iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 8h

Another shot of the sunset over Cushman Lake at the Tanana Lakes Rec Area, taken a couple of weeks ago. Check out all of my most recent photos here: photos.lwpetersen.com/Recent-Photos #alaska #sunset #reflection

A vertical view of a sunset over a calm lake. The sky is layered with streaks of cloud glowing magenta, red, and orange, deepening to dark blue at the top of the frame, with a thin band of bright yellow along the horizon. A low, dark hill and a silhouetted line of trees run across the far shore on the left. Below, fine ripples stripe the water with bands of pink, orange, and blue reflected from the sky, fading to deep blue in the foreground.

040

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 8h

Looking into and out of the glacier cave we found in the Gulkana Glacier last weekend. It was really cool to drop so deep into one, along a waterfall, the whole way down. More photos, videos, and story on my Field Notes Substack: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/snow-glaci... #alaska #hiking #glacier

151

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The edge of the Gabriel Icefall on the Gulkana Glacier with fresh snow last Saturday. Photos and story on my Field Notes Substack: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/snow-glaci... #alaska #hiking #glacier #fall

$The edge of a glacier icefall meets a steep cliff of dark gray rock under a deep blue sky. On the left, the ice breaks into a chaos of towering seracs and blocks, blue-white and glowing pale turquoise in the shadowed cracks between them, all dusted with fresh snow. On the right, the fractured rock face drops away in vertical, angular slabs, with snow caught on its ledges. A smooth slope of new snow fills the lower left corner.$

0113

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A Dall sheep ewe in Denali National Park between East Fork and Polychrome Pass, taken on a bikepacking trip in early May. More wildlife photos in my gallery here: photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Al... #alaska #wildlife #dallsheep #bikepacking

080

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Steller sea lions resting on Glacier Island near Valdez, Alaska. #alaska #wildlife

Two Steller sea lions lie pressed together on a beach of smooth gray and blue pebbles. The one in front, with a tawny, sun-bleached coat marked by darker patches and a few scars, rests its head against the chest of the darker, glossy brown sea lion beside it, eyes closed and long whiskers fanned against the other's fur. Its broad front flipper is planted on the stones below. More sea lions crowd the edges of the frame, their sleek bodies and flippers overlapping on the rocks.

041

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

View from the base of the Gabriel Icefall near a small outflow stream. The glacier fans out where it leaves the geologic constriction of the mountain and cliffside. Taken on Saturday. In my Field Notes from the North: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/snow-glaci... #alaska #hiking #glacier #snow

A glacier spills down from a steep icefall between dark rocky cliffs and spreads out across the valley floor below, its surface covered in fresh snow and cut by a scatter of long, thin crevasses. At the top, the icefall is a jumble of broken blue-white seracs wedged beside a jagged rock peak on the left and a dark cliff face on the right. In the foreground, a small pool of gray meltwater sits among snow-covered rocks and gravel, with a large dark boulder at the bottom edge of the frame. The sky is blue with scattered white clouds.

171

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

A grizzly sow stood to get a better look at us from a distance on Saturday night. It was getting too dark to get any good photos of her or her two cubs. More photos from the hike and notes on my Substack: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/snow-glaci... #alaska #wildlife #hiking #bear

A grizzly bear stands upright on its hind legs amid dense, leafless willow brush flecked with yellow and orange autumn leaves, looking toward the camera. Its brown coat is pale along the shoulders, and the thicket surrounds it on all sides. This is the grizzly sow rising to look toward us from the willows.

