two big reasons i live in alaska glaciers and the aurora i've long been fascinated with the immense
rivers of ice that flow downhill and offer otherworldly places to explore deep within
and every time i see the aurora i'm met with what can only be described as awe and wonder
there's a reason these incredible magical displays of light filling the sky get people to brave
brutally cold temperatures and go without sleep it reawakens the childlike wonder and excitement
of experiencing awe there's a photo that i've wanted to capture for a few years now something
to capture the otherworldly experience that is a glacier ice cave and the wondrous magical sky
filled with dancing colors that is the aurora i want to photograph the aurora
but from inside a glacier ice cave now this presents a few challenges finding an ice cave
is easy every glacier has thousands of them but it has to be accessible and it has to be
safe because glaciers are constantly moving not all ice caves are safe we also have to find one
that faces the right direction and it's in an area that generally has good or at least decent
weather the next challenge is the biggest yet the aurora and the weather now the aurora is powered
by particles that get thrown out from the sun and get collected around our poles that can be
unpredictable at best but there are ways to see and sort of predict what's coming however even
when a good aurora is predicted the solar wind or bad weather can completely defeat a good display
weather you know how this goes predicting the weather is a challenge but predicting the
weather in a remote location in alaska more than 300 miles away in the mountains is even harder
location castner glacier ice cave it's accessible it's a one and a half mile
walk across a frozen river it's relatively safe and it faces north most of the time
over the last few days several massive solar storms are headed toward earth and it looks
like we have a narrow window of clear weather as bad weather is moving in for this we need warm
clothes okay we need a lot of warm clothes and we need some supplies to spend the night there
we also need good gear protection so for this i've got the think tank 26l
and the pelican 1535 both offer great gear protection and with the think tank we'll easily
be able to pack the gear out to the ice cave food forget about food we can grab something on the way
food i really don't need much i just need enough to get me through two days coffee for
the five and a half hour drive and then to stay up all night okay we're gonna need more coffee
i'm driving
and it's really cloudy now i've got a long way to go yet so there's a good chance that
it won't be as cloudy where i'm going but i really hope that this stays clear because
if this is cloudy this blows the entire trip i will have driven 300 miles for no reason at all
well some good news for once uh it's getting sunnier the further out here i go
i've driven 158 miles so far and the sun is coming out the further away i get so that's good
it was getting all clear and nice and sunny
and now i'm uh 30 miles away and it's clouded up again and i don't like i don't know what to do i
i mean i've already driven 300 miles i just it's cloudy at all it's just not
worth it because it's not going to happen so i guess i'm going to get to the ice cave and see
i had pretty much given up hope that i i was thinking i was gonna have to drive north and then
i come around the corner in the road here like i thought it was totally cloudy and overcast i
didn't think there was any chance i thought i was going to have to go another 100 miles or 150 miles
north and then come around the corner and there's just wide open blue sky and sun lit mountains
and now we wait the name of the game with the aurora is you go someplace with
hopefully good weather and wait the forecast for the aurora are guesses at best and without cell
service here we can't monitor the activity but we can wait and hope that this wasn't all in vain
but as the sun went down the aurora offered a faint glimmer of hope i've been chasing the aurora
for years ever since the a7s3 came out i've wanted to film the aurora in real time i actually did get
a good one while driving to the north slope of alaska and filming for a documentary but after
two days of fighting blizzard conditions and 12 hours of sitting on top of a pass waiting for the
road to open i barely had the energy to film a few short clips and a quick time lapse it was still 40
below zero and the wind was still blowing 30-40 miles an hour i did get a couple of good shots
but just nowhere near what i really wanted now i'm waiting in an ice cave hoping that a 300
mile drive wasn't in vain this cave is incredible so we're gonna set up here and we're gonna wait
for what we hope is going to be a really great aurora display i really hope so because this is
the last chance for me uh it's gonna be not dark enough by the time i uh am able to shoot again
and it just like i've been trying this for two years to try and catch the aurora and uh this
particular shot looking out of the cave with the aurora behind it with the ice cave kind of
framing the aurora is really really something i've wanted to capture for a really long time
so fingers crossed we have a few hours to wait now hopefully we'll see what we can get the other
fun thing is the river ice is moving and shifting and so every now and then there's a big loud pop
there's nothing quite unnerving like being inside of a giant ice cave and hearing things pop
and crack but there's aurora there it's just it's not strong enough yet
it's so exciting it's so exciting
all right the aurora's definitely coming out got a much better placement now
with where the camera is much happier with it so yeah now if we can just get a big
so
after so many years of trying failing and trying again this journey has taught me one thing
persistence pays off in the end the trick is not quitting right before the payoff huge thank you
to film convert for making this project possible if you want to see how i use city match by film
convert to make this project then click or tap right here i'll see you in that video as always
if you have questions ask me in the comments below or join my live stream most wednesday
nights from 4 pm alaska time 8 pm eastern i'll see you again soon in the next video cheers