Stormy Sunrise Over Sunburst Park
I have to admit...I really didn't feel like getting out of my tent two weeks ago when the alarm went off at 4:30 AM. It had snowed a bit more overnight and everything seemed to be covered in ice. But I pulled out the jet boil, made some coffee, and staggered out into the cloudy predawn light. The Nublet might have only been 4 or 5 kilometers from the Magog Lake campground, but it might as well have been on the moon. I forgot to take my 14-24 out of my bag and between the weight of my tripod, new ballhead and multiple lenses, it was like hauling a couple of boat anchors up that trail. I grimaced several times as young twenty-somethings bounced happily up the trail past me as I sat shoving snow in my face to make up for the frozen life straw in my pack.
Somehow I made it back onto my feet and just managed to make it somewhere between the Niblet and the Nublet (I never did figure out which was which) just as the sun broke through, lighting up the clouds and bits of the range in front of us with a brief burst of orange. Suddenly I quite forgot about the fact that I was exhausted and freezing my butt off and spent the next two hours shooting some of the most gorgeous real estate in the Canadian Rockies. For someone like me, whose batting average was now in the minus territory after striking out with 10 days of shooting in the Northwest last Summer, 10 days of shooting the Dolomites last Fall, and finding the entire Western Hemisphere covered in smoke on my 10 day trip through the Canadian Rockies a month ago...this view literally brought tears to my eyes. Every once in a long while, I actually come across a breaking storm with some decent light. As the lady who set up her tripod next to me exclaimed "Thank you God!"
There was indeed much to be thankful for over those 10 days of shooting in the Canadian Rockies. When my shooting buddy Eric and I first arrived, the forecast was grim. Five days of gray skies...right through our time in Assiniboine. It was beginning to look like we might not see the sun at all. Instead, we were treated to just about everything from 4 inches of new snow, to bright sunshine, to some very decent sunrises and sunsets. The larches were just hitting peak color and we seemed to have arrived during a very small window this year between Autumn and Winter. A couple of days after we arrived home, almost a foot of new snow fell in and around Banff, and a second storm dumped even more later that week.
All of this to say, there will be many more images to come. We both had a fantastic time in the Canadian Rockies and we can't wait to go back. Our travels took us from Banff into Assiniboine for 3 nights before heading North to Jasper and Robson, finishing with trips to Yoho and back to Banff. As I told Eric, I paid for this trip in spades when I got back home and had mountains of work to catch up on…but that trip was easily worth what we paid in cash, time, energy and blood. More photos to come!
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Tags: Assiniboine Provincial Park Sunburst Peak Sunrise Assiniboine Canadian Rockies
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Last May, I began to look for ideas for our next photo adventure following an incredible four days in the Columbia River Gorge. I had always dreamed of shooting the Canadian Rockies, and after scouting for shots, I quickly became obsessed with making a trip up North as quickly as possible.
I spent the next few months reading anything I could get my hands on in order to familiarize myself with three of the most popular national parks in Alberta and BC, namely Banff, Yoho and Jasper. I watched dozens of youtubes, read a ton of blog posts, and purchased more than a few books, including "Summits & Starlight" by Paul Zizka, and "The Wonder Of Yoho" and "Jasper-Robson:A Taste of Heaven" which are both by Don Beers. (Wonder of Yoho is very highly recommended as it includes trail guides, distances, and elevations.)
Before I go any further, I also wanted to give a huge shout out to the Canadian photographer Paul Zizka who was kind enough to answer my emails and to offer advice. Paul was incredibly helpful and I would HIGHLY recommend his workshops if you are headed to that area. His photos can be found just about everywhere, but if you want to have your mind blown, please check out his portfolio on his website at: Zizka.ca.
Fast forward to last Wednesday when Tom Bricker, Todd Hurley, and Mark Willard and I all converged in the Calgary airport from all across the county for four days of frantic shooting in the Canadian Rockies. One of our top priorities was too shoot around Lake O'hara. The only caveat to shooting this particular lake is that you either need to get a bus reservation or WALK the 14 miles in and out on top of the insanely beautiful hikes on all sides of the lake when you arrive. And one of the only ways to ensure that you can be on that bus is to camp overnight. But you need to reserve your camp site THREE MONTHS in advance.
So almost three months to the day, I booked our campsite at Lake O'hara, which meant getting rental camping gear from Snowtips Bactrax in Banff and spending the night in the Lake O'Hara campground. Last Thursday, we boarded the bus at 3:30 PM with our additional camping gear and rode up into some of the most beautiful country I had ever set eyes upon. Waterfalls, gorgeous aqua-blue-green lakes, and mountains shooting straight up into the sky in all directions, not to mention the golden larch trees which were now just hitting their peak color.
I knew going in that one of the main attractions in the Canadian Rockies during September were the larch trees, and one of the finest areas to shoot these trees was from atop the Opabin Plateau. I also knew that one of the finest views in all of Canada was to be found by looking out over the lakes from the Opabin Prospect which is a set of cliffs that offer amazing views with heart stopping drops as the plateau comes to an abrupt end as you head back Northwest toward Lake O'hara.
The trail up there seemed fairly tame for a quarter of a mile or so. It soon became a bit steeper, but I soldiered on. Just when I was feeling proud of myself for not slowing the group down the trail suddenly turned into a series of switchbacks and dodgy rock steps and I spent the next hour or so wondering if my buddies were go for help if I had a heart attack...or if they would take photos for a couple of hours before giving me CPR. As we looked back over our shoulders every few minutes, it was easy to see why the term "Yoho" is the Cree word for "awe."
