Powderface - May 30, 2014

Friday afternoon I drove out to Powderface creek trail in Kananaskis for a hike around the loop. Between Powderface and Prairie creek there is a connector trail called Prairie link that climbs up and over from one valley to the other. On this trail there is a section where the path is cut into the forest. This section is one of my favorite parts of the trail.

Ha Ling Peak - May 25, 2014

Conor and I hiked up to the summit of Ha Ling peak on Sunday.

Conor on the Summit of HaLing peak. Rundle mountain is in the background

The Wedge - July 14th, 2013

After reading lots of on-line trip reports on the Wedge scramble route I thought it'd be fun to go and try as it seemed to be within my skill level. I was nervously excited about crossing from the false summit to the true summit as there is a narrow path between the two and I imagined capturing incredible pictures from the lofty peak. The recent floods in southern Alberta had washed out some bridges in Kananaskis and last Thursday they had announced that the bridge over Evan-Thomas creek had been restored to single lane traffic which you have to cross to get to the trail head at Wedge pond.

A lot of the trip reports I read are from the late 90's or early 2000's when everyone seemed to be cutting their mountain-scrambling-teeth on the routes that I'm just starting to discover. There was a bit of information about route finding and getting through the trees to the shoulder of the mountain. The approach trail was easy to find and after 15 years (since some of the earliest posted trip reports) of people climbing the Wedge that the trail was very well defined. There were a couple of washed out sections on the way up due to recent heavy rains but they didn't pose much of a problem.

I walked through the forest, up the shoulder and got to the base of the summit in about two and a half hours. On the way there was a spectacular view of Mt. Kidd and the Kananaskis valley.

Wasootch Peak - June 1, 2013

Climbed up to the summit of Wasootch Peak also known as GR334455. I'm somewhat new to climbing and peak names and so on and I'm not really sure what the GR334455 is other than maybe it's a map name and the name "wasootch peak" is really an unofficial name. I suppose I'll learn some of this over time, but for now it was fun to walk up the side of the mountain and make it to the summit.

The view below is just after passing the tree line looking back along the ascent route. Down below is Highway 40 and the road that leads to Kananaskis village and the Nakiska ski hill.

While I was walking I wore a GoPro on a chest harness and would sometimes take some video. The clip below is just as I climb up to the summit ridge. I thought it was kind of neat and offered a different perspective than just photos.

If your curious, you can see other photo's from this day here

Thanks for looking,
Brad

Grotto Canyon - June 17, 2012

We went out to Grotto Canyon for a quick walk for Fathers Day. The sky was overcast and cloudy which works out when your trying to photograph in the canyon. There is a nice even light with soft shadows. If it was sunny there would be harsh super bright light on one side and and dark dark shadows on the other. It's not to say either one is better or worse, but you have to adapt to the conditions.

I was hoping for a nice soft light on this trip. I remember rounding a corner and gasping at how incredible the scene looked. I tried to capture the feeling that I was experiencing but I don`t think I was successful. Looking at my images it seems I focused too narrowly, the feeling came from the enormity of the location. I wish I had framed those shots a bit differently, taken in the whole view.

The picture below is another location that comes close to capturing the feeling I was trying to capture. I had tried to shoot this location on the way in but there were some rock climbers who decided that these were the rocks that they wanted to climb. I wasn't quite brave enough to shoot the scene with the climbers in there so I moved on and stopped on my way out of the canyon.

This shot is a composite of two photos, a top and a bottom to make up the whole frame. I really like how it turned out.

Mt. Yamnuska - June 14th, 2012

On June 3rd, I'd hiked around Mt. Yamnuska with Conor. Since that time I wanted to go back and see if I could get some shots with some better light (ie, sunshine) so I booked Thursday afternoon off of work with the thought that I could be up on the mountain by 4:30 or 5:00pm if I left Calgary around 1:00pm.

As I was driving out the sky had a bit of drama in it. It was partially cloudy with scattered rain showers. Once in a while the sun poked through the clouds and lit up the ground. I was a bit nervous about climbing up the mountain because the weather could turn on me and I really didn't want to get caught in a torrential downpour and I was hiking solo. Given it was mid week and later afternoon, I didn't expect to see many people on the trail.

As it turned out I had pretty good weather on my trip. There were rain clouds dripping across the landscape but no rain fell on me. The sun peaked out and gave me the light I was looking for. Actually, I think the shots turned out better than if there was only plain blue sky. The dramatic clouds were a nice addition.

When I was hiking on Fullerton last weekend, I'd been thinking about how I seem to return to the same places and when in those same places I take the same shots over and over again. This case was different because I primarily came out here to make the shot that you see above.

Fullerton Loop - June 10th 2012

I'd gone for a drive on Saturday heading out on the 1A towards Canmore. When I left Calgary it was cloudy but clear. It was raining in Cochrane and by the time I got to Exshaw it was snowing!! So instead of taking any pictures I had lunch in Canmore and drove home. It was frustrating in some respects.

