It’s peak season in Banff National Park to see the larch trees as their needles change from bright green to a brilliant yellow, before the needles fall off for the winter.

We headed out to Moraine Lake, near Lake Louise where we began our hike in the rain. On a sunny day, the view from Larch Valley & Sentinal Pass overlooks the valley of the ten peaks and Moraine Lake on one side, with Paradise Valley visible through the pass.

The trail was surprisingly busy given the weather, but the fall colours make the trail very popular. Larch Valley requires a group of four or more by law, due to the fact that it falls in the middle of Grizzly Habitat. Parks Canada recently thinned some trees on either side of the trail to reduce the risk of surprising bears, thus reducing the chance of a negative encounter.

Here are a few photos in the rain:

This past weekend, we hiked into Lillian Lake in Kananaskis Country, Alberta. It’s a short hike, just over 5km in, making it a relaxing backpacking trip. We set-up camp early afternoon at Lillian Lake before continuing up the trail to Galatea Lake & Upper Galatea Lake. It’s a gorgeous place at the top of the trail, and very accessible as a day hike.

I haven’t had time to go through most of the pictures yet, but here’s what I have so far:

You can check out Simon’s photos here (part I) and here (part II) as well.

One thing I certainly learned this trip: if you’re carrying your camera in a dry-bag where buttons can get pushed without you knowing, check your settings before you shoot! (I always check things like: ISO, shutter speed, aperture, whether autofocus is on or off, but there are some more obscure settings that can make a big difference, that you might not check frequently.)

My camera setting for file type / quality decided to adjust itself in my pack – this left me shooting JPEG images instead of RAW (NEF) images in places where I really needed the increased dynamic range in the RAW file to capture the image without gradient filters… Lesson Learned – unfortunately, I didn’t catch it early enough in this trip.