corwinprescott

The Rockies 2015

Added 2015-08-13 19:02:45 +0000 UTC

Heading into the Canadian Rockies we knew that we were going to have our mines blown by the landscape, and the abundance of large land mammals, but that was just the beginning of it. We definitely weren't prepared for daylight to last until midnight, and for the sun to be right back up by 4am. Steven, Nicole and I have been traveling for years together now, and we have living in a small car down to a science, but Canada was the proving ground for years of practice, and it really really tested us.

We made it to the town of Jasper to sleep for the night after driving 16 hours as we saw the sun rising in the distance. Deciding it would be better to drive another half hour and shoot the sunrise, and then sleep we made our way there. The fog was so intensely thick that having not previously seen a photo of this park I didn't realize that behind the small trees across the lake were massive mountains. It was beautiful but very hard to shoot. Nicole already fast asleep. Steven and I crawled into the car passed out for a few hours.

When we woke up just a few hours later we began our mission of getting to Spirit Island. The mission didn't last long. Steven had been tasked with planning most of Canada, and had failed to find out that the hike to Spirit Island isn't something that can be done, and the boat ride is over $100. We travel for two to three months on what most people could spend in a single weekend visiting one national park, so Spirit Island will unfortunately have to happen another time. It worked out fine though, because Jasper is full of wild life. Every bear, elk, or mule deer I see is easily the equivalent of a boat ride to an island that everyone else is doing. We had a great time hiking and driving around the park photographing the animals.

From Jasper we drove down to Banff specifically for Lake Louise, and Morraine Lake. These are two of Alberta's most photographed, and most beautiful places. High up in the mountains the blue of these lakes is unimaginable. Created by the rock flour suspended in the water the richness of the color is beyond anything I've ever seen. Nicole and I decided we had to try and shoot nudes at Morraine, fortunately the lake turned into a literal ghost town once the tour buses quit running, and it actually made the entire thing quite easy. We still had to be sneaky, as there was a hotel off to our right that had guests been paying attention they may have noticed us, but nobody did, so we shot quickly and then hauled ass back to camp.

From Banff we crossed back into the United States and to my favorite place in the country, Glacier National Park. My only goal for this trip was to photograph mountain goats, so we headed to where they are most seen and photograph Hidden Lake. The hike there in early spring is a brutal one. Walking through thick icy snow, hail storms, and trying not to slip and slide down the mountain side is very scary, but we managed to cover the couple of miles and find goats in the process! I pretty much exclusively use my 70-200mm F2.8 for photographing wild life as it lets me stay the maximum distance away from the animals and avoid disturbing them. This trip was great as Steven let me borrow is 2x extender a few times to shoot with, and I really love it. I'm definitely going to be investing in one of those bad boys soon.

As an added bonus after hiking back to the trail head, drenched, and pretty beat up from the walk we spotted a heard of male Big Horned Sheep. I quickly grabbed my camera out of the bag and snapped 10 or so photos before they ran off. I probably wouldn't have been able to get these photos any other time of year as just metering would normally have taken to long, but the lush greens provide a perfect neutral tone to get an exposure reading off of!

I would have loved to stay and shoot even more in Glacier, but unfortunately Steven had to fly out of Billings to Texas the next day, so we didn't get to spend nearly as much time as I usually would. I will definitely be planning a return trip where Nicole and I get to shoot much more in all of these parks.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/cux019z1xhb5k18/AAC0RPEd1mW4wSXBeSOVCW7ja?dl=0