150

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Latest post on my Field Notes. Such a beautiful way to end the summer hiking season in the Alaska Range: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/snow-glaci... #alaska #hiking #glacier #wildlife

lwpetersen.substack.com

Snow, Glacier Caves, and Bears

Day exploring the lower portion of the Gulkana Glacier

000

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Had a great day in the Alaska Range yesterday. Full of glaciers, snow, crevasses, glacier caves, ponds, and grizzly bears. Write-up with more photos coming soon in my Field Notes From The North: lwpetersen.substack.com #alaska #hiking #glacier #glaciercave

Inside a glacier cave, a person stands silhouetted on a jumble of ice blocks, small against the surrounding walls of ice. Bright daylight floods in through an opening on the left, flaring almost white and throwing a haze of light across the cave. The ice walls arch overhead and around the space in deep blues, their surfaces textured and streaked, some patches smooth and glassy, others rough and shattered. The figure gives a sense of the cave's scale, with jagged blocks of ice filling the foreground below.

0221

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

McCallum Peak in the Alaska Range. Taken at 3 am in early July on what turned out to be a very long day. Story on my Field Notes Substack: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/just-going... #alaska #hiking #glacier

A snow-covered alpine basin lies under a soft pre-dawn sky of pale blue and gray with a faint band of pink low on the horizon. Snow blankets the foreground and mid-ground, its smooth surface broken by winding dark ridges of exposed rock and gravel where the snowpack has thinned. A dark, pyramid-shaped rocky peak rises on the left, and behind it a larger snow-and-rock summit, McCallum Peak, climbs into the sky on the right, its upper slopes streaked with snow between bands of dark rock. Loose rocky ground enters at the lower right foreground.

080

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Rufous milkcap (Lactarius rufus) in Fairbanks, Alaska. More in my fungi gallery: photos.lwpetersen.com/Macro/Fungi #alaska #mushrooms #fungi #macro

A cluster of reddish-brown mushrooms grows close together on the forest floor, seen from a low angle that shows the undersides of several caps. The caps are glossy and dark reddish-brown, some domed and some flattened, and beneath them run crowded, pale cream-to-tan gills. The stems are pinkish-brown and stout. Smaller young mushrooms cluster low around the base of the larger ones. Blades of green grass, dark twigs, and damp soil surround them, and a single small red berry sits on the ground near the bottom of the frame.

060

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Some fall foliage around Cushman Lake at the Tanana Lakes Recreation Area in Fairbanks, taken shortly after the fiery sunset a couple of nights ago. Check out more of my recent photos here: photos.lwpetersen.com/Recent-Photos #alaska #fall #autumn #sunset

A quiet lake at dusk under a broad, cloud-covered sky, with a low band of soft orange and pink light glowing along the horizon where the sun has just set. Dark spruce and autumn-yellow trees line the far shore and reflect, along with the sky's color, in the still water. In the foreground, tall golden marsh grasses rise out of the shallow, reflective water of a wetland edge. The overall mood is calm and muted, in cool blues and grays warmed by the fading light.

0244

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Western columbine (Aquilegia formosa) along the Harding Icefield Trail in late June. Info in my Alaska Wildflower Guide: www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-wildf... #alaska #wildflowers #bloomscrolling #hiking

A single western columbine flower nods at the top of a slender green stem, sharply in focus against a dark, blurred green background. The flower is red and yellow: five red sepals spread outward with red spurs curving up and back behind them, framing shorter yellow inner petals, and a cluster of yellow-tipped stamens hangs down beneath the bloom. To the upper left, a smaller unopened bud rises on its own stalk. Lower on the stem are compound green leaves with rounded, lobed leaflets, and a second bud droops downward, still closed and tinged red and green.

1253

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Mt. Prindle and the Windchimes in the White Mountains National Recreation Area, Alaska, back in early June. lwpetersen.substack.com/p/overnight-... #alaska #hiking

A snow-streaked mountain landscape under a clear blue sky. On the left, a dark peak rises with patches of lingering snow across its upper slopes. Running to the right from it, a ridge is lined with a striking row of tall, jagged rock spires jutting up like teeth along the crest. Snow blankets the slopes in the foreground and mid-ground, broken by exposed dark rock, and low rolling hills fade into the hazy distance on the right. A rocky outcrop sits in the lower-left foreground.

