Also known as Highway #93, this is the road between Lake Louise and Jasper, AB. It travels northwest along the Columbia Ice Fields and traverses two national parks, Banff NP and Jasper NP over its length of 207 km (128 mi). Today, accompanied by Howie Dingle I went about 1/3 of the way, turning back at Saskatchewan Crossing. We again had great conditions, sunny, clear and not too cold. Great weather and light for photographing the majestic peaks that line this route on both sides.
The first picture was taken on the way northward. To the left is Dolomite Peak and on the right is Watermelon S2, with its summit shrouded by a stray cloud. Last summer, I hiked up the valley to the left of Dolomite Peak on my way to Helen Lake. This trip was pictured in a blog I posted last August. I didn’t go back up there today, but I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t have been any wild flowers this time.
Saskatchewan Crossing is named for the river, the North Saskatchewan that crosses the highway at this point. I’m including two photos from the bridge over the river, one facing west, the other east. The first picture is a panorama composed of 5 images, stitched together to encompass the breadth of the river valley. The valley is the route followed by the David Thompson Highway, which leads eastward to the City of Red Deer. The river is frozen at this point; it’s shallow here and doesn’t move very quickly at this time of the year. I didn’t think to bring any skates. Too bad,it looks pretty good for skating.
Crossing the road to the other side of the bridge, I took this next photo looking west toward the ice fields. I stitched two photos together to create this image which shows Mount Outram with Mount Forbes looking over its shoulder on the right. To the left of Mount Outram is the Sir James Glacier, one of many glaciers that emerge from the Columbia Ice Fields. It is blanketed with a layer of cloud which I can only assume is of its own making. Glaciers all along the Parkway were similarly enveloped in cloud today.
My last photo today shows Mount Patterson and the Snowbird Glacier. Actually, the mountain is pretty well obscured but you can see the glacier below it quite clearly. (Another illustration of the cloud bank sitting atop the ice fields.) This shot was a little tricky with the sun on the left, partially backlighting the scene. With the poor contrast that this lighting creates, I chose to take two exposures which I superimposed and blended to create the picture. The darker exposure was used for the upper portion of the image, the lighter image for the bottom. With the lighter image overlaid on top of the darker one, I carefully brushed away its upper area to reveal the upper portion of the darker exposure beneath. It takes a little care to make the transition between the two look right. I think I’ve been successful when I can create a picture that looks the way I saw it. A camera by its nature can’t always achieve that.
That’s all for today. Hope you’ll enjoy.