Amazing Weather and Fall Color at Writing on Stone Park

This past weekend the summer like weather continued to allow some great camping opportunities, the campsite at Writing on Stone is first come first served at this time of year so I decided to take advantage of the amazing weather and head down for some time away from the city.

I've pulled together a brief description of the park, but really, there is way better information on the internet that describes this great park in south Alberta, you’ll find most of this on wikipedia which I’ve used as a source. Also, I've included some shots from the digital camera I shot over the weekend, I did shoot a couple of rolls of film as well that should have a slightly different look when I get around to developing them.

Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park (Áísínai’pi) is located about an hour by car southeast of Lethbridge near Milk River. It is both a nature preserve and protection for many First Nations rock carvings and paintings. The park is sacred to the Blackfoot and many other aboriginal tribes. I find spending time here to be a very settling, almost spiritual experience.

The park was created in 1957 and was designated an archaeological preserve in 1977. On 6 July 2019, Writing-on-Stone / Áísínai’pi was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Áísínaiʼpi, is a Blackfoot language word meaning "it is pictured / written". Writing-on-Stone Park has over 50 petroglyph sites and thousands of works making it the greatest concentration of rock art on the North American Great Plains. Most of these are located in restricted areas of the park, only accessible by guided tour during the summer months.

There is evidence that the Milk River Valley was inhabited by First Nations people as long ago as 9000 years. First Nations tribes such as the Blackfoot probably created many of the rock carvings (petroglyphs) and paintings (pictographs). Other First Nations groups such as the Shoshone also travelled through the valley and may have also created some of the art.

A North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) outpost was located here since about 1887 and was reconstructed on its original site in 1973 after being burned down after it was closed in 1918.

Anyways, here are the photographs, enjoy!
Dean.

Waterton Park Photography - Nature Recovers

It's been a while since I posted any new photography!

Pretty much August and September have been outside adventure months for me with very limited processing of film or digital raw files. That will come through the fall and winter, I'm hoping for some happy surprises in the Rocky Mountain adventures of the last couple of months.

This past weekend I ventured down to Waterton Park for the first time since the massive Kenow Fire in 2017. I only has a short time in the park available so I headed up the Red Rock Parkway to see what things were looking like 3 years later.  The first 4 photographs were shot on the way to Waterton south of Pincher Creek,  the rest were shot out on the road to Red Rock Canyon

The Kenow Wildfire was started by a lightening storm west of Waterton Park on August 30th 2017 and by September 11, 2017 the park was burning within Waterton Park ultimately scorching 38% of the parks area by the time it was done.

On the Red Rock Parkway, the Crandell Mountain Campground and many buildings at Canyon Youth Camp adjacent to the Crandell Campground, were destroyed by the fire. As you can see in the photographs, nature is starting to recover from the Kenow fire on the Red Rock Parkway. Next time down I'll try and see other areas of the park, Waterton is as beautiful as ever, it's in an early seral stage in nature's plan.

This set of photographs were shot on my digital camera, I did shoot some film as well that will have a slightly different look I think, but for now, I’m not disappointed with these shots.

This quick trip to Waterton Park has me energized to start looking at some of the photography I've shot over the last two months, I'll start posting some of the better ones soon.

Enjoy!
Dean.

Moonset on the Cowboy Trail

All week I had been planning on heading out to the the dark-skies of the Cowboy Trail west of Calgary near Millarville to check out the comet Neowise, hoping to maybe get a photograph or 2 of the rare event, I think I'm booked the next time it comes around 6800 or whatever years from now.

The best night was supposed to be July 23, but clouds, a severe thunderstorm warning and an early start for work the next day killed that plan. Saturday the 25th was a blue blazer that carried into the evening so I headed out to see what there was to see.

As it turns out, for me it wasn't much, I didn't capture anything memorable of the comet, although I may try again tonight (26th) although it's dimming considerably as the days go on, there may not be much to see tonight. We shall see.

What I did manage was a decent set of the waxing moon setting over the foothills. I've sorted out a short sequence right when the moon went behind the hills.

Until next time, enjoy!
Dean.