Fall Photo Weekend 2013

This past weekend was the 13th Annual Fall Photo Weekend with the Monochrome Guild.  I have been on every one of these outings since my friend Jon and I first started this tradition in 2001.  Most years the group has gone out to Jasper National Park, traditionally sometime just after Halloween.  The logic is that this is the time of year when accommodations are inexpensive, and the crowds are gone.  The summer tourist season is over and done with, and the winter ski season is not yet underway.  Some years we have gone to Banff National Park, or Kananaskis, and a couple of times to the badlands near Drumheller.  But the majority of the fall trips have been to Jasper.

This time around there were five members of the Monochrome Guild... Arda, Court, Gary, Tanja and myself.  For the first time my oldest daughter Hailey also came along.  This six of us spent the weekend photographing the mountains of Jasper Natioinal Park.

We left Edmonton early on Saturday morning.  Gary, Hailey and I travelled in my truck, and the other three were in a second vehicle.  We arrived in the park well before noon and after a brief stop at Talbot Lake, we headed up to Portal Creek.  This place has changed a lot in the past year.  The edges of the creek used to be heavily overgrown with brush and trees.  The heavy rains and flooding that plagued the foothills and southern Alberta this past spring must have also hit this area.  The bank was washed away and many of the trees and bushes were gone.  Photographically this gave better access to the rocky creek bed that was so photogenic.  The creek spills down the slope, cascading over a lot of rocks and boulders.  At this time of year there is typically some fresh snow, and a lot of cool ice formations beginning to form.  This year was no exception.

Later in the day we tried to drive up to Athabasca Falls, but the secondary highway was closed at The Meeting of the Waters.  We back tracked and caught up with the rest of the gang back at Portal Creek. They decided to stay there shooting and we headed up to the benches above the Jasper townsite. Surprisingly the water at Patricia Lake was not frozen and we got some good images of Pyramid Mountain reflected in the still waters.  After that the light was done for the day.  We headed into town, checked into our hotel rooms, and went out for dinner.

The next morning, after breakfast, we all decided to head up the Maligne Road.  We stopped along the river and did a little shooting, before eventually moving on up the valley to Medicine Lake.  As we arrived at the lake, the sun began to break out, the clouds starting lifting, and the scene before us was pretty spectacular. We shot here for a while and then eventually headed further up the valley to Maligne Lake.  Not finding much there that seemed worth shooting we headed back down the valley and shot for awhile again, back at Medicine Lake, in the evening light.  On our way back into town in the late afternoon we also stopped briefly at the Maligne viewpoint, and at the Fifth Bridge.  Then it was back to our hotel, and again out for our evening meal.

As Monday was the Remembrance Day holiday, we had one more day to spend in the mountains.  After breakfast we checked out of our hotel and then headed over to Athabasca Falls.  The first two days of the weekend had been pleasantly mild for early November, with afternoon high temperatures peaking just above the freezing point.  On this morning it was particularly brisk.  The skies completely cleared over night and the temperature dropped down considerably.  By the time we got over to Athabasca Falls it was still only about -12C, and there was a dampness in the air due to the mist from the falls.  We shot here for a while and it was beginning to warm up by the time we left.  Next we headed over to Horseshoe Lake.  This lake was beginning to freeze over, but there was still some open water.  We spent the last few hours of our weekend shooting here, and really enjoyed the afternoon.  By the time we finished up it was nearly 3:00PM.  We had a quick lunch, packed up our gear and hit the road for home.  We arrived back home after dark, in the early evening, tired but content from a very enjoyable fall outing.