The Quiet Picture

Of course, the morning we have to leave Jasper is the morning that is sunny. But can’t help it… At least we saw some nice morning scenery on the way, and even spotted some moose – they are the bigger cousins of the moose we have at home, so it was special. Mt Robson was also showing itself this morning; often it’s shrouded in its own weather system so we got a lucky break.

We made a small detour to the Wells Grey Provincial Park to check out a few waterfalls. The Dawson Falls were wonderful – I went closeup crazy, barely remembered to take a photo which actually shows the whole falls.

And then we drove to the Helmcken Falls, no complaints there either. I’m glad I finally got my waterfall fix! All that remained was the boring drive to Williams Lake for our overnight stopover on the way to Bella Coola. At least they have free WiFi at the motel and I have time on my hands to update the blog.

Jasper is really getting washed out. Yet another rainy morning, so we used it for treating ourselves to a pancake and maple syrup breakfast. It was good. Then we did a short hike at Cottonwood Slough, tried a few photos but it was forced. Now it was just a matter of killing time until lunch, so I thought I would check out the road towards Edmonton. Got lucky straight away – a group of elk, a bull with 8 cows!

I spent over an hour shooting them, even if it was a big distance to cover even for 300mm x 1.4 and the angle was bit wrong. But I wanted to see if I could get some good behaviour shots and maybe they would even mate… but no. So I continued driving and then it started raining. The scenery got just simply stunning, no big mountains in sight but lovely green lakes by the road, with small spruce covered islands and autumn yellow reeds and grasses. It was heartbreaking not be able to photograph it, I can only imagine how beautiful it could be in other weather – all I needed was the raining to slow down to a drizzle, but it just wasn’t to be.

And later in the day we saw another coyote. But that was it, I have a memory card full of elk and very little else from this place called Jasper.

It has to be that I always have bad weather when I’m in Jasper… I think it was overcast, drizzly and cold here when I was here back then. We checked out the Cavell Lake but of course there wasn’t any glorious morning light to speak of. So we drove to Maligne Lake and now there was a bit of wind as well… forget photography. On the way back I snapped a few shots of whitewater. The only wildlife we saw was whitetail deer. And elk in the morning.

Time to move on to Jasper, via Icefields Parkway. I had high exceptations and I guess that it was my downfall – the weather didn’t co-operate 100% so I just felt let down and only took a handful of pictures, mostly at Peyto Lake.We checked in at the Mount Edith Cavell wilderness hostel at dusk, and rustic it was indeed… with outhouses, gas lights and log fires.

The light seemed to be good in the morning and there was no fog. We headed out in search of the ultimate sunrise photo, but we found elk instead – grazing on a meadow a bit off the road. I finally got some use out of the 300mm lens I’ve been dragging with me, so I was happy.

By then the little light there had been was gone and we only had an overcast sky left. We checked out a couple of small lakes though and since I already had the 300mm mounted, I snapped some shots of some birds to kill time.

Then we headed for Sunshine Meadows, hoping that the place would live up to its name. Well, a little bit – we got some diffused sunlight at first, and then on the way back. But for the actual hike, it was overcast again and I only took one landscape photo and even that was half forced. But I did get some closeup work done (thankful for carrying the big lens with me again!) and I also managed some bad shots of a ground squirrel and some birds.

When we were on the bus back, someone pointed out a mountain goat on the opposite valley wall. Sure enough, there is no mistaking of the white fur! It was way too far to even attempt with my 300mm, but when we had gotten off the bus and started driving back to Banff, we saw a group of whitetail deer – so close that my 300mm was too much. But after that, we came across two smaller groups of deer and I finally got some recognisable whitetail deer photos as well.

Already on the highway 1, we saw a bus pull on the side of the road. We decided to check out what they had noticed, and found ourselves looking at the biggest elk bull I have even seen. A gorgeus 12-pointer and my 300mm had some work to do.

