Day 19 ~ Wednesday 9th September, 2015

I was up at 5.30am (only because of the freight train snoring in the tent). Some people were up and pondering about leaving for sunrise, when the rain started. I was half dressed and then had to take it all off to stay in the tent, only to hear a car drive off 10mins later!! Arrgghhh – wait for me!!!!! Never mind, there wasn't a sunrise, but I could have shot that bridge.

Steve was more than happy for the extra hour of sleep. I got up and walked around the Whistler Campground, which is enormous! You don't realise how big these RV's really are and how many of them there are until you are in a campsite like this!

I didn't see any Elk, but one squirrel did come out to yell and me and then disappeared!

We broke camp and thank god it wasn't raining, but all our gear was wet – including the bottom of our tent. But we got it all packed up and back in the cars and we headed into Jasper for breakfast.

From there, the crew from yesterday went off to Athabasca Falls whilst we (Steve, Tim & Shaun & I) went out to Sunwapta Falls – OMG – they are perfect! I love symmetry and this had it all for me! I just hope I can process the image and do it proud.

From there Tim went exploring and we went to a couple of areas for a look around, but settled on Horseshoe Lake. The colour was turquoise blue/green and very still and yet crystal clear. We had the heavily tree'd forrest and a big snow capped mountain in the distance – perfect composition. Tim was happy!

We then met everyone back in Jasper for a very quick lunch & drink (I ate Clam Chowder for the first time and loved it!!)

So back in the cars and we were making our way out to Valemont to see the Canadian Rockie's biggest mountain – Mount Robson.

The road from Jasper to where the Information Centre is at Mt Robson is just beautiful – more stunning forests and majestic mountains to see. Steve and I will look forward to driving back through here again on our own (or not – we might be totally over this area by the end of this trip!) lol I wasn't allowed to get my camera out of the car because we were travelling with Tim, and he was on a mission. I was allowed to go to the toilet where I saw the amazing view just from the car park, and then back in the opposition direction over the highway was also spectacular. Wasn't too big a deal as we were coming back here for sunset or sunrise.

This is the river at the start of the hike up to Mt Robson.

Valemont is a quaint town, and we checked into the Best Western. OMG – having a shower and washing my hair has never felt so bloody good! Even though we don't have clean clothes or hair brushes etc, just to wash and dry off with a towel is an amazing feeling when you haven't washed in days! :)

The non-stop schedule is starting to have an effect on everyone. By the time we all checked in, everyone was as shattered as we were yesterday. There is talk about not shooting sunset tonight as the weather is still quite drizzly out there with no chance of colour. So we might just have dinner together and do some post processing on some images, and then have an early night…..ha ha ha – yeah right….

Well in true OOAK form, we all met in the foyer and raced in 3 separate cars (in different directions initially) to get back to Mt Robson for sunset, but we were probably 40mins too late getting in the cars, and 10mins down the road, the horizon looked very black and rainy, so we turned around looking for another sunset composition. After finding a lake on Google Maps, we high tailed it down a big dirt road for many many kilometers, doing 125km p/hr just to make it to the lakes edge in time.

We found a side road, which lead to a boat ramp and we were out of the cars like they were on fire – all running like lunatics to the lakes edge to set up before the light went. Some went left and some went right, but we were all setting up like mad-men.

We got some nice images, but once again, too heavily clouded, ad very strong winds and no colour.

Back in the cars, we headed back into Valemont (at a more sensible speed) and we went to this fabulous restaurant – Caribou very rustic. It was late (nearly 9pm) but they accommodated all 12 of us, and we had one of the best meals on the trip so far!

Back to the hotel and to bed after midnight…. Shattered.