Fall Colors Found in the Canadian Rockies

The weather quickly moved in on us, so we drove north up the Ice House Road (Canada 93) without any photo stops, and we stayed for the night in Jasper Alberta. The next day we headed west over the continental divide on the Yellowhead Highway (Canada 16), to Mt Robson Provincial Park in British Columbia.

Initially, as seen in the photo below, Mt Robson (the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies at 12,989ft or 3,959M) was cloaked in clouds, so we camped and waited for the weather to improve. The Robson River is in the foreground of this image.
Remember you can Click on any Image to See a Larger Higher Resolution Version

The next day the weather improved and the sun came out and the clouds lifted from the summit of Mt Robson

In the views above and below there is 10,000+ feet of relief from the top of the mountain to the river, the vertical panorama below is an attempt to show the immense size of this mountain.

As you can see from the image above, the leaves were just starting to yellow at Mt Robson on the west side of the divide. However, back on the other side of the Great Divide in Alberta, the leaves were nearly at their peak, so after spending the night to photograph Mt. Robson we headed south east.

On the drive from Mt Robson back to Jasper we came across a lovely little lake (Lucerne Lake B.C.), and there was almost no wind, so the reflection of the mountains in the lake was nearly perfect.

By the time we reached Jasper, the weather had moved back in again. So we had lunch in town at the local brewery, which was very good, and we visited the local shops. In a local rock and mineral store I found the shop owner who is a local expert on the Burgess Shale. Dr. Rohr at Sul Ross State University in Alpine had lectured and shown us films about the Burgess Shale in Advanced Paleontology class. The Burgess Shale of the Canadian Rockies contains some of the worlds oldest and most spectacular fossils. When the Burgess was origanally deposited, many happy animals lived in shallow water on an ancient reef; however, there were steep slopes into a deep abyss on one side of the reef. The animals who died sunk into the deep abyss where they were it was very cold, and they were covered by sediment and preserved as fossils. The hike up to see the Burgees shale is very steep and long and a bit treacherous, and my dad is interested in leaves and scenery, so we did not trek up to see the Burgess Shale. However, the shop owner gave me good directions on how to get up there. The directions along with a geologic map and a GPS are going up with me to find the and photograph the Burgess next time I am in the area.

We camped in the campground at the far north end of Jasper National Park. The male elks were migrating through the campground, and we even saw two elks dueling on the way out of the campground the next morning. We also met a nice Canadian couple in the campground that were professional photographers and drove a sprinter van like ours.

We knew the weather might quickly become an issue in Jasper National Park, so we started out early.
The image below is from the northern or lower part of Jasper National Park, and as you can see the weather was rapidly moving in.
This is a long Panorama, remember to Scroll to see it all--->

Below is an image of the Athabasca River in Lower Jasper National Park.
This is a long Panorama, remember to Scroll to see it all--->

Lower Jasper National Park is truly an amazing place, and we never did see it in good weather conditions, and unfortunately we did not make it back this far north again.

We drove up to the Columbia Glacier in Jasper National Park. The Columbia Glacier is at the far southern end of the national park, and is high in altitude, so I will refer to the southern end of Jasper National Park as upper Jasper. There is a large lodge at the Columbia Glacier, we had lunch at the lodge. We had tried to stay at the lodge on our way up to Jasper but they had no rooms. This time they did have rooms, and he weather was not so good so we decided to stop for the day. The Columbia Glacier lodge is visited by thousands of tourists daily. When we pulled up for lunch there were approximately 70 full size 50ft tour busses in the parking lot filled with passengers who came overseas to see the Canadian Rockies. The lunch buffet at the Columbia Glacier lodge is set up to feed thousands and did so successfully. However, there are only about 20 to 40 rooms in the lodge, so in the evening the place quiets down and is very nice and quite peaceful. The glacier was pretty much clouded in when we arrived there, but in the morning the clouds broke enough was able to shoot a reasonable panorama of it.
This is a long Panorama, remember to Scroll to see it all--->


We drove further south into the National Park, and the weather turned foul again. However when the weather covers up the mountain tops, and excellent photographic subject is waterfalls.