On Sunday I still wanted to make some photos so I left thinking I wouldn't go as far west in case there was still inclement weather. I drove out to Kananaskis west of Bragg Creek. I thought I could hike  Fullerton loop near Allen Bill Pond or Powderface ridge which is further west near Little Elbow. Given that I could see snow on some of the western peaks, I decided on Fullerton.

As I walked along the trail I thought about how I tend to go back to the same places over and over again, which is fine, but what I find is that I often seek out the same photographic locations every time I'm there.


I have a picture from Fullerton Loop that I really like and when I think about walking this trail I think of that picture and I make a point of going back to that spot to see what it looks like. This isn't really a problem  because it could be a different season or different time of day or different lighting and maybe I'll get a better picture. The thing I noticed was that I was missing out on other opportunities because I was bee-lining it to the spot that I already know to see what it looks like.

So, with that thought, I purposely tried to find new vantage points to take photo's from.

Mt. Yamnuska - June 3rd 2012

Conor and I hiked around Mt. Yamnuska on Sunday.

We'd left the house around 10:00am but had to stop for gas and picked up some snacks and bottled water from CO-OP and a bit of an early lunch from Wendy's, then I stopped in Cochrane to get a coffee, by the time we got to the trailhead it was noon.

Our goal was to hike to the summit of Mt. Yamnuska then circle around and come down the scree slopes. Last year when we hiked here we had gone the wrong way around and I say this because it meant we had to climb UP the scree slopes on the front of the mountain. The rocks are very loose and for every step you take, you lose about 4/5ths your elevation gain when the rocks slide and settle around your foot. When we were climbing up the slopes we observed other hikers (little kids even!) were coming down using a method of running/jumping that looked like a lot less effort and a lot more fun. They all had huge smiles plastered across their faces as they floated down the mountain. We wanted to float down the mountain too! We were both excited to go the right way around this time and were really looking forward to coming down the slopes.

I'd packed my camera with a few lenses for the trip the weather was cool with heavy clouds and looking towards the west it looked like it was snowing or raining a fair bit and I was worried we'd get caught in inclement weather. I was also concerned that the light wouldn't be great. I really love the location in the photo above I think it's a real unique scene with lots of good photographic opportunities and I want to try going back with different lighting conditions. I'm thinking early evening with some real nice light to highlight the rocks. It took us about two and a half hours to get to this location. In my head I'm trying to figure out the logistics so that when the weather looks like it's going to co-operate I can dash out there and be on the mountain again.

Sunrise and King Creek Ridge - October 1st 2011

I got up early on Saturday to try and shoot the sunrise. I'd seen too many nice sunrises through my rear-view mirror when driving in to work this week and I wanted a chance to try and catch the light. There is a line of trees east of the city in a field that I thought would make a nice foreground object if the sky did catch fire. So I headed out there.

As it turned out the colour stayed in the east and the whole sky didn't catch the whole sky the way I had hoped it would. I swapped my wide angle lens to the telephoto and tried to fill the frame with colour by zooming into the horizon. This first shot was well before the sun reached the horizon. There were some nice blue and orange hues. There isn't really much for foreground interest in the flat prairie so I tend to use power poles and wires to provide some interest.

Diamond T and Elbow Falls - March 13th, 2011

Conor and I went skiing at Canada Olympic Park in the afternoon. They closed at five and have four hour rentals which worked out pretty good. It was busy though. After two hours we'd made a total of about four runs. The runs take about 4 minutes to get down the hill. The rest of the time was standing in the line waiting for the lift. While we were in line Conor said he had a headache so we decided to leave. We got some lunch which helped his head and he was feeling better.  Because it was such a nice day and still early we drove out to Bragg Creek and walked on the Diamond T trail at Station Flats.

The hike was fun, I shot some photos of him and we had a few snowball fights and even made a snowman whom we named George.. Click on the picture below to see some other shots from our hike.

After we finished the hike I drove down to Elbow Falls and tried to take a few shots of the river. I was hoping to try out my ten stop filter again.  I've posted two pictures, the first - "In Motion" was at 1/250th of a second and the water motion is frozen the second - "Flow" was a 20 second exposure. Both shots are from the same camera position and almost redundant but I like how both of them turned out individually. I hope you do too.

The second image..

Just for fun, here`s another shot of the river.

Thanks for looking.
brad

Meadow in the Sky - August 8th 2010

Meadow in the Sky parkway is at the top of a long twisty 26km long road that climbs from the TransCanada
highway to the top of Mt. Revelstoke in British Columbia. 

A good way to visit would probably be to get up early in the morning, maybe packing a lunch then drive up the long twisty road at a reasonable pace - taking care because of all the switchbacks and blind corners involved.

After reaching the end of the road you could spend a few minutes finding a parking space. Maybe look around a bit and trying to get your bearings after parking the car. I'm sure there are signs posted with information that lets you know where the trails are. Maybe there would be some history about the parkway on those signs and you could pick up some interesting tidbits from that. From there you could go and figure out what it was you wanted to see. If you were a wanna-be photographer you might have a chance to scope out where you wanted to be when the light turned nice during the fabled golden hour, assuming you were allowed to stay that long.