061

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Sunset tonight over Cushman Lake at Tanana Lakes Recreation Area in Fairbanks, Alaska. #alaska #fall #sunset

A vivid sunset burns over a calm lake, the sky layered in deep purple, red, and orange with a bright band of yellow low on the horizon. The color reflects down the length of the still water, broken into fine ripples that scatter the light toward the foreground. A dark, silhouetted line of trees and low hills runs along the far shore between the sky and its reflection.

1123

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Mt. Margaret in Denali National Park back in August. Story and more photos in my Field Notes: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/evening-on... #alaska #hiking #denalinationalpark #landscape

A broad tundra-covered mountain rises under a heavy gray overcast sky, its slopes a patchwork of golden-brown autumn tundra broken by outcrops of dark, jagged rock. A band of low cloud or mist drifts across the upper slopes, softening the ridgeline and the rocky spires near the summit on the right. In the foreground, open tundra dotted with lichen-covered rocks leads back toward the mountain, with faint hills fading into haze on the far left.

061

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

A small stream in the tundra at Hatcher Pass from last weekend. A few more photos and story about the trip to support our youth climbing team and a couple of walks in along the way: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/team-suppo... #alaska #hiking #landscape

A narrow stream steps down through tundra in a series of small cascades, its banks thick with green, gold, and rust-colored low brush. Beyond the meadow, a rugged line of grey mountains rises under a soft, overcast sky. This is a small stream running through the tundra near Independence Mine.

0130

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

One of the East Group Tors at Granite Tors in the Chena River State Recreation Area. Taken a couple of weeks ago, when the autumn foliage in the tundra was near peak. Story and more photos in my Field Notes Substack: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/impromptu-... #alaska #hiking #fallfoliage

$A group of tall, jagged granite tors rises from a slope of autumn tundra. The weathered gray rock forms angular spires and fins, stacked and fractured, the tallest leaning like blades against a gray, cloud-heavy sky. Green spruce trees of varying heights grow among and in front of the rock. The foreground tundra is a dense patchwork of red, orange, and gold low brush, with a few small spruce scattered across it. Distant hills fade into haze on the lower left.$

0468

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Looking over the Savage River Valley from the Alpine Trail back in early March. #alaska #hiking #winter

A wide snow-covered valley stretches into the distance, its rolling hills dotted with sparse dark spruce and laced with faint drainage lines. Beyond the valley, a range of rugged snow-covered mountains rises along the horizon, their peaks partly veiled by low cloud. The sky above is pale blue with soft banks of white cloud. The whole scene is wintry and muted, in cool whites, blues, and grays.

080

Reposted by Lee Petersen

Rick Thoman @alaskawx.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Fairbanks Airport as of 1pm AKDT Tuesday up to 2.64 inches (67.1 mm) of rain so far in September, making this the highest precipitation during the first half of September in 101 years (2.95 inches Sep 1-15, 1925). #akwx #Climate @arcticgoddess.bsky.social @leepetersen.bsky.social

5257

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Long exposure of Falls Creek along Turnagain Arm in Anchorage, Alaska. Taken in mid-October after the leaves had fallen. photos.lwpetersen.com/Portfolio-Im... #alaska #hiking #fall #waterfall

A small creek tumbles down a series of rocky steps in a long exposure that blurs the falling water into smooth white streaks and veils. Dark boulders thick with bright green moss break up the flow, and fallen yellow and gold birch leaves are scattered across the rocks and collected along the water's edge. The stream drops through several tiers from the top of the frame toward the lower left, framed by autumn brush and more leaf-covered ground.

1563

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The last 4 photos in my 2027 Alaska Wall Calendar. Get the calendar here: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/2027-alask... #alaska #wildflowers #wildlife #landscape

A cluster of small pink orchids blooms on slender dark stems, each flower nodding beneath a crown of narrow pink-purple petals above a pouched lower lip. The lip is white flushed with pink, marked with reddish-brown spots and streaks and a patch of bright yellow bristles at its center. Many blooms fill the frame at slightly different depths, sharpest in the middle and softening into a green and pink blur behind.

