Kananaskis Scenes

This week’s photo excursion took us to Kananaskis Country, once again. Departing about mid-morning yesterday, Stewart Hamilton and I drove south from Canmore on the Smith-Dorrien Trail where we made our first stop in the area of the Mount Engadine Lodge. Here, nestled between the Kananaskis and Spray Ranges is a broad valley, which near the Lodge is a large marshy area, prime moose pasture. We donned our snowshoes and went out onto the marsh for our first series of photographs.

This first shot features one of the bordering mountains of the Spray Range, Commonwealth Peak. It was a gusty day, mainly cloudy with sunlight breaking through occasionally. You can see sunlight on the peak, on some of the clouds and on the ripples of snow on the marsh.

Looking more toward the south, I could see that the weather was much less settled. That’s always a bonus, it makes for more dramatic photographs. Here’s a shot looking almost due south to Mount Burstall and Mount Murray.

The next picture was taken looking north along Smuts Creek with Mount Engadine in the background.

Smuts Creek meanders through the marsh area. At this time of year it’s almost completely frozen over. I was fortunate to get some sunlight for a well exposed view of the creek in this picture.

We next moved down the road to the far end of the marsh, about 6 kilometres (3.75 miles). Again, we trekked down onto the marsh, where there was an abundance of photo opportunities. One of my favourites is the view of Commonwealth Peak from this end of the marsh.

Our next stop was a location near the end of the Smith-Dorrien, overlooking the Opal Range. We were able to get some good shots of Mount Blane and Mount Brock from a distance of ~5 km (3 miles). I used two different lenses here. The first was a 20mm, tilt-shift lens to capture the breadth of the range you see in the masthead photo above the title of today’s post. I the used a 24-70mm zoom lens at 70mm to get this closer view of Mount Blane. Mount Brock is to its left, but largely obscured on this day.

We then motored up the Kananaskis Valley to our final destination, Mount Kidd. The light was very good here and I was able to get this scene which I find very pleasing. Photographers like texture in their landscape subjects. Mount Kidd delivers! This shot shows only the south peak of this massive mountain. You get a small glimpse of the north peak on the right.

As we departed for home, I was walking through some of that bright yellow grass you seen in the foreground of the picture above. I couldn’t resist a close-up of this very hardy species, so I took a couple of shots of it poking through the snow. I like the perspective of shooting directly downward and I’m pleased I was able to get it all in good focus. From a distance varying between 3-1/2′ (top) to 5′ (bottom) and a focal length of 24mm, I seem to have had sufficient depth-of-field.

That wraps it up for this excursion. With temperatures plunging in the next few days, I plan to stay close to home. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to go out again next week.