Tessera

Lee Petersen

@leepetersen.bsky.social

Photographer and writer in Alaska. Field notes on landscape, science, and a changing North. Lots of stuff here: http://lwpetersen.com/links

1088 Posts1888 Follower 54 Folgt

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 39m ago

Looking over the head of Exit Glacier into the Harding Icefield at the end of June. Story and photos: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/seward-and... #alaska #hiking #glacier

A wide view across the Harding Icefield from a snowy, rocky ridge. A vast, smooth expanse of white ice and snow stretches to the horizon, broken only by a few dark rocky peaks poking up through the surface in the distance. Cloud shadows drift across the icefield, and a small patch of crevasses shows in the middle distance. In the foreground, a dark rock knob rises from the snow on the right, rocky ground edges in on the lower left, and puffy white clouds fill a bright blue sky.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 24h ago

Hiking out of the Nome Creek Valley toward Mt. Prindle in Alaska's White Mountains in early June. I love how far I had to scroll back in my trip posts to find this one: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/overnight-... #alaska #hiking

Three hikers with backpacks walk uphill toward the camera across a wide snowfield, leaving a line of footprints behind them. The one in front wears a yellow jacket and orange hat, the second a bright green jacket and dark hat, and the third, slightly behind, a black jacket. Behind them, the land drops into a broad valley of brown tundra and melting snow patches, and beyond it rises a long, dark mountain ridge streaked with lingering snow along its gullies and crest. Low rolling hills fade into blue haze on the horizon, and the hikers’ long shadows stretch across the snow in the low evening light.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 2d ago

Bull caribou on Mt. Margaret in Denali National Park, taken in late August. More photos from the hike here: photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Tr... #alaska #wildlife #hiking #caribou

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 3d ago

Aurora takes over the sky, its magenta lower edge from molecular nitrogen emission, over Fairbanks, Alaska, in early February. In my gallery here: photos.lwpetersen.com/Portfolio-Im... #alaska #auroraborealis #nightsky #northernlights

Looking up at a sky almost entirely filled with bright green aurora above the tops of snow-covered black spruce. Streaked curtains of green pour down from the upper left, and along their right-hand edge runs a sharp fringe of magenta and purple where the aurora meets dark, star-dotted sky. Tall, narrow spruce trees thickly coated in snow rise into the frame from the bottom, clustered on the right with a few slender tips along the lower left.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 4d ago

The crumbling ammonia-leaching plant at the Kennecott copper mine in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. To the left, the debris-covered Kennicott Glacier and the flanks of Mt. Blackburn (16,390 ft/4,996 m) rise, shrouded in clouds. #alaska #hiking #nationalpark

A large, weathered red wooden industrial building with multiple stepped rooflines and rusted metal roofing stands at the edge of a slope, part of the abandoned Kennecott copper mine. Broken timbers, collapsed structures, and scattered boards spill down the gravel hillside in front of it, with green shrubs growing among the debris. To the left, gray hummocky ground of the debris-covered Kennicott Glacier stretches toward forested ridges, and behind them the snow- and ice-covered flanks of Mt. Blackburn rise into heavy gray clouds.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 5d ago

A rainy September day at McHugh Creek off the Seward Highway along Turnagain Arm. Prints and Wall Art: photos.lwpetersen.com/Portfolio-Im... #alaska #hiking #longexposure

A long-exposure photo of a small creek rushing through a mossy forest gorge. The water is blurred into smooth, silky white streams that pour down a short cascade in the background and flow around two fallen logs. The log in the center lies diagonally across the current, thickly coated in bright green moss and scattered with fallen yellow aspen or birch leaves. A second moss-covered log rests along the left bank, and dark, wet rock walls with ferns and patches of autumn foliage frame the upper part of the scene.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 6d ago

Glacier cave ice often appears blue because it absorbs longer (red) wavelengths of light. Clear ice looks bluer than bubbly ice because light penetrates farther and filters out more red light. #alaska #glacier #hiking #physics

Inside a glacier ice cave, looking at a curved wall and ceiling of translucent blue ice. The surface is covered in smooth, rounded scallops, shallow cup-shaped hollows that overlap like hammered metal, shading from pale sky blue in the upper left to deeper blue toward the center. Scattered dark specks of sediment are frozen into the ice, concentrated in a streak running down from the top. The lower right corner fades into darker, gray-blue ice with denser debris.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 7d ago

A lake star I saw on Ballaine Lake brought me to methane bubbles and Jupiter's moon Europa. My latest article in Field Notes from the North: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/methane-bu...

