The Tusk

The Tusk is a stunning 5,730-foot granite pinnacle guarding the entrance to Merrill Pass through Lake Clark National Park, about 100 miles west of Anchorage. I first saw it in 1987 during a flight to a rafting trip with family, a time when I lived in Boston and Alaska was only an idea. It inspired me. When I next visited 10 years later, I had fully committed to life in the Last Frontier and spent much of my spare time exploring the country by foot and raft. That trip, I viewed The Tusk from almost a mile of elevation below its summit, on a backpacking trip deep in the valley of Another River. Twenty years passed before I returned. On a recent fall day, I set my camera on a high ridge directly across the valley. By then, I had become an Anchorage family man with an established business—and a seeker of Alaska’s unseen. The Tusk seemed like an old friend, and I captured this image from its own elevation level.