Fall Photo Weekend - Day 3

This would be the last day of the Monochrome Guild's Fall Photo Weekend.  There were six members left in the group at this point as Gabor had headed home on Sunday afternoon.  This was the Remembrance Day holiday and by coincidence we were driving past the Royal Canadian Legion in the Jasper townsite at the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month....

Arda, Gord and Court all had their own vehicles and they set off on their own after we finished breakfast.  Steve and Meghan were riding with me and we took a drive up the Pyramid Lake Road.  All weekend long I had been rather shocked and dismayed at the extent of the damage done to all the lodgepole pines by the mountain pine beetles.  Virtually all of the mature trees were reddish brown.  Up on the Pyramid Lake Road some large areas had been clear cut, and I assume this was to deal with that infestation.  We made a stop up at Patricia Lake and there was still a little open water with some steam rising off of it.  On this morning conditions were mostly cloudy, and the temperature was about -11C to start.  It warmed up a bit later in the day, and the skies broke open somewhat.

After we finished up at Patricia Lake we went back through town and headed east back towards home.  We had hoped to stop out by the dunes at Jasper Lake but as is often the case, the wind was just howling.  It was particularly strong on this day and was whipping up huge clouds of dust.  I got a great shot of this on my iPhone, but unfortunately conditions would not permit an attempt to shoot this with the big camera on film.

Later we made a brief stop out by Pocohontas.  We took a short drive up the Miette Road to Punchbowl Falls.  The road was closed for the season beyond this point.  The water in Mountain Creek was down to a trickle and the falls were mostly frozen.  We were able to get right down to the waters edge at the top of the falls and shoot the ice details.  By this point it was 2:00 in the afternoon so when we finished up here, we packed out gear in the truck and hit the road for home. 
We stopped for a coffee in Edson, and had to yield to a moose crossing the road near Niton Junction, but otherwise it was an uneventful drive home.  Road conditions were not great east of Edson, but improved the closer we got to Edmonton.  We arrived back in the city around 6:00 and after dropping off Steve and Meghan, I headed home and offloaded all my stuff.

It was a rather cold weekend, but I managed to shoot 33 sheets of black and white film and 3 sheets of color.  Mostly these weekends are about the camaraderie and visiting with friends and this 20th edition of the Fall Photo Weekend did not disappoint.