Low golden sunlight breaks through clouds over a high tundra meadow of dry golden grass scattered with rocks and small spruce trees. On the right, a tall weathered rock outcrop rises above the trees. Rolling hills and distant snow-dusted mountains fade into the hazy light beyond, and sun rays streak across the scene from the upper left.

A wintry mountain scene lit in deep blue twilight. In the foreground, the rippled snow-covered surface of a glacier stretches back in low mounds and swells. Beyond it rise steep, snow-plastered peaks with a sharp summit near the center. The whole scene is monochrome blue, dim and cold, with no sky color, only the faint glow of dusk.

1192

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

A cow moose feeding in a pond near an American wigeon in the Chena River State Rec Area, Alaska. #alaska #wildlife #moose

A moose wades chest-deep through a pond, its brown coat wet and its long face streaming with water as it lifts its head from feeding, sending a spray of droplets into the air. Water sheets off its muzzle and ears and ripples out across the surface. A short distance in front of it, a small brown duck floats calmly, unbothered by the much larger animal. The pond reflects warm morning light and the brown and green of the far bank.

0101

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Took a walk along the Savage River last night with Cassidy on our way home from Anchorage, where our youth climbing team had a qualifying competition on Saturday. #alaska #hiking #denali

A wide braided river runs through an open valley, splitting around long gravel bars in the foreground. The banks are thick with autumn brush in gold, orange, and green, with dark spruce scattered behind. In the distance, a range of mountains streaked with gray rock and reddish autumn tundra rises under a partly cloudy sky.

281

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

McGinnis Peak in the Alaska Range towers over the Black Rapids Glacier. Freshly covered ice foliation, likely from sedimentary stratification in the accumulation area, creates a rippled surface in the light. www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-infor... #alaska #glacier #mountains

Vertically composed photo of McGinnis Peak. The tall triangular peak is rocky, but snow and ice-covered at the top. The sky above is blue with small white clouds. A thin layer of white and gray clouds separate the peak in the upper frame from the lower half of the mountain. A steep valley glacier and icefall winds down in the lower reaches of the peak, emptying into the much larger Black Rapids Glacier. The lower reaches of the valley glacier are covered in brown rocky debris. The foreground is looking down a rippled surface of snow, freshly fallen the night before on foliated ice, almost looking like small waves in the snow.

0123

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

A little reflection under Microdot Peak at Hatcher Pass, Alaska, last night. #alaska #hiking

View of a tall mountain with steep green slopes and lots of gray talus and rock under a blue sky with light white clouds. Beneath the mountain is a small, rocky pond, lightly reflecting the golden evening light and lots of white, gray, and black talus in the tundra in the foreground.

011611

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Looking over the Gulkana Glacier in the Eastern Alaska Range, Snow White in the background. Photo was taken in late July of this year. Story and more photos on my Field Notes Substack: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/weekend-in... #alaska #hiking #glacier

A glacier fills a valley, its pale gray ice sweeping in a broad curve from the distance down toward the foreground. The surface is streaked with long curving bands of dark rock debris that trace the ice's flow, and the lower foreground gives way to dark gray moraine and loose rubble. Steep rocky ridges patched with snow rise on both sides of the valley. In the background, a snow-capped peak stands above the head of the glacier under a clear blue sky.

0316

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Inside one of the glacier caves we visited this summer in the Alaska Range. Story and photos here: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/three-days... #alaska #glacier #climatechange #hiking

Inside a glacier cave, walls of ice curve overhead and down the left side of the frame in deep blues that darken into shadow. The ice is layered and translucent, streaked with fine bands of dark sediment. Daylight enters through an opening in the upper left, throwing a bright glow across a lower shelf of ice on the right, where a wet, uneven surface scattered with grit and meltwater catches the light and shines. The textures range from smooth polished ice to rougher debris-covered slopes.

