black spruce trees in the background. A faint orange glow lingers on the horizon. Fairbanks, Alaska.

A wide frozen lake or pond stretches across the foreground under a deep blue twilight sky. A thin band of warm orange and peach light glows along the horizon behind the silhouetted treeline of black spruce. Ballaine Lake, Fairbanks, Alaska.

Decided a -21°F and colder evening walk was exactly what I needed yesterday. Turned into two hours in the dark. Full post with photos on Substack: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/chilly-eve...

#alaska #winter #landscape

It's chilly

Just chillin in the snow tonight

Such a stupid distraction from Epstein. No one wants a war with Iran either. It's like he shit his pants, so he walked over and punched a baby to distract everyone from the smell.

Also, release the rest of the god damned files!

This official White House photograph shows US President Donald Trump (2L), US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (3R) and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles (2R) monitoring activity related to Operation Epic Fury against Iran from an unnamed location

I, as an American, have never felt as secure as when I learned the President was starting a war from the blanket fort at his clubhouse.

Now that the Board of Peace has a war under its belt it can really get down to business.

The vegetation difference in your photos of Exit Glacier, only 4 years apart, is quite dramatic.

Yeah, that's the Worthington Glacier. I've noticed a similar scale retreat with it. It's also quickly disappearing from view at the overlook.

Solomon Gulch Hatchery - Valdez, Alaska - Wildlife Viewing The Solomon Gulch Hatchery is a great place in Valdez, Alaska to potentially see Steller sea lions, seals, otters, eagles, bears, and, of course, salmon.

Wildlife viewing at the hatchery: www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-guide...

Two bald eagles face off on a rocky shoreline with water in the background. The adult on the left has its beak open and wings spread wide. A juvenile eagle with mottled brown and white plumage lunges with talons extended toward the adult. A second adult bald eagle watches from behind. The birds appear to be fighting over food on the rocks.

Adult and juvenile bald eagle sparring over salmon at Solomon Gulch Hatchery, Valdez, Alaska. The brown mottled plumage on the juvenile is distinctive; they won't develop the white head and tail until about age 4 or 5.

#alaska #wildlife #eagle #valdez

Lol, yeah, no reason to keep them separate.

Exit Glacier terminus in 2016, viewed from close range. The glacier face fills much of the frame, with blue-white ice descending steeply to a dark moraine. Little vegetation is visible on the surrounding rocky slopes.

Exit Glacier terminus in 2025, viewed from the same general location. The glacier has retreated significantly up the valley, now visible only in the upper portion of the frame. Dense green shrubs have colonized the foreground slopes where bare rock and moraine were exposed by the retreating ice.

What a difference 9 years makes...
View of the terminus of Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park. I wrote about this in my expanded post from our hike in late August 2025 (2nd photo). First photo from July 2016.
www.lwpetersen.com/photo-blog/l...

#alaska #hiking #glacier #climatechange

Brilliant green aurora borealis streams across a deep blue night sky above Angel Rocks, a large dark granite outcrop in the foreground. The aurora forms a sweeping ribbon stretching from lower left to upper right across nearly the full frame. Below and behind the rock formation, a snow-covered valley and forested hillsides recede into the distance under the glowing sky. A faint twilight glow sits on the northern horizon despite it being after midnight — late April in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Late April aurora over Angel Rocks, Fairbanks. By 1am there's already light on the northern horizon; that's why the sky is deep blue rather than black. One of the most brilliant displays I've seen. Two hours on the rocks after midnight.

Prints: bit.ly/4cTlZoh

#aurora #alaska #auroraborealis

Pinks Come Out The low altitude pinks started to shimmer

This expanding ribbon over Fairbanks was just starting to show that low-altitude fringe. These displays don't usually last long.

Print available: photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Al...