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Seward, Mt. Marathon
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The sun in Seward is obscured by smoke from a wildfire, but its reflection can be seen in the harbor to the lower right of the red dinghy. The city is named for the Secretary of State who negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 for two pennies an acre. |
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The midnight sun over Mt. Marathon at 10PM with a reddish glow courtesy of smoke from a wildfire. |
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A helicopter airlifts an injured man from Mt. Marathon (elevation 4022 ft) outside Seward. The man went down the steep mountain too quickly, tripped on a snow patch, and tumbled down. Barely conscious and in shock, the Ironman triathlete sustained head, back, and arm injuries, and he had no feeling below the abdomen. Kyle was drafted by the only EMT in the area to help strap the man to a backboard and carry him 700 feet up the rocky mountain to a helicopter a the summit. The helicopter could not land on the mountainside because it was too steep. |
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Below the treeline of Mt. Marathon, mom works her way up by grapping hold of a root. |
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Above the treeline, Nathan and Dad plan the next leg of their ascent. |
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A view of Seward and the bay from the mountaintop, 4000 feet above the bay. |
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Although there was little snow on Mt. Marathon, a nearby mountain was covered. The bay in the center, obscured by wildfire smoke, was the site of filming much of Hunt for Red October. |
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A giant Celebrity cruise ship (docked far lower left) looks like a Matchbox car from just below the treeline. Also notice the two colors of the bay: gray (far) and blue (near)--much like the merging of the Blue and White Niles. The gray color is from glacial silt in streams fed by Exit Glacier running into the bay. |
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The snow on the summit where the triathlete slipped and fell down the mountain. |
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Going back down Mt. Marathon is easier than going up, but it still presents a challenge. Here we size-up a waterfall that lies along the "down" path. |
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Another view of the 10PM sun (far bottom center) reflected in the harbour outside Seward. The sun is obscured by smoke from a forest fire nearby, a fire which threatened to trap us in Seward if it were to force closure of the only highway out of town. The fire was set by the US Forest Service as a "controlled burn" that quickly got out-of-hand. |
