Day 22 ~ Saturday 12th September, 2015 Day 2 - Mt Assiniboine

Did someone say “sunrise shoot?” So I was back up by 5.30am without Steve (someone was sleeping) and we went hiking down to Lake Elizabeth and looking at Mount Sunburst. This is a very big rock face that sits to the RHS of Mt Assiniboine when you are looking at it.

Once again mother nature had done us proud and served us up a crystal clear blue sky – but she once again forgot the clouds! Never mind, we still got some epic images of the first light up on Mt Assiniboine, and then onto Mt Sunburst.

We were back at the hut by 8.30am for “breakfast”. Most ate freeze dried meals, but I had a Cliff Bar and some granola bars (god knows we bought enough of them, and I am not hiking them out!!).

Those up early went back for a sleep, but not me, noooo, we were off on a mission back to the lodge. You see, the majority were so fricken exhausted that to consider coming back off Mt Assinboine with 2 days camping, then to go directly to another camp site which is only 3kms out of Banff seemed like a ludicrous idea, so Shaun was hoping to use a phone at the Lodge to make a call back to the Ramada to book a hotel room for Sunday night.

So whilst Steve still slept, Shaun and I went for a 3km hike back to the lodge. Alas their phone was not working, so we couldn't do anything about it. So we went down to the Lake Magog and had a look around and tried to take some photos – even if the morning light was too high, and then we hiked back to the hut, where Steve finally graced us with his presence! Ha ha ha ha – poor boy – really feeling his age right now! :) (won't I be rubbing that in forever more!) lol

We sat quietly waiting for others to show up when the tiniest of tiny Chipmunks came into the hut – the damn thing wouldn't have been any bigger than a huge mouse. HOW CUTE!! It was eating scraps of food off the flood, so Steve put out a trail and before you knew it, he was eating out of his hands, and then he climbed up on my knee TWICE to get nuts!!! He moved very fast didn't sit still for long. He was tame, and yet not very tame. I was so happy.

Will, Hannes & Shaun turned up and they ate some late lunch. Will was trying to take photos of me with the Chipmunk when he said he'd set up a “wildlife” setting on my camera. My battery died half way through what he was doing. We changed batteries and then it was time to go.

Hannes, Will, Shaun, Steve and I grabbed some camera gear and decided to go for another walk – yep, you guessed it back to the bloody lodge (I am sick of this lodge already!) - secretly wishing I was staying there, but the $600 a night for not much was the only thing stopping me! Lol

The boys had a few beers, and then we continued on a new path and we walked and walked in amongst some beautiful valleys with the Larch Trees, which look like a Pine or Spruce tree, but they are “softer” to touch and finer in their needle structure with a darker trunk – all started to turn autumn yellow (we are a good week or two too early for real autumn colour).

We found another stream, that turned into a larger “lake” and then we saw a huge waterfall! Such a shame it was the middle of the day in the full blazing sun, (you have to photograph waterfalls when it is dark and overcast for the best results), but regardless, we all took our cameras out and took some shots.

Then Will and I and Steve took our hiking boots off and put our feet into the water!! OMG – talk about freezing cold – it hurt to have them in the water, but after all our walking, we just had to do it.

We posed for some selfies and just soaked in the magnificence of this place – WOW, how privileged are we to be here? We then hiked back, where Tim, Craig and Brad were on the porch of the lodge drinking beers, so another round was had – or was it two? Hard to keep track when your view is so damn spectacular.

We then hiked back to the hut – again.

This time we had an early dinner – freeze dried meal. Hmmm… yummy. Well, mine was. I had some rice cajun santa-fe chicken meal – bloody tasty! Steve had Mac n Cheese! He ate it too – I was very proud of him.

Chris wanted to shoot sunset at a little “Tarne” - which for the uninitiated is a pond! So back towards the bloody lodge – AGAIN for like the 4^th time today….. was very small, but had a nice view.  This was the Tarne that Steve and I stopped off at earlier today and thought was "ugly" in the harsh daylight.    So we set up, got our spot. I found a nice rock – Steve found a nice log, and we shot another colourless sunset. Where the heck are the clouds when you want them eh? Lol

Anyway, I was sooo happy with my images I was getting. The pond – ooops, sorry “Tarne” was so still, the reflections of Mt Assiniboine were just beautiful. I loved my rock in the foreground and I thought my composition was awesome!

I was shooting with filters and doing some long exposures, really only to help saturate the colour – normally you'd use the moving clouds to show drama and movement…. But you know whats going on with the clouds – there are none! Lol

Here is one of Steve's images - its just gorgeous!

Finally sunset happened, and then we waited for the stars to come out. With such a cloudless night you'd be crazy not to shoot another lot of milky-way images. I was even photographing milky-way Panorama's!! I can't wait to get back home to the edit these images!!

We stayed out till around 10.30pm and then hiked back to the tents – in our sleeping bags by 11.20pm or so.