AdventuresNW
All my life I’ve been attracted to aviation, photography and travel in wild, remote regions. Prior to building my plane, a Van’s RV6, I climbed and backpacked extensively in the North Cascades, but soon realized that I could use the plane as a platform for exploring it photographically and began doing so in late 2002. I became obsessed with that and subsequently, have been fortunate to fly over many of the great western American and Canadian mountain ranges, in all seasons and conditions, with the goal of both documenting them and capturing the magnificence of seldom-seen and little-traveled terrain. Photography allows me to offer a sample of what’s out there, just beyond the horizon, and I hope viewers find the images as inspirational as the landscapes that I’ve been so privileged to see firsthand from the cockpit.
These images, of winter in the North Cascades, are drawn from both older and more recent flights.
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- Dome Peak in the Glacier Peak Wilderness, alpenglow before sunset.
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- Looking east along the crest from Spire Point to Dome Peak in the Glacier Peak Wilderness
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- Looking to the southeast across Spire Point to Dome Peak and the Dome Glacier, in the Glacier Peak Wilderness.
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- The setting sun illuminates Silver Star Mountain’s west face.
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- Mt. Logan, in North Cascades National Park, from the northwest. Logan is one of the few non-volcanic peaks in the range that exceed 9000′ in elevation.
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- Mt. Triumph from the south, with the south face of Whatcom Peak sunlit at left center background.
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- The north face of American Border Peak.
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- Whitehorse Mountain’s north face at sunset.
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- The Wine Spires and the west peak of Silver Star Mountain at sunset.
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- The north face of the Golden Horn, in the northeastern North Cascades.
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- The northwest face of Whatcom Peak, with Mt. Challenger and the Challenger glacier at left background, North Cascades National Park.
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- Cutthroat Peak’s west ridge, at left, and southwest face. This aspect of the mountain is visible from the North Cascades Highway just to the west of Washington Pass.
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- Lincoln Peak and Mount Baker, late afternoon.
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- Looking souitheast across Hozomeen’s south peak into the Pasayten Wilderness.
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- The east face of Glacier Peak at sunrise: ‘Fiery the angels rose, and as they rose deep thunder roll’d Around their shores, indignant burning with the fires of Orc..’, William Blake, America: A Prophecy
John Scurlock has been photographing mountains and glaciers from the air across western North America since 2002. His images have appeared in numerous publications and have been widely used by skiers, climbers, geologists, and glaciologists. He’s currently working on a project to photograph all the glaciers in the lower 48 states, in cooperation with scientists at USGS and Portland State University. His stunning coffee-table book, Snow and Spire: Flights to Winter in the North Cascade Range (2011, Wolverine Publishing) is available at local bookstores and online. See more of his images at www.pbase.com/nolock.
