I made it back, but

That was a tough 10 days in Yukon. I wasn't feeling 100% and neither were most of the other people on the trip. I got back Saturday night, Linda drove me home, I had a shower (!!!), ate some dinner and went to bed. Sunday was a low profile day, starting to edit photos, washing clothes, and generally unpacking from the trip. Monday was a swim and a massage, and more photo editing. Tuesday will be bags stored away and camera gear set up for day to day usage, more editing, catching up on some email, and other odds and ends. Plus trying to figure out how to blog this whole thing.

I now know that I have at least 935 photos that will end up edited, out of about 3100 photos taken, plus 7 rolls of film that are currently at the lab. I've still got 600 or so from the last several days of the trip to edit. Lots of photos of lynx, in case you were wondering. And Tombstone landscapes. And, and, and...

My problem here is that I don't have the least idea how to tell this story. I didn't look at the photos during the trip, just copied them onto a hard drive just in case. My laptop and Lightroom aren't talking to one another, which is a whole different topic. So now I've got the entire lump sitting on my main computer, with no idea how to slice it up. Plus, (as if I needed more) there's still some photos from the Sand Hills trip I haven't shown you. And I may need to dive back into at least one of the panoramas and tweak the original photos, though that's tricky, to recover blown highlights in the clouds.

Neither did I do much on Facebook day to day during the trip. In fact, Facebook is beginning to piss me off again, with more and more sponsored posts that I don't want to see. By definition if it's sponsored I don't want to see it. Which again, is a whole different topic. 

I did keep notes of the high points, but that makes for thin blog reading, and turns the photos into there I was and this is what was there. Of course, some of the photos are exactly that, and there are some of the same places but in different light, which in Tombstone at least, can give a place a completely different look. Even if I could put all 935 photos into one blog, complete with commentary, I can just about guarantee nobody would read it to the bottom. 

Even topically, is a problem. The lynx alone are many dozen photos, as are the Tombstone landscapes, and the river day, and the gold mine tour day, and, and, and. The inside of Dredge 4 alone is two dozen photos. All that says nothing about the two hours of bonkers aurora activity where the camera clicked steadily away for about 1000 photos, of which one photo has appeared on Facebook for Ryan. You get the idea. Some of the photos will show up in an expanded Of the Day feature. I think.

So let's start with me beginning to pack, and Linda giving me the dubious eye about the whole thing. We have very different ways of packing for a trip. I'll come out and admit I took too much stuff. In particular, I took one lens I don't think I used at all, and it drove some of the other clothing packing choices based on flight luggage weight limits. Taking camera equipment on a long trip when you don't know what you'll see or want to capture can be a complicated game. 

Some of the crew looking at a map of where we were going, in the Whitehorse Visitor centre. After part of a day in Whitehorse, we were off to Dawson City. The furthest north we got was Chapman Lake, at the north end of Tombstone Park. Part of the plan was to take a helicopter into the Tombstone Mountain campground, but poor flying weather and corporate commitments bumped our flight. We went a little south from Dawson chasing clear skies for the bonkers aurora. From Whitehorse, the furthest south we got was Carcrosse, and the loop over to Marsh Lake. Part of the plan was White Pass, and it turns out the clouds were low enough that white is all we'd have been able to see. Not good for photography.

I cannot emphasize enough what a big empty place Yukon is. It's almost 500,000 Km2, with about 43,000 people, of which almost 34,000 live in Whitehorse, with another 2,200 in Dawson City. It is unbelievably stunningly scenic almost everywhere you look, especially during September.

So now you know I made it back, and intend to blog many photos. Once I figure out how. Stay tuned.

Of the Day

Driftwood

Flower

Peony

Lily

Landscape

From a Foothills day trip about a year ago.

Green Fools

Clown Wedding

Stay tuned for additions to this section, though I confess as I write this I'm still not sure exactly how I'm going to handle the nearly 1000 Yukon photos.