1297

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

One of my favorite flowers is the Dryas octopetala, or eight-petal mountain avens. It's highly susceptible to changes in temperature and moisture, and its pollen, found in bog sediments, is used as an indicator of past cold periods. #alaska #wildflowers #bloomscrolling

1100

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Set out Sunday evening to photograph mushrooms and ended up chasing light across the tors instead. The Asgard Tor in full fall color, Granite Tors Trail. Story and more photos in my Field Notes Substack: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/impromptu-... #alaska #hiking #fallColors #granitetors

A tall granite tor of dark, weathered rock rises in twin fingerlike columns from open tundra, lit warmly from the side against a soft blue sky scattered with cloud. Behind and below it, forested ridgelines fade blue into the distance. Small spruce are spread across the mid-ground, and the foreground is a broad expanse of autumn tundra in gold, rust, and grass, with a vivid patch of deep red low plants near the bottom of the frame. This is the Asgard Tor in fall color along the Granite Tors Trail.

1151

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Cowboy's handkerchief (Hygrophorus eburneus) along the UAF Trail System. I've been out shooting fungi a bit over the last couple of weeks. Check out some of the photos from Saturday in my latest Field Notes: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/barely-tal... #alaska #fungi #mushrooms #macro

A single pure white mushroom rises from a bed of bright green moss, photographed from a low angle against a dark background. Its cap has curled upward into a shallow, wavy-edged bowl, and the surface is so wet and glossy it looks almost glazed, with a faint gray tint pooling in the hollow. White gills run down from the rim onto the thick stem, which is finely rough-textured near the top and tapers as it descends into the moss. Sprigs of moss and a few slender reddish plant stems with small dark green leaves surround it.

031

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Cotton candy sunset in Miller Creek near the terminus of the Canwell Glacier in the Alaska Range. #alaska #sunset #hiking

A wide sunset sky fills most of the frame, streaked with soft pink, lavender, and purple clouds that catch a band of warm orange and yellow light low on the horizon. Below, a dark ridge of silhouetted spruce trees and low brush runs across the scene, with snow-streaked mountains rising on the left and right. In the foreground is open ground scattered with pale rocks and bare shrubs, dim in the fading light.

0103

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

The rain is slowing down. Let's go find mushrooms.

1151

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

A red rainbow at sunset near the Donnelly Creek Campground, south of Delta Junction. Mainly the longer wavelengths remain when the sun passes through so much atmosphere low on the horizon. #sunset #alaska #atmosphericoptics

A vivid rainbow arcs down into a dark spruce-forested ridgeline at sunset, its band glowing almost entirely in red, orange, and gold rather than the full spectrum, because the low sun's light has been reddened by the atmosphere. A fainter secondary rainbow is visible to the right, with a band of darker sky between the two. Heavy blue-grey rain clouds fill the upper sky, and the forested hills of the Interior roll toward a pale, distant horizon.

04110

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Descending to College Creek in the Alaska Range. The delineation of rough texture on the valley side displays the glacier trimline, the historic elevation of the surface of College Glacier that once filled this valley, whose terminus is now 4 miles up the valley. #alaska #mountains #glacier #hiking

A lone hiker in a light shirt and cap, carrying a backpack, walks downhill on a faint trail across a green tundra slope in the foreground, small against the scene. Beyond and below stretches a broad valley of bare gray gravel cut by shallow gullies and braided channels. Rising across the valley is a huge mountainside, its lower slopes stripped to raw, deeply eroded brown and gray rock and its upper slopes smoother and streaked with snow, the change in texture forming a rough horizontal band partway up. Snow lingers along the ridge crest at the top, and a strip of clear blue sky shows in the upper right.