It was already getting time for the evening light, and although it didn’t look very good, we still decided to drive to the Vermilion Lakes. When we had gotten to the end of the road and I was turning the car, we saw that elk bull walk right towards us! Panic… elk is the most dangerous animal in the Rockies, and these 12-pointers are nothing to toy with. But the elk just walked casually by us, and continued walking the road. We followed slowly, hoping that it would turn to the water. It didn’t, instead it just kept walking slowly on the road, switching from side to side when it needed go past people who already were standing by the roadside, photographing the lakes. When the bull finally disappeared in the forest, we turned back for our original plan.

We didn’t get much evening light though, so we gave up after a short while. On our way back, would you believe we came across the elk bull again! Unbelievable… we watched it go to the waterside and roll over in the mud, and sharpen the antlers. I had been smelling the air so it had obviously found the scent of some elk cows and now it was determined to find them. We watched it disappear in the bush for the last time and felt priviledged for the experience.

The weather is finally improving! We got some sunshine already in the morning, but it kept coming and going in the fog. We did the Lake Minnewanka loop and although it initially was cold and foggy, it got truly magical by the time we reached the lake itself. The fog kept constantly changing, hiding and then revealing the surrounding mountains.

Once we had finished the loop, we headed for the Bow Valley Parkway again, this time we could actually see some of the sights we missed yesterday. Castle Mountain is very photogenic and we photographed it in two occasions, in noon light and then in afternoon light again. By the time we were finished with the day’s shoot, there was still some beautiful evening light left, but we decided our time was better spent drinking milkshakes at Dairy Queen. Can’t complain…

Time to move on, to Banff. It was another cold and overcast morning but nothing to do about it, just get going. We took the Bow Valley Parkway and stopped at every spot the book said was worthwhile. It’s just that on an overcast day, not many of the stops were actually worthwhile. We did our best though and I hope that the conditions provided a little bit of extra that you don’t normally see in these iconic landscape photos.

Once in Banff, we did the Vermilion Lakes drive (saw some ducks) and the Fenland Trail (saw some squirrels), visited Banff Springs Hotel to see how the other side travels, and then did some shopping on Banff Avenue. Photographically speaking, not a special day but I’ll pick an overcast day in the Rockies over a day in the office anytime…

It had snowed overnight, but it looked like the sky was going to clear a little bit during the day so we drove to Moraine Lake, hoping to find 4 other people who would hike with us to Larch Valley. There is a law in Canada that during increased bear encounter risk, you have to be in groups of 6 or more.

Before we got to the trailhead, we just had to take a proper look at Moraine Lake again. Just fantastic with the fresh snow!We didn’t have to wait for long until two couples showed up, heading towards Larch Valley. So we took off on the 465 metre ascent and kept a good pace, as some of the group appeared to be the athletic variety. I was grateful for the bicycling I did this summer… When we reached the valley, we got sun on the mountains surrounding us but the valley itself was in the shade. The trees were covered in snow anyway, and the colours hadn’t reached their peak, so the photographic opportunities weren’t quite as plentiful as I would’ve hoped for. But, the scenery was just simply fabulous so I’m not complaining by any means!

While we were up there, we saw some people going up and coming down on the Sentinel Pass (2611 metres) so we thought that we’d try it as well. The snow was deep but there was a fairly good trail, however my hiking boots are not good on snow (as I’ve commented on some other occasions) and suddenly I also felt my legs turn to lead. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t go any faster and finally I had to make the decision of not going all the way up. I hated being the weakling of the group, but honestly… I really didn’t have it in me go any further. It sucks, but with hindsight, it was absolutely the right decision. My GPS told me that I turned back at 2519 metres, so about a hundred metres of ascent short of the goal. The view was great from where I was though and apparently I didn’t miss all that much for not going up on the pass.

