Today’s post contains photos from three separate photographic outings over the weekend. My busy weekend actually began on Friday morning. Bob Bear and I traveled westward to Field B.C. where we hiked into an area off the Emerald Lake Road. This was a photo rich area where we photographed fallen trees at Pick-Up-Stix forest, rapids at Natural Bridge and river scenes at the Amiskwi River Picnic Area. The last area was particularly interesting with two rivers, the Emerald and the Amiskwi flowing into the larger Kicking Horse River within a few hundred meters of each other. I have several photos from this location, so I’ve chosen to include them in today’s post as a slideshow. As always, click on the right side of the photo to advance, on the left to back up.
After some afternoon repose, I went on another excursion in the evening. Accompanied by Greg Bourque, I visited the Highwood Pass area of Kananaskis Country in search of Grizzly Bears. No luck there! We chose to travel home via a dirt road, the Smith-Dorrien Highway. After a short distance, we concluded that this probably a mistake. Being a Friday evening, all the weekend campers were stirring up dust on the road and scaring off the animals. At best, we were hoping not to get Rolande’s car too dirty. But you never can tell. We were somewhat surprised to come upon a mother Grizzly and her cub, feasting on berries along the roadside. They were a little distant but we did manage to get some reasonable pictures. I’ve included a couple of them.
As is often the case, we soon accumulated other bear-watchers. A car parked on the side of the road (ours) is a sign to others that there is wildlife present. In this picture, I captured Ma Grizzly as she paused to check on the motorists between bites. The bears are very cautious, particularly when they have young cubs with them. The number of bear-watchers soon exceeded an amount she was able to tolerate and they departed. Before they did, I got this next shot of the mother and cub moving down the bank toward some yet untouched berries.
The next morning, Saturday, Greg and I got up early to go to Banff for some sunrise pictures. We went to an area along the Tunnel Mountain Road, just east of the town. We ventured down a path to a viewpoint where we could capture the sunrise striking Mount Rundle. There wasn’t a lot of variety here, so I include one photo taking in pretty much everything there was to see.
From this location we’re looking south toward this iconic landmark of Banff. It is a pretty scene including in addition to the mountain, the Bow River and some Hoodoos in the lower left corner of the picture. Hoodoos are spires of soft rock, eroded by the wind into the interesting shapes you see here. I particularly like the colourful light reflected in the river.
Three outings in 24 hours! Not a chore at all. It is great to be out enjoying the beautiful surroundings in the soft light of morning and evening. You often meet some interesting people along the way. Greg and I stopped to scout a future photo site on our way home from Banff on Saturday. We came a cross a man from Pennsylvania named Levi who was touring on his motorcycle. He had just emerged from the tent he had pitched in a roadside picnic area after stopping there for the night. We had a pleasant chat before we went our separate ways. I will take a little break this week from taking the pictures. Time to catch up on processing and storing the growing inventory.