Yesterday, I participated in a hike with friends and fellow photographers, Julie and Stewart Hamilton, Bob Bear and Bev Wittmack. We played hooky from golf to ascend to Taylor Lake in search of the larch trees displaying their autumn colour. Taylor Lake is just east of Lake Louise and can be accessed from a trailhead just off the Trans Canada Highway or from another start point at Moraine Lake. We chose the former and began our upward trek at 8:00 am. Following is a map downloaded from my GPS. The round trip was about 17.2 km (10.7 miles) and our ascent was 737 m (2425 ft).
Conditions were not ideal for photography, a consistent light drizzle and a heavy overcast sky. Further, our goal of catching the larches at the peak of their colour fell short; we seem to have been early. Nonetheless, we had a good hike, the larches although not at their peak were colourful and happily, the photographs turned out pretty well.
The first picture I’m sharing today is our first view of the lake. Taylor Lake is a small mountain lake, situated at a level of roughly 7,000 ft (2,135 m). It sits in a bowl, cradled on the left by Mount Bell and by Panorama Ridge behind. It’s colouration (blue/green) is typical and of course the water is crystal clear. In this scene you can see yellow larch trees sprinkled among the evergreens, primarily pines. Larch trees are unique; although a conifer, the larch is a deciduous tree and loses its leaves (needles) in the autumn. So, they are not evergreens and are bare in the winter. They shine in the autumn when people flock to the mountains to see them when their leaves (needles) turn to a brilliant gold.
This next picture shows a few I photographed at the side of the lake before we ascended to Larch Meadows, a little higher. As you can see our visit was premature. These trees vary in colour from mostly green to green/yellow, with a couple having reached the orange/gold stage.
The colours had not progressed much further at the Larch Meadows, another 380 ft (115 m) above the lake. I took this next photo from the meadow, with Mount Bell in the background.
On our descent we crossed Taylor Creek a number of times. At the first bridge, we paused to take some pictures of a small cascade in the stream. Because the light was dim and this shot required a slow shutter, we improvised a tripod using the bridge railing to brace the camera. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way!”
We returned to the parking lot just after one o’clock and headed back home. Despite the conditions, it was a good hike and great way to spend the morning, in an alpine environment.
Very nice images, taken on a day when the elements did not cooperate. A nice, although muted, image of Taylor Lake. Good work with polarizer to bring out the submerged rocks in the foreground. Nice lines otherwise.
I liked the admixture of larch and evergreen in the next image. Yellow and green in nature; a nice combination. I tried to capture this in some photos, but fell short of your effort.
Nice lines in the Taylor Creek photo, and nice smoothing of the water, as always.