Winter at Cascade Mountain

Yesterday morning, I went on a photography excursion, accompanied by Bob Bear, a great photographer and longtime photography companion. We returned to a location we had visited earlier this year, a good viewpoint to photograph Cascade Mountain, near the Town of Banff. My purpose was to get some winter pictures, including some shots of Cascade itself for my growing portfolio of pictures taken in this location. You may recall that I have done two previous blogs from this site, both at sunrise, one in the summer and a second in the autumn. Yes, I will probably return in the spring to round my collection of scenes from every season.

This first one was taken as we reached Two Jack Lake, after a brief hike from where we parked. This was my first photograph for the day, about an hour after sunrise. It was cloudier that we expected with little sunshine in evidence.

I soon reached a spot from where I had taken pictures on earlier visits. This is a direct view of Cascade Mountain, one that I wanted to replicate including snow and ice. I created a panorama to capture the entire breadth of the scene, eight photographs stitched together for this image. Yesterday the peak was obscured by cloud cover. Interestingly, there were high-level winds, blowing snow off the upper levels of the mountains and creating clouds in the process. There is open water in the foreground, created by a spring bubbling up from the lake bottom. What you see on the patch of open water is a partial reflection of Cascade Mountain.

This view was taken from another location, nearby. As in the previous photo, there was a bit of sunlight getting through to illuminate the lower areas of the mountain. My position was still very much in the shade.

This is yet another angle. I’m not sure what’s under those bumps you see in the foreground, they look very much like moguls on a ski slope, absent the slope. This scene offers a better view of snow blowing off another peak, Mount Astley. You can see the clouds forming to the right of the summit.

Somebody messed up the pristine snow on the roadway, returning from our photo location. That was us, the only visitors to the area that morning That’s not a volcano in the background, it’s still Mount Astley, emitting snow.

As we meandered our way back to the parking area, we snapped a few shots of wind-sculpted snow, including an interesting shape on this roadside snow bank. A plow pushed up the snow, the wind did the rest.

My last scene is purposely abstract, featuring windblown ripples on the bank sloping down to the canal. That’s light snow on ice at the edge of the water, at the bottom of the slope. I considered cropping out that area, leaving only the rippled snow. My preference was to leave it intact. I like the three quite distinct bands of colour and texture, across the breadth of the image. Given that this image is very subject to interpretation, I welcome your view.

We wrapped things up around 11:00 am and headed for home. We agreed that we had just experienced a great morning, surrounded by un-paralleled scenery, enjoying great weather and light.