The Original Blueprint photos

The beauty of this mostly untouched landscape is truly breath taking. We started our trip in Seatle Washington and boarded a cruise ship that would take us to a small fraction of Alaksa. Living on the east coast near the Appalachian Mountains, seeing rolling hills and tall peaks was not foreign but seeing snowcapped mountains is something that stopped me. I could have looked over the side of the ship for hours at these massive peaks rising high into the sky. The further north you go, the more the suns position is changed. During the summer the sun would set near midnight and would quickly rise again at 3:30 am. Capturing a sunset over the water with more snow-covered mountains made this picture reach the top ten of my overall captures for the trip.

Every time I thought of the rain forest I always pictures it was near the equator. I learned that Alaska has the largest temperate rainforest in the country. Throughout the entire cruise we ventured through the Tongass Rainforest. In Juneau we toured the Glacier Gardens and say the upside-down trees or inverse flower gardens. These upended trees stuck back into the ground with the root system provided the perfect basket to plant gardens.

While at Icy-Strait Point we went on a bear walk looking to see wild bears in Alaska. Fortunetly/ unfortunately we did not see any bears but we were treated to a pristine view of a creek looking out between the rolling hills of the Tongass rain forest. The forest is a host to many creatures, seeing bald eagles fly overhead, slugs, black tailed dear and red squirrels.

Our last day in Alaksa was spent in Ketchikan where we hiked through the Tongass Rainforest. We traveled down a nice path that led to a waterfall. Surrounded by the trees in the forest you can see how well the people living in Alaska have taken efforts to maintain and protect the land. Did you know the Billboards are illegal in Alaska, I wish the lower 48 states would follow suit.