Anchorage At Dusk
Last month, when we were having nicer weather I went wandering around town looking for the perfect sunset in Anchorage. I think that I found a couple of nice ones… but I’m still on the lookout for the right place for the perfect photo.
Where in Anchorage do you go for the perfect sunset shot? Leave your comments below, would love to try them out.
sometimes the money shot is not the sunset but the light reflected from it.
the downtown area seems to offer more opportunity for that.
you have to move quick, though. how many times have you seen a perfect expression of sunset light and then it is gone in half a minute or less?
days with clouds have better possibilities sometimes… especially if there are dark clouds in the east and clear or partly cloudy to the west.
In Alaska in the summer the sunsets last for a very long time.( can be more than an hour )
the sun does not go down vertically. It moves more horizontally , from left to right. It can take a very long time from time it starts to go behind the horizon until it drops out of sight and then it is still light for an hour or more after it is not visible, because it just below the horizon until it comes up again not to far from where it went down.
Dusk can last from midnight until it comes up again at 4:30 in the morning if it is not overcast.
Of coarse this is in the peak of the solstice but it is like this for quite some time before and after solstice.
We are either gaining or losing light before or after solstice, as much as 5 minutes a day.
Having become accustomed to the long sunsets in Alaska i was shock when tried to photograph a sunset in Hawaii, let then a minute and done.
sorry for the typos.
Waht typoes?
[I’m blessed with “creative reading”, so typots and missing words on a forearm dont phase me in least. ‘course my ‘creative reading’ also frequently sends me into gales of laugher when it suddenly dawns on me that I’ve ‘read’ one thing and another thing *entirely* was written! Makes reading the English as she is writ, *quite* an adventure, at times.] beth.
Thanks to all for the geography lessons. W/O a compass heading I’m totally lost-more than usual.
Photos 1.2.3. are of the Alaska range. taken from the west side of Anchorage where it meets the cook inlet of the gulf of alaska of the pacific ocean. one can see the mudflats in all three photos.
Photos 4. is Westchester lagoon. Chester creek empty’s in to Westchester lagoon. It is on the west side of Anchorage as well, the shot is looking back to the west and south.. the mountains in the back ground are the chugach mountains. The homes on the bluff will see the view that are in photos 1,2,3.
Photos 5. i am unsure of the location, the mountains are from right to left : Denali, Hunter and Foraker of the alaska range.
photos 6. downtown Anchorage from the bluffs above Westchester lagoon, looking northeast.
Photo 7. downtown anchorage taken from the coastal trail possible near earthquake park or point Woronsof looking back at Anchorage with the water from cook inlet at high tide.
Ah, no. Photos 1, 2, and 3 are looking west or southwest. The Alaska Range is north, and the only peaks of the Alaska Range visible from Anchorage are Denali, Hunter, and Foraker (as you correctly identified in photo 5).
Photos 1 and 2 show the Tordrillo Range and possibly the northernmost part of the Aleutian Range.
Photo 3 shows the Tordrillos in the distance (left side of photo) and Mt. Susitna, usually called Sleeping Lady, in the midrange (right side of photo).
Alaska has so many mountain ranges that it is difficult to keep the names of the ranges straight, much less the names of individual mountains. Except for a few spectacular mountains (Denali, Sleeping Lady) we generally refer to ranges. Only the climbers can tell you the names of individual peaks.
the Alaska range starts near Tok and make a big arc northwest and then west and then southwest with their southern end around lake Clark which is west southwest of anchorage. they meet The Tordrillos in this area but where one begins and one ends in the context of these photos is unclear. Possibly the Alaskan range is petering out on the west side of the Tordrillos and thus not visible in the photos but they do come as far south as lake Clark.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tordrillo_Mountains
i learnt sumpin, cool .
Yeah, where one range ends and another begins is sometimes sort of arbitrary.
Which reminds me of a story.
When Leland Stanford (yep, that Leland Stanford) was building his federally-subsidized railroad, the feds paid a lower rate per mile for railroad across flat land and a higher rate per mile for railroad build across the Sierra Nevada.
So ole Leland went and had a little talk with the official geographer of the State of California.
And sure enough, the “boundary” of the Sierra Nevada got moved a long way west.
Your tax dollars at work.
What time is dusk around Anchorage way these fine summer days? (And in comparison: in other AK cities/towns/areas further south or north?) beth.
The further north you go, the more daylight you get. In Anchorage, it’s possible to read a book outside at midnight in late June. In Barrow, on Alaska’s North Slope, it doesn’t get dark at all for several months. Solstice is around 19 hours + of daylight. Even during winter, conditions make it bright enough to see w/o lights outside. If the snow isn’t too high…Heck, last winter the kids and I didn’t even have to jump on the couch to see up over the accumulation piled up past the windows. 🙂
Thanks. I remember my folks talking about how they’d have to ‘acclimate’ themselves and us kids when we came “to the lower 48” in the 40s and 50s in the summer months. beth.
Don’t know from Anchorage sunset spots, but I have some favorites here in Florabama
and in the Blue Ridge/Great Smoky Mountains, also, too.
Sunset tonight I will light a candle for my dear friend RavenWoman who will fight no more the cancer that took her breasts and then her brain. She was an artist, a teacher, a booklover, a ferocious warrior with an enormous heart.
Clear skies home, dear one. You are an abiding blessing in my life.
“…I saw that ragged soul take flight
like a black crow flying in a blue blue sky…:”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GLJCZ5L2sQ
L’Shalom,
thatcrowwoman
…..deepest sympathies,tcw.
So sorry that Raven Woman lost the final battle early. My sympathy to you and her family and other friends.
(((( TCW and all the people who loved Raven Woman))))
As a mainland iowan,could someone explain what I am seeing in these pictures. The scenery is breathtaking,I just have no perspective of what the devil I’m seeing. Is Anchorage a city? A bay? Both?
Anchorage – Alaska’s largest city and seaport, located on the north end of Cook Inlet, between Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm. We are on the inside arm of the Inlet, with the “…The Chugach Mountains stretch up to the city from the east, and Mount McKinley, North America’s tallest mountain, summons from the Alaska Range to the north. The Kenai Mountains, Talkeetnas, Tordrillos and even the Aleutians can also be spotted from the city.
Way in the distance … you can see Russia ….. (ha)
Lovely photos!
Yesterday evening we drove down Northern Lights to Point Woronzof to see the clouds. (Outstanding thunderheads!) Just before the road makes a big left turn and starts to descend to Point Woronzof (behind the runway) there is a rise on the right side, and places to pull over. That rise gives almost a 360 view of the area.
I love the way Alaskans go to those places to see sunrises, sunsets, migrating birds, clouds, etc. There were lots of people admiring the clouds with us yesterday.