Bow Lake Sunrise

"Photography is not about the thing photographed.
It is about how that thing looks photographed.”
- Garry Winogrand

(click to view 13 photos)

After meeting up with Shelley in Lake Louise on our last trip, we spent the night at Num-Ti-Jah Lodge on Bow Lake. We'd stayed here once before quite a few years ago and enjoyed it.

Despite a good supper in the lodge restaurant accompanied by a bottle of wine, I managed to drag myself out of bed early to take photos around the lake during sunrise. It was cold (-5c) so I put on a warm jacket and toque but I should have put on some gloves - my hands froze. (bringing back memories of ice climbing!)

There were several other people out taking photos, all of them with tripods. As usual, I didn't get out my tripod, but I did use my new Jobu Designs monopod. The other photographers were set up waiting for particular shots but I'm much more of an opportunist, preferring to wander and see what catches my eye.

It was a beautiful morning but I wasn't sure I'd made any great images. Glancing through them after downloading to the computer, I still wasn't too impressed, which is partly why I haven't processed them till now. But going through them again, I find there are a few that I quite like.

Wells Gray water

One of the highlights of Wells Gray Park is that it has a lot of waterfalls, including Helmcken Falls, the fourth largest in Canada. I love water and waterfalls so, as you can imagine, I took lots of photos. Here are some of my favorites:

(click to view 31 photos)


The salmon jumping up Bailey's Chute were a challenge to photograph since they only jumped every few minutes. I ended up resting the camera on the railing, aimed in the right direction, and when I'd see a salmon I'd fire off a high speed burst and hope to catch something. I couldn't zoom in much since I didn't know where they'd jump. When I was reviewing my photos, at first I was wondering why I took so many of just water. Then I realized those were all the shots where I missed the salmon!

As usual with flowing water I was playing with both slow shutter speeds to blur the water, and fast shutter speeds to freeze it. Some of the images I converted to black and white since the color didn't add much.

See also: Blue River Photos and Details of Wells Gray Park from the same trip.

Banff Rock

We just spent five days rock climbing around Banff using the new Banff Rock guidebook by Chris Perry. We hadn't rock climbed in the Banff area for a while and it was nice to find a bunch of moderate stuff to do.

This guide is a long awaited update to the old Banff Rock Climbs by Murray Toft. I'm pretty sure I bought my copy when it came out in 1985, probably at the Banff Book and Art Den at its old location in the Clock Tower Mall. (Sadly, this bookstore is no longer with us.) This guide led us up a lot of great climbs in the Banff area. My copy eventually got so worn from use that a friend had it rebound hardcover for us.

We arrived in Banff after lunch the first day so we just went to Robbie's Rock - about a 10 minute walk from the Mt. Norquay road. There are four bolted routes - a 5.7 and three 5.8's. It was a good warm up.

The next day we went to the Black Band area on Tunnel Mountain. It's another short approach. We did the two 5.8's, the two 5.9's, and two of the 5.10a's. We gave up after that because it was just too darned hot in the full sun! We hadn't expected +30c in the middle of September in the mountains!

Aftonroe is on the right hand buttress

Thursday we did Aftonroe - a nine pitch 5.7 sport route in the Guides Rock area of Mt. Cory. It's pretty cool to have a long easy bolted sport route. It wasn't especially challenging, but it was a lot of fun and great views. It took us about two hours to climb the route. (Some of the pitches are quite short.) We had the route to ourselves until the descent when we passed two other parties coming up as we rappelled the route.

We followed with a day at Sunshine Slabs and Paddock Wall. These are just at the start of the road up to Sunshine. The road was closed due to flood damage, but parking at the gate only added a few minutes walking to the climbs. Again, we climbed till the heat got to us.

Our last day we went back to the Black Band and did the rest of the 10a's and the 10b. We both agreed that these are some of the easier 10a's we've done. Not that we're complaining!

Shelley rappelling off one of the Black Band routes

Blue River Photos

Driving from Jasper to Wells Gray Park I stopped at Blue River. I had planned to go to Clearwater, but the weather looked threatening so I figured I'd get my tent up before it rained. As it turned out, it only sprinkled in the evening. (It rained more in the night.) I've passed through Blue River on the train and the bus, but never stopped. There's not much there, but I enjoyed wandering around and taking photos of the sunset and the reflections in the lake.

In the morning it was very foggy in Blue River, but the road went over a pass and emerged out of the clouds. I actually passed the viewpoint and stopped and turned around to go back to take some photos. The other side of the pass I was down in the fog again by the river.

(click to view 21 photos)


These photos actually precede the previous batch - Details of Wells Gray Park

Details of Wells Gray Park

The southern part of Wells Gray Provincial Park is mostly forest. It's hard to take good photos of "forest" so I concentrated on small details - leaves, moss, flowers, etc.

(click to view 40 photos)


More photos to come from this trip.

Mt. Robson

Decent views of Robson today on the way by. 

This was taken with my iPhone, more shots to come from the big camera. 

I'm posting this from the campground in Blue River. Hard to escape the Internet these days, other than voluntarily :-)

Highway Hawks

When we're driving on the highway I always see hawks on fence posts or hay bales or telephone poles and I think I should stop and take photos of them. Since I was by myself driving today I thought I'd give it a try. It's harder than you might think. First, you have to spot them in time, which is challenging at 100 km per hour. Then you have to make sure there aren't any other cars too close behind you. Several times I passed some gorgeous hawks but there was no way I could stop.

The hawks always look so peaceful sitting there as you whiz by at high speed. However, as soon as you stop, especially with the rumble strip to cross to the shoulder, they tend to get spooked and fly away.

The first one I stopped for was perched on a hay bale. He was a little ways from the road and didn't take off when I stopped. However, I didn't have my camera out or the long lens attached. I was just about ready when he lazily launched off the hay bale. He landed in some trees, a little too far away to get a good shot. And he didn't stay there for long either.

(click to view larger)




My next few tries the hawk flew off before I even got stopped. This was my best attempt. I stopped a bit past him, which meant I couldn't shoot out the window and use it to brace the camera. I took this shot from just beside the car. As soon as I tried to approach closer he few off.



Pictures or not, they are beautiful creatures and I'm glad to see them.