This waterfall (Stanley Falls) is right off the side of Ice House Road (Canada 93), near the boundary between Banff and Jasper National Parks
I used a slow shutter speed and high F-stop to blur the water in the falls and give it more of a sense of motion. This is a good trick for photographers, but you need a tripod to make it work correctly.

The waterfall below (Sunwapta Falls) was a short hike off the Ice House Road down a paved trail, and the image below was shot from a bridge crossing the Sunwapta canyon. With this image I used a low F-stop and a fast shutter speed to freeze the state of the water. This fall is not as scenic as the falls pictured above, but there is a massive amount of water flowing over Sunwapta Falls. The freeze frame of the water below increases the texture of the water, and gives the viewer a sense of the volume of water here, even though there is nothing in the frame that shows scale. Also the freeze frame allows the light blue in the glacial silt charged water to be seen.

When looking at the next image, it is difficult to tell exactly what you are looking at; however, I worked hard to capture this image, and I believe it interesting. This image is a 90 deg vertical panorama of a waterfall. The top of the image is looking level or horizontal, and the bottom is looking straight down. I photographed this from a rock that hung out over the top of the fall. The water drops 600ft+ (300M+) over the cliff. My heart was really racing after photographing this image to the point that the resulting adrenaline surge kept me warm the rest of the day.

This is a waterfall that is hidden about 100 yards north of the Brideavail Falls pullout on the Ice House Highway. Brideavail Falls can be seen across the canyon. To get to this fall just walk north of the pullout into the woods. There you will find a series of waterfalls and a tight canyon. Follow the stream downhill and you will quickly find this spectacular 600+ foot drop (200M).

We camped in Mosquito Creek Campground in Banff National Park. Sport the dog had a chance to go swimming in the creek. Early the next day the clouds were lighter allowing for some photography.

Below is an image of the Saskatchewan River in Banff with a mountain behind. I can't help myself I like to shoot pictures of this kind of subject matter.

Below is another panorama of the same mountain and the Saskatchewan River as in the picture above, I like the perfect "S" curve in the river, and the fall color in the foreground.
This is a long Panorama, remember to Scroll to see it all--->

In the next Image I wanted to show the vertical relief on a mountain from the fall colors on its lower slopes up to its high frosted peak. To accomplish the effect of actually showing the relief in detail I used a high power telephoto lens (approximately 300mm 35mm equiv) and shot a vertical panorama.

Sport the dog joined in the fun when we revisited the Saskatchewan River in Banff National Park at another location.
This is a long Panorama, remember to Scroll to see it all--->



The weather quickly began to move in again. But even with the skys turning gray we decided to photograph what we could.

The hillside in the picture below shows some nice colors, so I photographed it even with the gray skies above.
This is a long Panorama, remember to Scroll to see it all--->


Banff National Park is so scenic that it is still spectacular even in gray cloudy weather.



Below is an image of the Crows Foot Glacier in Banff National Park, near the south end of Ice House Road. At one time there was a third lower toe on the glacier, but in recent years the glacier has recessed and the lower toe was lost.
This is a long Panorama, remember to Scroll to see it all--->

The weather continued to grow worse. However, the mountain in the image below had an amazing interaction with the atmosphere. The mountain was creating (making) the cloud that is seen extending off of the mountain to the left. The speed that the cloud was being created at was nothing short of phenomenal. I would estimate that the cloud was extending from right to left in this image at 62+ mph (100+ Kph). I wish I had a video camera to record this event, live, this mountain almost looked like a volcano.

Well, the weather shut us down for another day. Dad was having troubles with the one of the command dials on his camera, so we headed to Calgary to wait out the weather, and buy a new camera.

In the next series we will drive the front range of the Canadian Rockies, and then revisit Banff and Jasper National Parks, and best of all, we will finally wait out the weather to photograph the beautiful fall colors and extreme rugged mountain peaks of Canada under a blue sky with abundant sunshine.

Click Here for set 4 , The Canadian Rockies at their Best!

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