Nelson Brown 〡January 1, 2022
From the valleys of Alaska to the green hills of Vermont, you’ll find Nelson Brown, Adventure Photographer and Creative Director for Ibex. Nelson grew up in Vermont and has lived a van-based nomadic lifestyle until recently finding homage in the Mad River Valley of Vermont.
Believing in yourself is life changing. Believing in your ability to create and start a business is just the same. But believing in and supporting friends and communities - now that is the most powerful tool in my kit. I’ve recently committed myself to full time work behind my camera lens that allows me to promote and explore the beauty of this natural world through creative imagery.
I believe through direct outdoor experiences and adventure we become deeply connected to our environments and feel, now more than ever, inspired to protect it.
More recently, in my photography career, I was introduced to Seward, Alaska and a small family of sea kayak guides who intrinsically weave these shared values and perspectives of connection, adventure and preservation into everyday life and conversation. Today, I share the story of our five-day-end-of-season trip with you and some photos behind the lens along the way.
Drive about 100 miles North of Seward, AK and 300 miles South East and you’ll find 13.2 million acres of Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Home to glacially sculpted ravines, crevices, and brilliantly diverse ecosystems. These same glaciers that provide for and profoundly affect their local environments also provide unique opportunities for those traveling through this terrain.
For us guides, the end of season trip means spending time running alongside one another instead of bustling past each other in sharing our love, our gratitude, and our sense of curiosity for Alaska. This trip is a moment in time where we get to take all of our favorite people and go search for pure, unapologetic adventure. Together, we were a group of sixteen friends/coworkers/housemates heading into the backcountry of Wrangle St. Elias, crossing the base of the Root Glacier on a multi-day backpacking trip. As the saying goes in Alaska, there is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. So of course, we packed ample layers, heavy duty rain gear, lined our packs with contractor bags, and charged all of our camera batteries to prepare for a few days in the backcountry.
Day one
Cross the Root Glacier to set up camp at the base of Donoho and talk about how great our Ibex layers are.
“The best layers are the ones you don’t even notice that you’re wearing, because they are working with you” - Trent Gould, Owner of Kayak Adventures Worldwide
Day TWO
Summit Donoho.
Getting perspective of the valley below from hiking Donoho Peak is more than impressive, it’s an intense and flooding reminder of how expansive this land is and how these glaciers and their changes create habitat and form the landscapes.
Day Three
Pack up, head back to the glacial crossing, take the bus to the lodge in Kennecott
Day Four
Pack raft and talk about our layers