140

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Hiking in the Hoodoos region in the Alaska Range with views of the Gulkana and College Glaciers. #hiking #alaska #summer #glacier

150

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

A large active moulin on the Canwell Glacier in the eastern Alaska Range. #alaska #hiking #glacier

281

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

A water-filled moulin on the Gakona Glacier in the Alaska Range. #alaska #hiking #glacier

0111

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Anderson Falls emptying into Prince William Sound near Valdez, Alaska. It's one of those places that are so beautiful that the weather doesn't seem to matter. #alaska #waterfall #valdez

A tall waterfall drops down a steep, densely forested mountainside, its upper plume half-veiled by low gray fog and its lower course tumbling in a bright white cascade through the spruce to the water's edge. Ribbons of cloud drape across the dark green slope and hide the ridgeline above. At the bottom, the falls meet the calm turquoise water of the sound, with a rocky shoreline along the base.

062

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

May–Aug from my 2027 Alaska Wall Calendar (by calendar month, not season): sunset at Anchor Point, a hoary marmot near Wickersham Dome, seracs on the Gulkana Glacier, and evening light at Hatcher Pass. Stories + ordering: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/2027-alask... #alaska #hiking #glacier #wildlife

The sun sits just above the ocean horizon in a blaze of orange and gold, its light laid down in a bright reflected path across breaking waves and onto a dark wet beach in the foreground. Small rocks and clumps of foam catch the light near the bottom of the frame, and a band of low cloud stretches along the horizon to the left.

In the foreground, weathered blue-white glacier ice rises in cracked pinnacles streaked with dark debris. Beyond it the ice gives way to a broad gray valley of rock and braided meltwater channels, framed by dark ridges. In the distance a green valley floor and a pale lake sit under a heavy, brooding cloud layer.

Low evening sun breaks through a notch in a jagged ridgeline as a bright starburst, casting long warm light across a green alpine valley. A small stream winds through the mossy valley floor on the right, while the left foreground rises in a slope of dark boulders and low tundra. Scattered clouds fill the upper sky.

040

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

A small arch in the seracs of the Gabriel Icefall on the Gulkana Glacier, eastern Alaska Range. Photos and story in my Field Notes From the North: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/incredible... #alaska #glacier #hiking

$A glacier's cracked surface fills the frame, its ice pale blue-white and streaked with dark bands of rock and grit. In the lower foreground the ice curves into a small arch, hollowed out so that a pocket of deep blue glows in the shadow beneath it. Above and behind, the glacier climbs in a jumble of fractured seracs and ridges toward its upper icefall, and a dark, rocky peak with a few patches of snow rises against a flat gray overcast sky in the upper left.$

0173

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I went out to take mushroom photos today, but only managed to get two before the rain started falling pretty hard. Baeospora myosura (conifercone cap) and Tricholoma virgatum. All my recent photos: photos.lwpetersen.com/Recent-Photos #alaska #fairbanks #mushrooms #fungi #macro

Two small mushrooms with pale tan, dome-shaped caps and slender white stems rise from a bed of bright green feather moss on a dark forest floor. The one on the right is taller and catches the light, its smooth cap fading from light brown to cream at the edge, its thin stem bright against the shadowed background. The smaller mushroom on the left sits lower among the moss. Sprigs of moss and a few leafy green fronds frame them, and the background falls away into deep shadow.

A single mushroom photographed from a low angle that shows the underside of its cap. The cap is grayish-brown and faintly streaked, spreading wide and slightly wavy at the rim, with a low bump at the center. Beneath it, closely spaced cream-colored gills radiate out from a thick, solid white stem. The mushroom grows among green moss, pale gray-green lichen, and the small glossy leaves of a lingonberry plant on the right. The background is a soft blur of green.

0362

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Jan-Apr from my 2027 Alaska Wall Calendar (by calendar month, not season). Spire Cove, autumn color in muskeg in the Alaska Range, a boulder on College Glacier, and aurora at Angel Rocks. Stories+ordering: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/2027-alask... #alaska #hiking #auroraborealis #glacier

Spire Cove — Two tall rock sea stacks rise from calm teal water, the nearer one a broad tower and the farther a sharp spire, both capped with small spruce trees and streaked with orange lichen and green moss. Behind them, steep forested cliffs climb into low gray fog that hides the ridgeline. A thin band of kelp-covered rock rings the base of each stack at the waterline.