The day was just as grey as we were afraid of. Just some light drizzle, but very low cloud so the only thing clear was that we couldn’t shoot any landscape today. We decided to drive through the Kootenay NP, which normally is good for wildlife sightings. Except on a day like this, not even the wildlife want to move too much. Sure enough, we didn’t see anything special on our drive to Radium Hot Springs. We stopped at the Paint Pots but been there seen it done that and moved along. The info centre at Radium Hot Springs recommended the trail up from the centre to the camping site on top of the hill, as it may provide an opportunity to see some bighorn sheep. I didn’t feel like hiking at all, so I decided to drive up instead. On the way there though, I saw a couple of whitetail deer grazing by the roadside. As I drove past them for the second time, I saw a couple of people walking by and they got to a few metres from the deer. Duh! The deer here are definitely not as skittish as the ones we have at home…

Then I spotted a squirrel, and he wasn’t too bothered about me either. I got a chance to get close and the squirrel just kept on munching the apples, providing me plenty of opportunity for photography. The background isn’t ideal, but I’m fairly pleased with the pictures anyway. It’s such a cute little thing! As far as the ID goes, we think it’s a red squirrel, even if it doesn’t look exactly like the ones we have at home.

When we were turning back to the highway, I saw a couple of bighorn sheep by the roadside! This was just the edge of the town so I was able to park in front of a shop and we approached the sheep by foot – mind you, we made sure to keep a safe distance. I know there’s a rule that you should not get out of the car and approach the wildlife, but I’m telling you these sheep were so close to the houses and shops that the main difference between us and the other people walking the street was that we had cameras and the shoppers didn’t. You could get fooled to thinking that the animal is in a natural environment, right? Well, wrong… I was able to take the above shot by keeping myself low on the other side of the road, so that the grasses hid the tarmac. And then just squeeze in the shots in between the passing cars! We were quite amused by the other tourists who crowded the place after they saw us, they stood on the road and photographed the animals. They probably wondered why we lifted the cameras barely over the curb when there was a clearer view to be had on top…

On the way back to Lake Louise we decided to take the Bow Valley Parkway. It had started to rain a lot so any photography was out of the question. And just when we were about to give up, we saw an animal run across the road – a fox I thought. We drove slowly to where it had disappeared to the forest, and there it still was, looking back at us. But now it was obvious it was no fox – it was a coyote! Just as we had identified it, it jogged deeper into the forest, leaving us feeling happy about this cold, grey and rainy day.

The morning dawned dark and rainy. Not much to do about it, so we just drove off to Lake Louise. When we got there, we found ourselves in snowfall.. or sleet anyway. It was cold! Quite a contrast to the sweating we had to do at the hoodoos on Monday in scorching sunshine.

We didn’t really know what to do, because this weather was clearly not presenting any photo ops. I had taken the picture just to show the conditions… my trousers were soaking wet after it (my rain poncho doesn’t really do anything for the legs) and my fingers were numb with cold. But since there wasn’t anything else to do, we drove to the Moraine Lake and found to our great joy that the weather (and visibility) was better there.

A bit of a wind going on though, and with what the dull sky the lake for the most part wasn’t all that glorious as you normally see in the pictures taken at Moraine Lake. There was one corner of the lake however that showed the true colours. Truly amazing… when I was up here back in the 90′s, it was early summer and the lake was still mostly covered by ice, so this was new to me. Wonderful!

Having taken our pictures, we drove to the hostel in Lake Louise, checked in and had a lunch and tried to figure out what do with the remaining daylight, considering that it was getting better all the time. We ended up taking the Lake Agnes hike and had a nice cup of hot chocolate in the tea house. It somehow seemed appropriate with what the snow on the ground and all…

When we got back, I just wanted to hook up the Powerbook to check out my photos so far, and to write this blog (yes, the previous entries are all backdated, in case you hadn’t already figured it out). Now I’m tired! Here’s hoping to better weather tomorrow. Even if the forecast says it will get worse.