Eielson Visitor Center Art

This stunning quilt hangs in the Eielson Visitor Center in Denali National Park.

There is also an exhibit with a film showing her process for constructing it.
I believe Ree Nancarrow lives near the park.

I apologize for the fuzzy image below of the label. I think it is still readable.

Eielson Visitor Center in Denali National Park

The Eielson Visitor Center was another favorite location in Denali National Park.
This visitor center is accessible only by shuttle bus - located 66 miles inside the park along the gravel road.

The picture above shows Eielson Mountain. We climbed the ridge on the opposite side of the valley for the view (below) of the Visitor Center. The Visitor Center is in the bottom center left of the image below. A very nice facility - quite new - it opened just a few years ago.

This is normally a very good location for a view of Mount McKinley. However, the mountain was hiding in the clouds both days we were there.

Polychrome in Denali National Park

One of my favorite areas of Denali Park is the Polychrome Valley. This broad valley contains a lot of colorful mountains and a wide braided river basin.

Mail Art Project - Week Thirty Nine

"Red, White and Blue Finger paint"

cotton fabric, gelatin plate monoprinted, screen printed, machine stitched, handmade fabric bead.

Today's quote:

"A wise man fights to win, but he is twice a fool who has no plan for possible defeat."

-Louis L'Amour-

The fabric used in this postcard group was "fingerpainted" using a monoprinting technique that will be published in an upcoming issue of Quilting Arts Magazine!

Teklanika River in Denali National Park

Our view of the Teklanika River on our first day in Denali National Park.

For our time in Denali National Park, we reserved a campsite at Teklanika River.
This campground is located 29 miles inside the park. Normally, all private vehicles can only drive 11 miles into the park, but having a reservation at Teklanika makes it possible to drive the 29 miles to the campground. Once there, your vehicle must remain parked, and any further travel into the park must take place on a bus.

(above) Here is Michelle leaving our campsite on the way to the shuttle bus that would take us 91 miles into the park. That's our rental SUV behind her. (below) The river passed directly behind our campsite. This is the view of the Teklanika River from the campground.

Our first day in Denali was quite overcast, but the sun came out for us on our second day.

Tent camping in Denali was just fine, except for the temperature. I had a good warm down sleeping bag, but we both got very cold every night. We awoke to frost on the picnic table (above). We started layering on all our clothing - including long johns and down coats each night!

Parks Highway Scenery in Alaska

This view is from Talkeetna. Someone said we would be able to see Denali Peak from this vantage, but we did not see it.

Below, you can see on the directory where Denali Peak should be, but it is completely hidden in the clouds.

We passed through some very scenic landscape along the way to Denali park.

This last picture was taken very near to the Denali Park entrance.

Alaska!

A year ago, my 23 year old daughter left Montana for a commercial salmon fishing gig in Bristol Bay, Alaska. After fishing, she explored part of the state, and fell in love with Homer. She has been living there for a year and that is how long it had been since I had seen her.
She was between jobs earlier this month - and gearing up to go back to Bristol Bay for the salmon fishing season again. This was a window of time that I could conveniently visit her.

We met in Anchorage, and rented a car for a week long road trip looping through Alaska's limited highway system.

Our first destination was to be Denali National Park. We traveled north on the Parks Highway and these pictures were taken along the road to Denali.

This lookout was to be our first opportunity for a glimpse of Mount McKinley - the tallest peak in the continent. Alas. It was hidden in the clouds, but we had a good look at Mount Hunter and Mount Foraker (known in native lore as Denali's wife)

As we drove a bit further up the road, the clouds separated a bit and we were able to catch our first sight of Denali Peak AKA Mount McKinley. It is faint in this picture, but we were thrilled to see it at all.

Here are a few more scenic pictures from the highway.

Sacred Threads 2011 Opens in Washington DC

All Alone and Blue
and

Greener Pastures
are hanging in this year's Sacred Threads Show.

Sacred Threads is an exhibition of quilts exploring themes of spirituality, joy, inspiration, peace/brotherhood, grief and healing. This biennial exhibition was established to provide a safe venue for quilters who see their work as a connection to the sacred and/or as an expression of their spiritual journey.

The objective is to create a dignified exhibition of artwork that touches on both spiritual and personal levels all those who view it. We want to share with others the experiences of quilters whose stories may be a source of healing and strength.

Beartooth Highway in June - Snowy Vistas

As I mentioned in my last post, by this time of summer, we would normally be already planning our first dayhike in the Beartooth Wilderness (some years we are even hiking and fishing by this time!)

The snowpack is really unusual on account of a really cold wet spring that has caused much flooding around Montana.

This is probably the deepest snow we saw - near the Summit of the Beartooth Highway.

This view (above) is near Gardiner Lake (which is still completely frozen over)
Down closer to the Scenic Pullout - the snow is mostly gone from the roadside. Across the valley, you can see that Hellroaring Plateau and Mount Rearguard are snowcovered.

First Day of Summer 2011 on the Beartooth Highway

Wow! Today is the first day of summer and normally we would be planning a first hike into the Beartooth Wilderness. Not this year! We drove up to the Summit on the Beartooth Highway yesterday just to see how the snowpack looks.

We are just amazed! We have never seen the Beartooth Wilderness so deep in snow so late in the year!

The views were just stunning!

We enjoyed the views and were just astonished at the snow along the road!
More images tomorrow.