Where It’s Still Winter
Mike,
On our way across the pond last month, our Brit Air pilot just missed Greenland. According to the map monitor on the back of the seat in front of me, we flew just south of the southern tip. (It was cloudy anyway.) But on the way back, we crossed the southern tip, and I got some photos. I’m in the negotiation stages with my hiking buddies to go here on our next backpack trip.
Our flight was probably about the latitude of Paamiut, on the west coast at latitude 62 deg, but I saw no towns. Apparently they were lost in the clouds along the coast.
Some of my pictures show a massive east-west fjord, possibly Lindenow Fjord on the east coast. But that’s just a wild guess.
A few of the shots are crystal clear, the luck of the draw with airplane windows. In one of them you can see the crevasses in a glacier system flowing out of the mountains.
The last few shots are of northern Canada – the Barren Lands and James Bay, the southern extension of Hudson Bay. The spring breakup was in progress. Whether it was early or not, as it has been in the last few years, I can’t tell.
–rakkity
I love the small circular piece of ice in the midst of many huge quadrilaterals in picture 10 or so.
These ice falls … over what period of time would one notice movement from a distance?
Comment by jennifer — June 9, 2008 @ 8:23 pm
Those ARE impressive pix, rakkity! I’ve found that Photoshop can brighten and add a touch of contrast that seems to erase the effect of the window, but yours are way better than most as is — must’ve been right smooth air (and maybe an image-stabilized camera … ?). Forbidding landcsapes, though. Hard to believe anyone of our species calls (called?) it home …
Comment by adam — June 10, 2008 @ 8:30 am
The big blocks in an icefall keel over every few days, so if you had a good telephoto, and happened to fly over the same icefall coming and going on a trans-atlantic trip, you might be able to see a difference. But you’d probably have to do what astronomers do — image subtraction.
No image stabilizing, and no Photoshop. But I did use the Mac’s Preview app to increase the gamma. That does remove much of the scattered light from the window. I’ve found that if you shoot with the camera lens about an inch from the window, its imperfections are so out of focus, all they do is add a fog, which is erased by the gamma tweak.
Comment by rakkity — June 10, 2008 @ 12:12 pm
That’s a much more lucid way of saying what I meant …
Comment by adam — June 10, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
You want to backpack THERE? My, you must be of hearty stock.
Comment by Jen — June 11, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
hey mike one more post is up, take care of your self
Comment by goose — June 11, 2008 @ 4:25 pm
Me take care of myself? Listen, friend, from where I live I can see fast food restaurants, hospitals, package stores, and guys in three piece suits. Got any of that out there? Didn’t think so. Translation. One of us is still in civilization.
Don’t know if you’ll get back to the blog, but you might want to try a timed exposure of the sky. That could be an impressive picture.
Comment by michael — June 11, 2008 @ 9:31 pm
I’m reminded of the Gandhi story: when asked, “What do you think of Western civilization?” he supposedly answered, “I think it would be a good idea.”
I’ve got 12 year-old students self*-destructing at an alarming rate in a town near Wacton with all that you mention. But you forgot cell phone/text msg service. *With more than their share of parental help, it seems.
It’s not pretty. Time lapse of the sky though, that’d be nice. Or would it just be boring? Skies are not cloudy all day, and all.
Comment by Peggy — June 12, 2008 @ 8:55 pm
For time-lapse movies of the cerulean skies of Boulder, click here . Then click the Submit button.
Comment by rakkity — June 12, 2008 @ 10:12 pm
Like I said, boooooooring.
Comment by Peggy — June 13, 2008 @ 9:09 pm
Amazing glacier shots, Rakkity, and narrated like an amateur geologist and experienced Icelandic trekker! You ever scale an icefall???
Comment by smiling dan — June 21, 2008 @ 8:13 am
Scaled an icefall? Yes, on the Grand Teton in Wyoming. I belayed and followed on several icefalls, led by my old climbing buddy Fred Thrall. Here’s the story, with pictures at the end.
Comment by rakkity — June 21, 2008 @ 12:48 pm