Winter Day Trip

My friend Rob and I headed out for a winter day trip.  The forecast was calling for the temperature in the city to get up to an afternoon high of -6C.  The skies were clear and it sounded like a great day to get out and make some photographs.  We left at 9:00AM and after a quick stop for fuel and a coffee, we hit the road to the east of Edmonton.  We headed through Elk Island Park and then continued up into Lamont County.  The temperature was around -14C when we left the city, as we came down out of the Elk Island hills it quickly dropped to -20C.  Although the light was great, it just never seemed to warm up.  We explored a number of interesting old buildings but didn't manage anything more than some digital photos.  It was just too cold to get motivated to bring out the big cameras.  Finally, by mid afternoon we got up the courage to try a shot with the view cameras.  Just after we started setting up the sun disappeared into a heavy bank of clouds, and never came back out.  The warmest we saw the thermometer rise to was around -15C.  We eventually made our way back home into the city.  By around 4:00PM when we were coming back into town, and the sun was setting, the thermometer read -7C!!  I guess we just should have stayed in the city and found something to shoot.... or at least brought along some smaller more cold temperature friendly cameras!