Like specks of dust on the landscape, four black figures begin the slow walk up towards the summit of Mt. McKinley, Denali National Park, Alaska. This is another of the unpublished images from the assignment with the National Parks Conservation Association. This photo was taken along the earlier portion of the climb at only 7500 feet in elevation.
The Winter 2009 issue of National Parks magazine (part of NPCA) features one of the most epic stories ever shot by Ian Shive. In June 2008, Ian was embedded in a National Park Service search & rescue patrol on North America’s highest mountain – Mt. McKinley, in Denali National Park, Alaska. The feature story, written and photographed by Ian, chronicles his experience.
An epic place to swim and photograph, the Boiling River is a gurgling, hot steaming channel of water that boils up from under the Yellowstone caldera and onto the surface where it merges with the Gardner River.
It’s the perfect season to be in Death Valley. Contrary to it’s name, the landscape is blossoming with wildflowers, the temperatures are in the low 70’s and a cool breeze blows through this normally arid and barren landscape. The photo below is from Badwater Basin, where salt rises up out of the earth, splitting and shaping an otherworldly-looking formation.
Visiting Yosemite Valley in mid-winter is like leaving California and going to a place with it’s own weather, culture and society. Inside this snow globe village is a tiny chapel – a sentinel among the endless height of the granite spires and cathedral-like walls that embrace the valley from all sides.
At the end of a long day, I managed to stretch it out a little longer by spending an evening photographing scorpions in the pitch black along the Rio Grande River. The best part is that earlier today I learned that scorpions are much easier to find with a black light on them. So why not photograph one like that, too, right?
In the distance is a river. But unlike any other river – this is a river of borders, rules, laws and a separation of a society once whole, divided in two. On the left of the river is Mexico, on the right, Big Bend National Park, Texas, USA. There is nothing quite as warm as the light from a South Texas sunset or the starry sky that stretches out unimpeded across the desert night. Big Bend gets it’s name from the u-shaped turn the Rio Grande makes along it’s borders. It’s also the Rio Grande that lends so many great landscapes to visitors of this place. But despite these offerings, the river also serves as an inadvertent reminder of 9/11. There are no walls here like they build in other states. No fences. No patrol towers. In fact the river is knee deep in most places if not shallower. However, this border is “closed.” I learned today it wasn’t always this way but that Mexico and the United States shared the national park and that visitors could wade across the river and have lunch in Mexico and return a few minutes later, unimpeded and not labeled a criminal. Those days seem to be gone. Instead we stand at the edge of the river and look into Mexico and they look back at us.
Driving 60mph I somehow managed to see this guy as he left the pavement for the tall grasses.
Ian Shive Photography 