I made a 12km hike along Porcupine Creek today with a few hundred metres of scrambling thrown in for good measure. It finally felt as though summer had arrived as temperatures reached 26 degrees; so it was a little disappointing to see many trees and shrubs preparing their autumn colours. It seems now that summer is here it's almost over. It's been that kind of a year this time around thanks to El Nino reaching it's peak in 2016. I think for autumn I might try and get out with the camera a bit more and capture some of the wonderful colour that lights up the mountains through September/October, less hiking, more photography.
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Friday saw the sun shining on us once more and we thought we had better make the most of it as the 'english summer experience' continues (i.e. never a day without rain) We took a trip out to Upper Kananaskis Lake where we made a full 10 mile circuit around that wonderful body of water. The images are all from this circumnavigation so there's little need for captions
After 2 weeks of searching by our web hosting service, the bug affecting mobile use has been identified and repaired so full functionality has returned across the site irrespective of your choice of viewing platform. Sorry for the prolonged delay, we had no control over the issue other than repeatedly emailing our service provider. To be fair to them this is the first issue the site has had in many years of operation so hopefully it will be back to smooth sailing for the foreseeable future.
We've had this little beauty visiting for quite a while now but he rarely sits around long enough for a photo, but today he was in the mood to stick around owing to a refill of sunflower seeds in the feeder allowing me to grab a few shots.
It's our best time of year for sunsets from the balcony (owing to sun position during summer) and though I feel I'm posting them quite frequently, I just can't let evenings like this pass by without at least one capture. I think something inside me reminds me that this incredible view won't be here forever and I should make the memories while I can and secondly, what kind of photographer would let this beautiful sight go unrecorded.
With a gap in the miserable thunderstorms at last we decided to go out to Kananaskis and hike to West Wind Pass for the afternoon. It's a steady drive in holiday traffic but we arrived and got booted up by 1pm and had a really nice 6 km hike with 420m of ascent to the aptly named pass. We tucked in just behind the summit for a nice lounging lunch before making the steady hike out again. It was great to be back in the hills even if it did feel like hard work after a long lay off. The main shot is Sarah at the pass with the Windtower behind and the gallery is just a selection of shots along the way. You can see a previously made hike to the Windtower by clicking here.
Looking over the city tonight we saw an almost perfectly round storm forming to the west, in no time at all it was drifting into Cochrane dragging wind, rain and lightning across the sunset. The image below is a photo merge of two 30 second exposures which each caught a bolt of lightning beneath the dark cloud, I love the contrast between the sky in advance and the sky in rear of the storm.
I set out to try and walk off a cold this afternoon with a 15km hike through the local forest at west Bragg Creek. It was incredibly hot and my body certainly did it's best to sweat it out, only time will tell if I was successful. I only took along the macro lens in the hope of finding a nice shot for the 52 project but as I stumbled about in the forest I saw this huge moose with tremendous antlers in a clearing close to me. I hardly had time to ask "why the long face" when he trotted off into the dense bushes beyond but not before I grabbed a shot or two. Below is a selection of the macro shots from the day, there are no captions just something to show for my efforts.
Those using the mobile version of our site please note that we are currently suffering from functionality issues affecting galleries, search and other aspects. Thanks to all those who commented on the these bringing them to our attention, I have spoken to our web hosting service provider and it has been identified as something at their end which is under investigation. Hopefully they will find and fix the bug very quickly, until then please bear with us and maybe use the laptop/desktop version of the site until the fix is identified.
With the family visit drawing to a close this week we had a steady day down in the elbow valley at Beaver Flats where we explored the beaver holt and new deep ponds created by their hard work. We didn't see the residents of the holt but did see ducks, a dipper and a little later a kingfisher. We ended the day with a nice indian meal in our excellent local restaurant, it's been a great two weeks and the house will seem empty again tomorrow night when Neil, Paula and Adam head home.
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AuthorWe arrived in Calgary, Canada on 29th December 2011 to continue our journey. This blog is intended to keep our family and friends informed whilst we explore Canada.You can use the RSS feed below to stay updated. Categories
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January 2024
The Shaman, West Texas
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