Eventually we made it to the top and we spent the next 2-3 hours shooting both the larches surrounding the lakes up there in addition to views we found at the Opabin Prospect. In this particular view. the last light of the day is hitting Mt Huber on the right and you can see the clouds reflected in both Lake O'hara and Mary Lake. After shooting well past sunset and waiting for the moon to rise behind us, it took another couple of hours to get back down to our campsite where we had a hasty dinner and, wincing slightly, headed off to bed. I think I finally nodded off around 1 AM. (To be continued...)
William McIntosh Photography
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Tags: Yoho National Park Lake O'Hara Opabin Prospect Opabin Plateau Rokinon 12 mm Fisheye
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The 4:30 AM alarm hurt pretty bad, but we needed to be packed and ready to roll by 5 AM, so Todd and I groggily scrambled to get our stuff together before jumping in the van to pick up Todd and Mark who were living the high life over in the Fairmont Lodge in Jasper. As we headed up to Maligne Lake, I was driving a bit faster than I should have as I wanted to make sure we were in position before any color crept into the sky. I slowed down pretty quickly though as I rounded a corner and came face to face with the largest bull moose I had ever seen.
The first light was just beginning to creep into the sky as all four of us set up on the Northern shore of the lake and proceeded to shoot some long exposures of the boat house which was glowing brightly against the deep, early morning light.
We spent the next half hour or so agonizing over the fact that we were looking at some very nice looking clouds, but there was no real color to be seen. Just as all four of us gave up hope, I yelled "COLOR!" as the slightest wisp of pink had now appeared on one of the clouds in the distance. Sure enough, 5 minutes later, the sky exploded in early morning color and we shot like mad men right up until 9 am when we stopped to purchase our tickets for the trip out to Spirit Island.
Other than the area surrounding Lake O'Hara, the other location I was most looking forward to shooting was Maligne Lake. On this particular morning, we were very grateful that the skies had parted, the rain had stopped, and that the sun had come through as if on cue. I'm sure I blew through more than a thousand frames over the course of the next few hours before it was finally time to head to lunch and then South again to Canmore.
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Tags: Lake Maligne Jasper National Park Canadian Rockies Blue Hour Nikkor 14-24, 2.8 Maligne Lake Maligne Lake
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Following an epic sunrise where the sun made an appearance during the final crucial minutes, we tore ourselves away from shooting just long enough to purchase tickets on the 1.5 hour round trip cruise to Spirit Island. We almost balked at the $65 price tag, but we reminded each other that it was in Canadian dollars and that we REALLY wanted to shoot Spirit Island and that the only alternative seemed to be renting a canoe and rowing our butts off for the entire day. As we still wanted to shoot the Icefields Parkway on our way back to the lakes down South, this left us with only one option.
So 260 Canadian dollars later, we boarded the first boat out at 9:45 AM. Our fellow passengers looked to be mostly retirees and a tour group from somewhere in Asia. Our first question to the boat operators was....can we go outside and stand in the back? After we heard "Of course!", we spent the majority of the next 45 minutes freezing our butts off in the small standing area at the back of the boat. For most of the journey it was just the crazy American photographers and a couple of other guests who braved the cold wind whipping around us. This particular shot caught my eye as I was leaning as far out over the edge of the boat as I could get without falling in. (Picture a dog with his head out the window...holding a camera.)
As we approached Spirit Island, the boat swung around hard to the East and this panoramic view suddenly opened up. As we were the first boat in the water that day and the wind had died down, I was now looking at a sea of topaz-colored glass spreading out in front of me. Suddenly the $65 price tag seemed far too small. I quickly shot a couple of brackets before the view shifted again and Spirit Island came into view.
(To be continued...)
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Tags: Maligne Lake Jasper National Park Jasper Nikkor 14-24, 2.8 Spirit Island Tour
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Spirit Island is easily one of the most iconic spots in the Canadian Rockies and has been photographed many, many times. If you want to shoot Spirit Island, you are pretty much limited to two choices:
Option #1: Take the $65 cruise out to the island with a boat full of tourists and grab as many shots as you can within the 15 minute time limit.
Option #2 - Throw all of your photo and camping gear into a canoe and paddle your butt off for a few hours until you reach Fisherman's Bay campground and spend a night or two shooting this wonderful area.
I would have preferred option #2, but it involved getting a canoe and camping gear, both of which we didn't have. But I DEFINITELY want to figure out how to make this happen on my next trip. Being limited to option #1, we asked one of the guys back in the tour shop if we could stay and take a later boat back, but he said that it would be impossible as most of his cruises were already sold out for the day. Realizing that we only had 15 minutes to shoot, all four of us were the first off of the boat where we raced to as many locations as possible in the brief time that we had to shoot.
Before our trip, I had read that the tour operators would prefer that we stayed only on the trails and not wander out onto the "island" itself as the island was regarded by many older First Nation individuals as sacred. Even without this warning, you immediately have a sense of wonder and awe as you look out over Spirit Island for the first time. There's just something about that little grove of trees in the midst of the stunning, topaz blue water of Maligne Lake surrounded by those enormous mountains on all sides that just takes your breath away. We definitely used every allotted second on that island, racing back only when the horn impatiently blew and the next group of tourists arrived. We were hoping for some sun, but I think I ultimately preferred the stormy sky and new snow in the mountains above as a nice back drop to that beautiful aqua-blue water. Can't wait to try option #2 at some point in the future!
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Thank you so much for your views and comments! If you have specific questions please be sure to send me a message via flickr mail, or feel free to contact me via one of the following:
Blog | Website | Facebook | Google + | 500px | Twitter
Tags: Spirit Island Jasper National Park Jasper Canadian Rockies Snow Nikkor 14-24, 2.8 Maligne Lake
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