Monday October 24th was the last day of Fall Photo Weekend 2022. Once again, we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant, and then afterwards we packed up all of our gear and checked out. This was the first unsettled day of the four day trip, and it was good that it happened on the last day. It was very cloudy and overcast in the morning. It snowed a little overnight, and by the time we finished breakfast it was turning to a drizzle.
After checking out of the hotel we took a drive up to Pyramid Lake. This is just a short distance up above the townsite and the winding road passes Patricia Lake before ending at Pyramid Lake. There was more snow as we got up a little higher.
The devastation that the Mountain Pine Beetle invasion has inflicted on the pine trees in the park is notable. We saw it everywhere we went over the weekend but it was particularly bad up by Pyramid Lake. There is barely a pine tree left alive, except for a few young ones.
We stopped along the road and attempted to shoot the aspen trunks in fresh snow. This is a composition that I have attempted many times in the past, with little to no success. It seems another attempt was in order, but it probably met with the same fate. It remains to be seen once I get to processing the film. There were a couple of trunks that showed scars from bear claws, but I couldn't seem to work them into any of my compositions.
Once we finished up with the aspens we took a group portrait and then hit the road for home. The portrait is included below and left to right includes Nigel, me, Steve, Gord, Fred and Meghan.
We attempted a couple of stops along the highway on our way out of the park, but it was blustery and windy and the light was not very good. The cameras never made it out of the vehicles. We did stop at a small roadside family cemetery near Hinton and it was quite interesting. It was very sheltered in the trees so shooting was not an issue. All the grave markers shared two or three family names, and there was no signage associating it with any church or community.
That stop at the cemetery was our last. After that we just pounded the highway back home, and arrived in the city in time for dinner. I dropped Steve off at his place and then headed home to the girls.
It was a very successful weekend photographically. I shot 66 sheets of 4x5 Black and White film over the four days. I also shot a couple of sheets of color film, and six sheets of 8x10 with my big Chamonix view camera.
We will definitely plan for another Fall Photo Weekend in 2023 as these events are always so much fun and lead to some really great images. I always find it interesting to see the work of the others as they always end up with a different take on the subjects that we all tried to capture. Some years in the past we also did a Spring Photo Weekend and perhaps that is in the cards for 2023 as well.
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