Methane Bubble Lake Star

Ballaine Lake to Jupiter’s Europa

lwpetersen.substack.com

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 7d ago

Aurora from the Granite Tors Trail in the Chena River State Recreation Area near Fairbanks, Alaska. Taken in late March. More of my aurora photography here: photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Al... #alaska #hiking #auroraborealis #northernlights

A vertical night photo of a bright green aurora twisting across a starry sky above a snowy, open landscape. Wide, swirling bands of green with paler, almost white streaks pour down from the top of the frame and curl toward the horizon, with a fainter green arc low on the left. Bare, skeletal trees and tall dead snags, some leaning and broken, stand in silhouette across the foreground, with a low dark ridgeline on the right and snow-covered ground faintly lit green below.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · last wk.

Sea otters keeping watch from an iceberg in Columbia Bay near Valdez, Alaska. More of my wildlife photography: photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Al... #alaska #wildlife #otter #iceberg

A group of about seven sea otters hauled out together on a flat, white chunk of floating ice in calm blue-green water. Several look straight toward the camera with pale, whiskered faces, one sitting more upright in the middle with its head raised, while others lie piled against each other with their dark brown, thick-furred bodies, one resting its head on the ice at the right edge. The submerged part of the iceberg glows pale turquoise just below the waterline.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · last wk.

Aerial photo of the Loket, a large tributary to the Black Rapids Glacier in the eastern Alaska Range. More about the Black Rapids Glacier: www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-infor... #alaska #glacier #aerial #mountains

An aerial view looking up a broad, snow-covered glacier winding between steep, rugged mountains under a clear blue sky. The smooth white ice surface fills the center of the frame, curving away toward a cirque of jagged peaks on the horizon, with side glaciers flowing in from the surrounding valleys. Dark rock ridges and cliffs break through the snow on both sides, and in the lower left, a crevassed icefall spills down a slope in deep shadow.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 2w ago

Aurora over the Chena River Valley, taken from Angel Rocks to the Chena Hot Springs Trail in mid-March. More in my Aurora Gallery: photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Al... #alaska #auroraborealis #hiking #northernlights

A vertical night photo of a bright green aurora over a snow-covered river valley. A broad, glowing curtain of green sweeps down from the top of the frame and swirls into a curved, folded band just above a long, rounded ridgeline, with fainter green arcs on the right and stars scattered across the dark sky. Below, snowy hills and slopes of dark spruce forest stretch across the valley, faintly lit green by the aurora. Snow-capped boulders sit in the lower right foreground.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 2w ago

Aurora expanding and crawling across the sky. Fairbanks, Alaska. In my Aurora Borealis Gallery here: photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Al... #alaska #auroraborealis #northernlights #fairbanks

Looking straight up through bare birch branches at an intense green aurora filling the night sky. Broad, glowing bands and curtains of bright green sweep up from the lower left and curl across the frame, with darker green folds and lighter, almost white-green ribbons running through them. A few stars show through on the dark left edge of the sky, the tip of a spruce bough hangs in from the top left, and the silhouetted birch crowns along the bottom are lit green by the aurora.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 2w ago

Precarious boulder in front of the Gabriel Icefall on the Gulkana Glacier, Alaska Range. More photos and story on my Field Notes: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/snow-glaci... #alaska #hiking #glacier

A large, angular gray boulder sits balanced on top of a flatter slab of rock on a snow-covered slope at the foot of the Gabriel Icefall. The upper boulder’s lower face is stained rusty orange, and smaller dark rocks are scattered across the fresh snow around it. Behind it, the icefall spills down between dark rock walls as a steep, chaotic cascade of white and pale blue seracs. A jagged, snow-dusted rock peak rises on the left, and the sky above is partly cloudy with patches of blue.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 2w ago

Arctic starflower (Lysimachia europaea) at Anchor Point, Alaska, in late June 2026. Info in my Alaska Wildflower Guide: www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-wildf... #alaska #wildflowers #bloomscrolling

A close-up of a single arctic starflower blooming low to the ground in warm, low-angle light. The small white flower has seven pointed, slightly translucent petals arranged in a star shape around a pale yellow-green center, with fine yellow-tipped stamens. It sits above a whorl of broad, oval leaves that shade from green in their centers to reddish-bronze at the edges. Just below the bloom, a small reddish-orange bud or spent flower rises on a thin stalk, and a second leaf whorl with a similar bud sits out of focus to the right against a blurred background of soft blues and browns.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 2w ago

