Elbow Lake Scenes

Last week I made a return trip to one of my favourite venues, Elbow Lake, located in the Highwood Pass area of Kananaskis Country. I was invited to join fellow members of the Canmore Camera Club on the trip, Harv Emter and George Dlask, two very accomplished photographers.

We spent a long day there, hiking and taking a wide range of photographs, a few of which I share with you today.

I begin with this photograph of a Glacier Lily which I captured on the trail up to Elbow Lake. There was a profusion of lilies alongside the trail and we had to control the urge to stay there longer. We had light rain from time to time, just enough to add the droplets to the flowers’ petals.

The first view of the lake is always captivating. I’m always awed by the lake’s colour and the grandeur of the surrounding peaks. As I’ve mentioned in past blog posts, Elbow Lake is the source of the Elbow River which joins the Bow River in downtown Calgary, 82 km (51 miles) to the northeast. In the course of its journey it descends 1,080 m (3,420 ft).

We trekked northward beyond the lake, destined for an unnamed waterfall in the Elbow River. En route we passed some outstanding mountain scenery including this view of the north end of Elpoca Mountain.

Along the way we stopped to smell the roses (figuratively speaking), photographing some more wildflowers. George discovered this little patch of White Dryad, nestled against some rock which I took the liberty of capturing.

We reached our ultimate goal, the waterfall. We spent some time photographing it before resuming our day’s walk, this time in the direction of the parking lot at the trailhead. Of the pictures I took, I prefer this one, a longer exposure (0.5 sec).

It was a day well spent combining the adventure of a hike in the Rockies, the wonder of the surroundings and the ultimate pleasure of capturing some of the grandeur in photographs.