Visitor’s Tour

I recently hosted a visitor from our community in Scottsdale, Arizona. Alex Skoczen is an accomplished photographer who has now realized his wish to photograph in the Canadian Rockies. We spent four days last week, touring several of my favourite photo sites.

Our first destinations were Moraine Lake and Lake Louise, followed by several stops along the Icefields Parkway, then a day in and around Banff. Our plans for the fourth and final day did not eventuate as planned. The chosen destination, Kananaskis was rained out. A check of the weather forecast proved fruitful. We spent the last day in Yoho National Park, located in British Columbia, about twenty minutes past Lake Louise.

All this was new to Alex, offering a wide variety of photo choices. I, on the other had visited all these locations in the past year. I decided to look for new scenes and compositions I had not photographed before. I was generally successful, with minimum repetition of pictures I had taken before.

I will share these photos in two or three posts, beginning today with a photograph taken at Peyto Lake, a very picturesque location in Banff National Park, along the Icefields Parkway.

Bow Lake is also found along the Icefields Parkway, just before Peyto Lake. It’s one of my favourite locations, one that I’ve photographed at least a dozen times before. I can say with certainty that I have never photographed this view of the lake before.

Having shared the most common view of Moraine Lake in a photograph posted only a month ago, I was seeking something different. I didn’t have to move far to reach this interesting location. It features two of the peaks surrounding the lake, photographed from a position near the dock where the rental canoes are moored.

This photograph was taken at Takakkaw Falls, located in Yoho NP. Its claim to fame is its height, with a total height of 373 metres (1,224 ft), making it the second tallest waterfall in Canada. The main drop of the waterfall has a height of 254 metres (833 ft). I was fortunate to be able to take this photograph from this creekside location not crowded with other visitors. Wet feet are a small price to pay.

One of my favourites stops on our trip was the Athabasca Glacier. This was the first time I had hiked up to the “toe” of the glacier. I didn’t realize until I uploaded this photograph to my computer that I had included a half dozen adventurers walking on the glacier. (You can see them about midway up from the bottom and a third of the way in from the left side of the photograph). To walk on the glacier, a person must have had training or be accompanied by a trained guide. The primary risk is a fall into a crevasse.

I’ve driven by Waterfowl Lake many times before, without stopping. On this occasion I took three photographs, including this one. The weather conditions (the cloud pattern and the fog bank above the water) made this scene much more interesting.

This is the classic view of Lake Louise, photographed by everyone who visits there (including me). I did take some shots from other locations, but I find this one to be the most appealing.

I’d like to thank our friend, Tracey Wilkens, presently operating tours into the Rockies, for taking us into Moraine Lake and Lake Louise. They’re among the most popular of locations to visit and we appreciated the easier access that Tracey’s service offers.

I’ll continue in a future post(s) to share more photographs from last week’s photographic adventures.