Yesterday, I accompanied some friends from Australia, Henry Kaye and Julie Green on a helicopter trip to Mount Assiniboine for a look at the glaciers up close and of course the scenery along the way. Our route is illustrated on the following map (the longer trip, southwest to Mount Assiniboine). It’s a 50-60 km round trip from Canmore, taking us into British Columbia. It lasts about 1/2 hour and it’s well worth the price of admission, particularly on a clear, sunny day like yesterday.
I took this next picture of Mount Gloria on our approach to Mount Assiniboine from the east along Marvel Lake. Mount Gloria is situated about 3 km southeast of Mount Assiniboine, on the opposite side of the large bowl containing Lake Gloria.
This view from further back shows Lake Gloria at the bottom of the Mount Assiniboine Valley with Mount Gloria on the left and Aye Mountain in the background, its peak shrouded in the clouds.
I’ve chosen to include our close-in views of the Assiniboine and Gloria Glaciers as a slideshow in today’s blog. Many thanks to our pilot, Luke for getting us in close enough for these great picture opportunities.
Here’s one last view of the glaciers with Aye Mountain (still lost in the clouds) and the Gloria Glacier encroaching from the left.
Following are two pictures of Mt. Nestor and Goat Mountain in the Goat Range, just south of Canmore. First Mount Nestor.
Right behind Mt. Nestor is Goat Mountain, both shown in the next picture, a close-up as we flew past. This one is a re-take of a similar picture I took in the winter of 2012.
Today’s last picture was taken as we re-entered the Bow Valley and approached Canmore. You can see the three peaks of this iconic range of mountains, just beyond the ridge in the foreground.
It’s a unique challenge doing photography from a moving aircraft. All photos were taken “hand held”; a tripod or a monopod is a non-starter in the limited confines of the cockpit. I was fortunate to occupy the front seat beside the pilot, giving me a slightly better viewpoint than the rear cabin. Nonetheless, distortions and reflections in the curved glass of the windshield and a limited range of vision made it a little difficult. I lost a number of good pictures where my camera captured unwanted aberrations in the image. The motion of the helicopter is not difficult to manage. With the bright sunlight, it was easy to get high shutter speeds, 1/250 sec and faster, easily offsetting any motion of the chopper.
Breathtaking!