Seracs stand like mountains of ice in the Gabriel Icefall on the Gulkana Glacier in the Alaska Range. More from the icefall in my Field Notes: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/gulkana-ice #alaska #hiking #glacier

Looking up at a jumble of towering ice formations in the Gabriel Icefall under a bright blue sky with a few small white clouds. Steep, sculpted ridges and pinnacles of gray-white glacier ice rise in layers toward the top of the frame, with hints of pale blue showing in a few hollows. The ice is streaked and banded with dark gray debris, and the sloping surface in the foreground is grooved by meltwater and dotted with patches of dimpled, cupped snow. A faint lens flare glows in the upper left.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

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.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 2w ago

Aurora over snow-covered spruce in Fairbanks in January 2015, during a nearly week-long stretch of strong aurora every night. Almost 12 years later, it's still one of my favorite photos. More of my best aurora photos, prints, and wall art are available: photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Al...

Green aurora borealis arcing across a night sky above a snow-laden black spruce forest. Tall, narrow spruce trees thickly coated in snow stand in the foreground, the tallest rising nearly to the top of the frame on the left. Behind them, broad, glowing curtains of green aurora sweep from the left side of the sky in a wide curve over the treetops to the right, brightest near the horizon on both sides, with faint stars showing through. The snowy ground at the base of the trees is softly lit.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 3w ago

Cotton candy sky over a spruce forest in Fairbanks at sunset. #alaska #sunset #borealforest #winter

Snow-covered black spruce forest at sunset under a sky streaked with soft pink and lavender clouds against deep blue. A tall, narrow spruce rises near the left of center, its branches holding clumps of fresh snow, with shorter spruce trees spread across the frame behind it. The ground and low shrubs in the foreground are buried in a fresh layer of snow, tinted faintly purple by the evening light.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 3w ago

Side view of eightpetal mountain avens, Dryas octopetala, taken in mid-June on Murphy Dome, Fairbanks, Alaska. Info in my Alaska Wildflower Guide: www.lwpetersen.com/alaska-wildf... #alaska #summer #wildflowers #bloomscrolling

A low, ground-level side view of a cluster of mountain avens blooming on tundra under a clear blue sky. Several white, cup-shaped flowers with yellow centers stand on slender, fuzzy reddish-brown stems above a mat of small, dark green, scalloped leaves. Some blooms are fully open, others are still closed, greenish-yellow buds, and more flowers fade into soft blur in the background. Short, spiky sprigs of a low evergreen shrub, likely crowberry, and dry brown leaf litter fill the foreground.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 3w ago

South arm of the Worthington Glacier in the Chugach Mountains, taken at the edge of a pond near the glacier terminus. The top photo was taken in 2011, and the bottom photo in 2018. #alaska #climatechange #glacier

A two-panel repeat photograph comparison of the south arm of the Worthington Glacier, both taken from the edge of a pond near the terminus. Small colored circles in orange, red, and blue mark the same bedrock points in each photo so the frames can be lined up. In the top photo, from 2011, under a cloudy sky, a thick, broad tongue of white and blue-crevassed ice fills the right half of the frame and reaches down nearly to the pond, its front edge running across the foreground and up against the dark rock wall on the right. In the bottom photo, from 2018, under a clear blue sky, that ice is gone. The same rock wall now stands fully exposed, smooth and gray, with a small waterfall running down its base, and the glacier has pulled back far up the valley, visible only as a distant, thinner icefall between the peaks. A larger pond now fills the foreground, glinting in the sun, surrounded by bare gravel and debris-covered slopes.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 3w ago

Methane bubble lake star formation in Ballaine Lake this afternoon. These form when the ice is thin enough and a thin layer of snow sits on top of it, weighing down the ice and putting pressure on the water beneath it.

Looking down at the frozen surface of a pond. A smooth, pale gray oval of thin ice sits at the center, ringed on one side by a curved trail of small trapped bubbles. Around it, a dark, water-soaked zone spreads outward into dozens of branching arms that fork and taper like tree limbs or roots, radiating in every direction across the lighter gray, frosted ice. Patches of white snow dust the top of the frame, a few fallen orange and pale yellow leaves lie frozen into the surface, and a lily pad is visible beneath the ice in the lower right.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 3w ago

New series: Field Notes from a Changing Cryosphere Photos and science from Alaska's glaciers: how crevasses, moulins, and ice caves form, how they change, and repeated photos that show it. More soon. Subscribe to support it: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/field-note... #alaska #climatechange

Field Notes From A Changing Cryosphere

New articles coming...

