Alaska

The first hours on Alaskan soil. Straight from the airport onto the Seward Highway along Turnagain Arm. Rain, heavy clouds over the Chugach Mountains — and wild nature right at the roadside.

Mallards on the wetlands near Anchorage — the first birds of Alaska

◆Turnagain Arm, the channel along the Seward Highway, has one of the world's largest tidal bores — the tide can rise over 9 metres in six hours, exposing vast mudflats that act as quicksand.

A herd of caribou grazes on the Chugach Range slopes, high above the road, indifferent to the rain and tourists below. Their antlers still in velvet — midsummer.

Caribou on mountain meadows — antlers in summer velvet

◆Caribou antlers in June are covered in «velvet» — a blood-rich skin that delivers nutrients as the antlers grow up to 2.5 cm per day, the fastest-growing tissue of any mammal on Earth.

The small town of Seward sits at the foot of the mountains on the edge of Resurrection Bay. From here, boats set out into Kenai Fjords — through misty waters between sheer cliffs draped in spruce. Salmon charge the rapids; gulls drift over the sea.

Seward harbor — a cruise ship in the fog

◆In 1964, the Good Friday Earthquake (magnitude 9.2 — the second most powerful ever recorded) sent a tsunami over Seward's waterfront. The entire harbour had to be rebuilt from scratch.

Salmon running to spawn — leaping through the rapids

◆Pacific salmon navigate back to the exact stream where they were born — sometimes swimming over 1,500 km upstream — guided by the unique chemical fingerprint of their birth river imprinted in memory as juveniles.

Kenai Fjords — cliffs, fog, and sea

◆The Harding Icefield above Kenai Fjords covers 700 square miles and feeds over 40 glaciers. Seen from the air it resembles a miniature Greenland — a vast white plateau broken only by mountain peaks called nunataks.

Seabirds over the water

◆Alaska is home to nearly 90% of the US Pacific seabird population. Each summer, tufted puffins, kittiwakes and murres nest in colonies of hundreds of thousands on coastal cliffs.

Forest birds above Seward

◆Alaska has the highest bald eagle density in the world — roughly 30,000 birds, about half the entire species population. Benjamin Franklin famously opposed the bald eagle as the national symbol, calling it «a bird of bad moral character».

Matanuska Glacier is one of the few you can walk right up to. It has been sliding down from the Chugach Mountains for 300,000 years, and time seems to have stopped here. Blue meltwater carves channels through the ice canyons; icebergs drift in the proglacial lake. Camp stands right at the glacier's tongue.

Drone view of the base camp at the glacier

◆Matanuska is the largest glacier in the US accessible by road. It moves about 30 cm per day — enough to travel the length of a football field in a single year.

Swans on the Matanuska Valley wetlands

◆The trumpeter swan — the world's heaviest flying bird at up to 13 kg — was nearly hunted to extinction by the 20th century. Alaska is now their main stronghold, hosting over 20,000 birds, roughly 80% of the entire world population.

A mountain lake with a perfect reflection — on the road to the glacier

◆Alaska has more than 3 million lakes — more freshwater lakes per square kilometre than any other US state. That works out to roughly one lake for every quarter square mile of land.

Glacier from above — drone over blue meltwater rivers

◆The vivid blue of glacial meltwater comes from «glacial flour» — rock ground to a fine powder by the moving ice. These particles scatter blue and green light while absorbing red, producing that signature alien colour.

On the ice — climbers in crampons among ice walls

◆Glaciers hold about 69% of the world's freshwater. The ice deep inside Matanuska is so compressed that it contains almost no air bubbles — which is why it glows an intense blue rather than white.

Proglacial lake — icebergs in grey-blue water

◆Icebergs calving into glacial lakes can be centuries old. The ice at depth is compressed under enormous pressure, forcing out nearly all air — which is why ancient glacier ice appears blue, not white.

Helicopters — shuttling onto the glacier

◆Alaska has more pilots per capita than any other US state — roughly 1 in 58 Alaskans holds a pilot licence, compared to 1 in 450 in the lower 48. In a state with so few roads, aircraft are simply public transport.

At Hatcher Pass stands the abandoned Independence Mine gold complex. In the 1930s–40s, gold was extracted here under the harshest conditions. Now the wooden structures slowly decay under the snow — a monument to the Gold Rush.

Independence Mine — the 1930s frozen in time

◆At its peak in 1941, Independence Mine employed 204 workers living at 3,500 feet in a self-contained village. Workers earned $5 a day. The mine closed in 1951 when gold prices could no longer cover the cost of operating in such extreme conditions.

The highway stretches north into the boreal forest, toward a horizon of snow-capped peaks. Every bend opens a new view. Gray jays watch from the branches; a young eagle tries on its adult stare; a loon glides across a mirror-still lake.

The Alaska highway leads toward the mountains — Denali ahead

◆Denali at 6,190 m is North America's highest peak — but what makes it uniquely demanding is its low base elevation. Rising almost from sea level, it has the greatest vertical rise from base to summit of any mountain on Earth, surpassing even Everest by that measure.

Boreal birds — gray jay, young bald eagle, common loon

◆The common loon has been diving for fish in North American lakes for 65 million years — one of the oldest bird lineages alive. Unlike most birds, loons have solid (not hollow) bones, which helps them dive to depths of 60 metres.

A red ski-plane lands directly on the snow of Ruth Glacier at the base of Denali. At 5,500–6,500 feet, absolute silence reigns. White wilderness and peaks vanishing upward through the clouds.

Landing on Ruth Glacier — at the foot of Denali

◆Ruth Glacier fills a valley so deep that the ice measures over 1,800 m thick — one of the greatest ice accumulations in the world. The sheer rock walls rising above it are among the tallest uninterrupted vertical faces on the planet.

The floatplane touches down on the water at Katmai — this is a different Alaska. Dozens of floatplanes line the shore like buses in a lot. They are the only way in or out. And brown bears — big ones — stroll right between the planes, completely unfazed.

The floatplane fleet — the only transport

◆Over 80% of Alaska's communities have no road connection. The state has 10 times more registered aircraft per capita than the US national average, with floatplanes serving as the de facto buses between villages scattered across lakes and coastline.

Lake Iliamna — bears on the shore

◆Katmai National Park shelters the world's largest protected population of brown bears — over 2,200 animals. During peak salmon season at Brooks Falls, a single bear can eat 30 fish a day, adding over 3 kg of fat daily before hibernation.

The return journey — above the clouds. Beneath the wing, mountain ranges stretch out with white volcanic cones piercing through. The plane cruises at 8,200 feet above an Alaska now hidden from view. Only snow and sky.

Aerial photography — volcanoes above the clouds

◆Alaska has over 130 volcanoes and volcanic fields — more than any other US state — and about 90 have been active in recorded history. The Aleutian arc stretches 2,500 km into the Pacific, making it one of the most continuously active volcanic chains on Earth.