A boggy tundra meadow in fall, with small dark ponds threading between hummocks of grass and low shrubs turning red, orange, and gold. Scattered young spruce dot the middle ground, giving way to a dense spruce forest. Beyond the trees, a range of snow-covered peaks stands sharp against a pale blue sky with thin cloud.

A large gray-green boulder sits on a snow-covered glacier in the foreground, its lower face broken into slabs. Behind it the snowfield sweeps up to a wall of jagged, snow-draped peaks, with a small icefall spilling between them. The sky above is deep blue with a few small clouds.

A bright green aurora pours down the night sky in a vertical column, a fringe of pink along its left edge, stars scattered across the deep blue behind it. Below, bare birch saplings and a low rocky hillside stand in silhouette, with snow faintly visible on the ground.

081

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

My 2027 Alaska Wall Calendar is done and ready for ordering. Check out the stories behind all the photos or order the calendar here: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/2027-alask... #alaska #glacier #wildlife #landscape #hiking

Four bull caribou stand and rest on open tundra of green and gold grass in soft, overcast light. Each has a large rack of antlers still covered in velvet. Three are standing, spread across the frame, and one lies in the grass near the center-left. Behind them the ground rises into a smooth, out-of-focus hillside. Text over the image reads Alaska, 2027 Wall Calendar, Lee Petersen.

0104

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Aurora filling the sky in early October from Fairbanks, Alaska. It's been a pretty cloudy start to the aurora season so far this year; hopefully we get some clear skies soon! photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Al... #alaska #auroraborealis

The night sky fills with a bright green aurora that arcs and swirls overhead, framed by the silhouettes of tall spruce and bare birch trees ringing the edges of the frame. Curtains and bands of green light ripple across the sky, brightest and almost white-green low on the horizon where they glow from behind the treeline, and fading into softer green and faint purple higher up. Scattered stars show through the darker patches of sky. The trees are near-black against the glow, their trunks and branches reaching up toward the lights.

0305

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Out in the Gabriel Icefall of the Gulkana Glacier in the Eastern Alaska Range. More photos and story with some repeat photography showing glacier changes: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/gulkana-ice #alaska #glacier #climatechange #hiking

Two people descend a rippled expanse of gray glacier ice, dwarfed by a jagged pinnacle of ice that rises steeply behind them into a blue sky. The ice is streaked and marbled with dark bands of sediment, and its surface is cut into ridges and shallow crevasses. In the foreground a person in a green cap, black shirt, and dark shorts steps carefully down the slope, while a second person in a black top, dark leggings, and sunglasses stands a little higher and to the right. Their small size against the towering seracs shows the scale of the icefall.

091

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Anchor Point, Alaska sunset from late June. Photos and story from the trip in my Field Notes from the North: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/homer-suns... #sunset #alaska #homer #beach

0114

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I’ve been trying to find time to photograph mushrooms before the cold sets in, but work keeps eating the days. I found a few yellow fieldcaps (Bolbitius titubans) while on a walk with a friend over the weekend. photos.lwpetersen.com/Macro/Macro-...

Two yellow mushrooms grow side by side from a bed of wood-chip mulch and forest debris. Both have glossy, wet-looking caps that are brightest orange-yellow at the center and fade to pale cream at the edges. The cap margins are deeply grooved, with fine radial pleats running to the rim. The mushroom on the left tilts toward the camera, showing the ridged edge of its underside; the one on the right has a small pale scuff near its center. Their slender stems are smooth and pale yellow, curving up from the ground. The background is a soft blur of woody debris and green forest floor.

100

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

On the steep climb toward Mt. Margaret in Denali National Park on Sunday night. Read about it in my Substack: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/evening-on... #alaska #hiking #denali #mountains

Two hikers climb a steep, rocky tundra slope, leaning into the grade. A deep green valley and a tall mountainside fall away behind them.

081