Mid October is the end of the tourist season in the Canadian Rockies. Roads and venues are closing. During this time between summer tourist season and ski season, lodging outside of Banff and Jasper becomes difficult but my oh my, the opportunities for wonderful landscape photography don’t go away at all. In fact, the reduction in tourist traffic makes the task of finding a good composition without a hundred tourists a lot, lot easier. Recommended!
I had scheduled a workshop in Glacier National Park for a week and decided to fly into Calgary and take several days before the Glacier workshop to re-explore the Canadian Rockies and try to get to some places that I have always wanted to photograph. I had visited this area once before.. back in the 80’s, during the summer and remembered its beauty.
I knew that the road to Moraine Lake would close down a few days after I landed, so I made Lake Louise and Moraine Lake my initial destination. Thousands of tourists still there and the road to Moraine Lake was closed as they don’t have parking to accommodate thousands near the lake. I went to Lake Louise first (they have a Walmart sized parking lot) and then, later in the afternoon I was able to get into Moraine Lake after most of the tourist buses has departed. I was somewhat disappointed at first as Moraine Lake was frozen and I worried about not being able to see that beautiful glacial blue color of the lake. I went back very early the next morning, before the crowds got there, and was able to go to the top of the moraine at the end of Moraine Lake and was pleasantly surprised to see that the blue of the lake actually came through the ice.
A frozen Lake Moraine.
While up near Lake Louise I took the opportunity to visit a few other places in the area. Sunwapta Falls is so unique and presents an almost perfect photo opportunity.
Sunwapta Falls
When I got to Glacier National Park, most of the park had been closed down because of a historic early snowfall a couple of weeks earlier. This restricted our activities to a few sites on the east side of the park, which incidentally usually has the most photogenic weather. We took lots of pictures of lakes, waves, sun settings and risings, snow covered mountains, moving clouds and gnarly trees. This image kinda has it all.
After the workshop I drove back up to Canada for another 4 days in Canadian Rockies including stays in and around Banff and Jasper. The weather was better than it was a week earlier and I managed to get better shots of some of the places I have visited previously. The crowds were diminishing even more. I was even able to get the image of Lake Louise at the top of the page without any people in it!