lwpetersen.substack.com

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 3w ago

Sphagnum Brownie (Hypholoma elongatum), taken in early September in Fairbanks, Alaska. More fungi from this fall: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/barely-tal... #alaska #macro #mushroom #fungi

A close-up of a single small mushroom rising from moss on a forest floor. It has a pale tan, gently domed cap with fine radial lines along its edge, held up on a long, slender stem that is whitish near the top and turns orange-brown toward the base. To the left, a sprig of a low evergreen shrub with short, needle-like green leaves, likely crowberry, reaches into the frame, with a few yellowing leaves among them. Bright green moss covers the bottom of the frame, a blade of grass curves up in front of the stem, and the background fades into soft, out-of-focus greens and browns.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 3w ago

A lone gull on a blue and white iceberg drifting in Columbia Bay, near Valdez, Alaska. In my Glaciers and Icebergs Gallery: photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Al... #alaska #blueice #iceberg #valdez

A vertical photo of a large iceberg floating in calm teal-green water under thick gray fog. The iceberg rises from a low, rounded mass on the left to a tall, sharply tilted peak on the right, its surface glowing in shades of bright turquoise and pale blue, with white, weathered edges along the top. A single small gull perches at the very tip of the peak. Faint outlines of a fog-shrouded mountain with patches of snow are barely visible in the background, and gentle ripples cover the open water filling the lower half of the frame.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 3w ago

Blue ice exposed in fresh snow where a meltwater stream has cut a deep channel into the Gulkana Glacier. Phelan Creek, originating at the Gulkana terminus, trails off in the distance. Story and photos in my Field Notes: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/snow-glaci... #alaska #hiking #glacier

A vertical photo standing on the snow-covered surface of the Gulkana Glacier under a heavy gray overcast sky. In the foreground, a deep, winding channel cuts down through fresh white snow, exposing walls of pale blue glacier ice streaked with frost and small snow ledges. Beyond the glacier’s edge, the land drops away into a broad valley with snow-dusted mountain slopes on both sides. Phelan Creek winds silver through the valley floor toward the horizon, where a thin band of warm yellow light breaks beneath the clouds above distant blue ridges.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 4w ago

Aurora, blue glacier ice, the first wildflowers after breakup. My 2027 Alaska wall calendar is out now! Every calendar sold goes directly into what I create, from vehicle costs to website hosting, and keeps the writing and photography coming to you. lwpetersen.substack.com/p/2027-alask...

2027 Alaska Wall Calendar

My 2027 Alaska Wall Calendar is ready to order.

lwpetersen.substack.com

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 4w ago

Aurora in the moonlight in early February in Fairbanks, Alaska. photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Al... #alaska #fairbanks #auroraborealis

A vertical night photo looking up past tall, narrow black spruce trees heavily coated in snow. A single broad band of green aurora arcs up from behind the treeline on the left and sweeps across the sky toward the upper right. A bright full moon glows just to the right of the aurora band, casting a soft starburst and lighting the snow on the trees. The sky is a muted purple-gray with a few thin wisps of cloud and scattered faint stars, and a small green lens flare floats left of center.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 4w ago

Ridges and mountains over College Glacier in the eastern Alaska Range. Trip story and photos in my Field Notes: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/weekend-in... #alaska #glacier #hiking

A view across the snow-covered surface of College Glacier toward jagged peaks in the eastern Alaska Range under a deep, cloudless blue sky. In the foreground, a band of dark rocky debris runs across the white glacier surface. Behind it rises a steep slope of loose gray rock and gravel, cut by gullies and streaked with patches of lingering snow. Above that slope, a broad snowfield climbs toward a ridgeline of sharp, dark rock spires and snow-plastered faces, with rusty orange-brown rock showing along the right side.

Lee Petersen @leepetersen.bsky.social · 4w ago

Sunset over Cook Inlet from Anchor Point, Alaska, in June. Mt. Iliamna on the left. More photos and story from the trip on my Field Notes: lwpetersen.substack.com/p/homer-suns... #alaska #sunset #beach

Sunset over Cook Inlet seen from a dark gravel beach at Anchor Point. Heavy layers of gray-blue cloud fill most of the sky, their undersides lit in streaks of salmon pink and orange. A narrow band of bright yellow-orange glow sits along the horizon behind a long range of snow-covered mountains across the water, with the broad, glaciated bulk of Mt. Iliamna rising highest on the left. The inlet is dark navy, and several lines of white-capped waves roll in toward the shore in the foreground.