As I had a day off this past Friday, my wife, Katherine, and I headed out to Kananskis Country, which is a wilderness area/park on the east side of the Rockies. We had reasonable weather, although there had been a bit of snow at Highwood Pass, elevation 2,206 m (7,238 ft), the highest road in Canada, and the road was icy.
1 - Heading north up Route 40 into the Pass:
2 - Getting closer
3 - Details of the folding of the mountains. Makes you wonder what forces were at play here:
4 -Rocky Mountain Sheep on the road, with one fresh one
5 -Curiosity of youth
6 -Stacked Sheep
7- Lower Kananaskis Lake. This was a natural Lake, but it and Upper Kananaskis Lake were dammed in the 1930's and there is a hydroelectric generator. The damming raised the levels of the lakes a fair bit.
We saw lots of wildlife. It was great! Not too many people around and perhaps because of that, the wildlife was on the side of the road, making photos easy!
8 - White Tailed Deer
9- Same one, different look
10- A lone larch in full autumn foliage. I found it curious that there were several larches on their own. I would have thought that if one got going, then others would grow around it, but apparently not so here.
11 - Perhaps the highlight. Katherine and I have hiked literally thousands of kilometres in the Canadian Rockies and our total bear sightings are two black bears. Actually, Katherine wasn't there when I saw the black bears - just my boys and I, so Katherine had never seen a bear. This female was digging up roots in a meadow. It is actually a meadow near the Visitor Information Centre for Peter Lougheed Park, so I was able to take these shots from the safety of the balcony of the centre. This Grizzly female had two cubs this year, but both died, one they think killed by a male and the other they don't know. The first shot gives you an idea of the distance. It is taken at 500mm on a APS-C camera(750mm on a 35mm camera) and cropped about 40%. It was really exciting to finally see a grizzly!
12 - about 100% crop
13 - about 150% crop, backlit
Then we headed down a road to the lake and I was driving. A coyote ran in front of the car, I slammed on the brakes, grabbed my camera and got this - not razor sharp, unfortunately. That is a snowshoe hare. I didn't leap out to follow it as wild animals with freshly caught prey can be a bit possessive.
14 - Coyote and hare
Then it was time for moose!
15 - Two Meese ( everyone knows that the plural of moose is meese!) I'm pretty sure this is a mother and her young one.
16 - The young one became curious and started coming towards me. I was out of the car, took a few shots (at 250mm), got back in the car and drove away. I wasn't in any danger, but moose can get ornery and they are huge!
17 - A final shot of Upper Kananaskis Lake
It was a great day! There were very few people on the road and around Kananaskis Lakes, we bumped into the same people time and again and shared experiences of the animals. Everyone was enthusiastic and we directed each other to areas where we had seen different species.
So you get an idea where this is and if you have Google Earth, the coordinates for the lakes are: 50° 37' 45.76" N by 115° 08' 04.31" W.
Thanks for looking and as always, comments are welcome.
Garth
