Autumn in Kananaskis

A pleasant autumn continues in Alberta. There is not better place to witness the fall colours than in Kananaskis Country, south and east of Canmore. It’s about a 40 minute drive to get there, so it’s an obvious choice for capturing the season in photographs. I went down this morning and spent a couple of hours traveling along Highway 40  in search of some good scenes. Following are a few of my favourites from earlier today.

My first stop was a bend in the Kananaskis River at the Opal day use area. Behind me on the east side of the road was the Opal Range of mountains. At this hour, about 10:30 am, the sun was still behind the Opal Range and this scene was mostly in shadows. I chose to use a high dynamic range image, blended from three exposures to diminish the strength of the shadows. I was able to balance the light between the foreground (in shadow) and the background to produce this image. In the background you can see Mount Lawson, Mount Inflexible and Mount James Walker from left to right.

I moved on to an old favourite location, the Wedge Pond where I got this shot of Mount Kidd. The air was crystal clear and the water in the pond was perfectly still, enabling me to capture this mirror image reflected on the water’s surface. In this scene you can see the brilliant yellows of the aspens, contrasted against the ever green evergreens. We don’t get the red colours of the maple leaves but we do see a good variety of orange and yellow from the aspen and larch trees.

I took this next picture from a different angle across the Wedge Pond. It features Fortress Mountain in the distance, clearly reflected in the pond. It’s the one to the left with the small toupee of cloud on top. That’s Mount James Walker again, in the middle of the scene. I used a blue-gold polarizing filter to enhance the blues and yellows in this photograph. It’s a difficult filter to use and can lead to some very serious discoloration if you don’t get it just right. I was pleased with this outcome; alas some of my other efforts served to remind me that this filter can only be used sparingly! The effect of the filter can be best seen in the cloud reflections in the water.

I moved on from the Wedge Pond to the junction of the road leading to the Nakiska Resort and Highway 40. Here I walked down to the river’s edge to get this picture of the Kananaskis River. In the background you can see Mount Kidd (left) and two mountains on the right, Ribbon Peak in front and the snow-capped Mount Bogart behind.

I decided it was time to start homeward but not before I got two more shots of the autumn splendour of Kananaskis Country. In this picture, you can see stands of aspens and larch trees interspersed with the evergreens on the lower slopes of Mount Lorette. Although it is too distant to know for certain, I’m presuming the orange-coloured trees, higher on the mountain are larches. Whereas the aspens are leafed trees, the larch tree is a conifer. It is unique among conifers in that its needles turn an orange colour in autumn and do fall off. That makes it a deciduous conifer. Another variety of the larch tree is known as the tamarack tree.

My last stop was along the highway, looking west toward Barrier Lake. I couldn’t resist the brightly coloured aspens dominating the landscape. I was able to squeeze in a corner of the lake as well; really like the blue/green colour of the water and how well it complements the bright yellow of the trees. It was a great morning for taking pictures and despite it being a little cool earlier in the morning it was great just to be outside on such a day.