Polychrome Pass in Clouds

“Polychrome Pass in Clouds”. This primeval scene always brings to mind the first verses of Genesis. I can imagine it just after creation. It just looks timeless.

Polychrome pass is in Denali National Park. After a long bus ride (the only way to get there) over a narrow gravel road this scene opened in front of me. The clouds obscuring the mountains and the flattened perspective of a long lens give a very abstract quality to the image. Denali Park is like no other place. The distances here are vast (that valley is several miles across) and the treeless tundra emphasizes the vastness of the place. The river in the foreground is called a braided river because little streams within it wind around each other. In the spring, it runs full with snow-melt but in the summer, only the little streams remain. The colors in the hills give the place it’s name and behind those hills lurks the Big One – Denali.

I was fortunate to come of age while living in Alaska and, 40 years later, the return trip was special. When I lived there, Alaska was isolated and remote. Now it is modern and yet still the Alaska I knew. It’s one of the world’s best places to see.

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