2008 - Diamond Head, "Photo Shoot", Battery via Evan's Valley

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Diamond Head in March

Location of Round Mountain, on the route into Diamond Head

Red Heather shelter

Chris Cooper and I walked from the chain up spot because of a "road closed" sign partly blocking the road, but after walking up to the normal parking lot, I think I could have chained up and taken the CRV up the "closed" section. As we approached the big lump in the snow which is the Red Heather shelter now, I sensed smoke! Yea, a warming fire! As we ate and drank it snowed harder and harder. Note the lack of view out the window.

We actually had to pole numerous times on our way down. For those of you who are familiar with this ski, you know how unusual that is! A little Ebrake and ABS to deal with the slippery road on the way down, and it was Tim Hortons for us! My fifth time to Diamond Head this season, and another enjoyable workout in the hills.

Manning Park Photo Shoot
Location of Manning Park Lodge

My home for two nights

Well, it was early April and the weather forecast was great, but nobody was able to go to Manning Park with me. What to do? I realized that if I didn't go by myself I would regret it and later consider myself a whimp. Besides, I wanted to learn more about photography and my new digital slr and Manning Park offered a lot of picturesque terrain to practice on. I was finding it very enjoyable to learn more about photography. I wanted to get beyond the "snapshot" stage and had recently joined The Clear Focus Camera Club and they had been very welcoming. I had also enjoyed talking with my friend Les Raskewicz about photography and wanted to try to put theory into practice.

Manning Park downhill ski area looking at Mt. Hozameen.

I made it up to Manning Park by the early afternoon and the lifts were shut down for the season, so I hiked up to the top of the orange chair to get a view of Mt. Hozameen. It was cold and windy and the lift shack at the top provided welcome shelter. It was clouding up a bit and since I wasn't happy with the colours I got, I converted the pictures to black and white. 

Mt. Hozameen

I have a vibration reduced18-200 zoom and I was curious what I would get hand held, especially since I was chilly and it was windy. The picture above was taken at the full zoom of 200mm and was hand held. I guess the vibration reduction really works!

frost

milk and red

Reaching

The next day I went for a walk on the trail that heads to Windy Joe. It was a treat to be able to go slowly, looking for interesting things to pay attention to. One of the more interesting things was the shapes and colours created in the partially frozen streams crossing the trail. 

After the Windy Joe trail, I took a drive to the Monument 83 trail head. I walked to where the trail crosses the river and found the colours of the river and bridge interesting. Although the picture above is fairly standard, I found the shadow pattern on the river interesting.

Growing Crystals

On my third day, I took a walk up the Fat Dog trail that eventually leads on the Three Brothers area. About a kilometer from the parking lot, you cross a stream. Here I found a few interesting shapes and colours. Yes, I know the picture is in sideways. I find it more interesting this way. :-)
Three days and two nights in a tent by myself. Minus 12 in the morning. Listening to podcasts and sipping brandy to while the evening along all snug in my down sleeping bag. Learning more about the features of my Nikon D80, learning more about editing in camera raw, and learning more about Photoshop CS3. It's all good. 
I had a good time and look forward to my next "photo shoot".

Keith

Alouette (Battery) Mountain via Evan's Valley - a solo trip by Alan Lizee
Location of Alouette Mountain

Alan Lizee makes a solo trip up Evan's Valley, then up a north facing gully between Battery and Evan's Peak (Sugar Loaf to some of us).  

In Evan's Valley with Blanchard Peak in upper left from the west branch of the creek.

I don't know why I always choose the options that take a few days of recovery. Anyway, after waiting-out the big snow dump over the last few weeks, I was chomping at the bit for some punishment. I hiked up Alouette on Wednesday by way of Evans Creek and the North gully to gain the North-East ridge above the big buttress. I went home, over what John Hume calls, false peak, then on down the Viking Creek rib to make a loop around Evans Pk. It was extremely tough going up the gully, and there were times when I had to rest after only 15 steps - and some of those had negative elevation gain. It took 4 3/4 hrs to summit, going down took less than 2 casual hours as the snow was nice for downhill on snowshoes. Avalanche activity was extreme. Edge roared continuously. The buttress beside me dumped four times, and there was an all-day, continuous hiss of graupel cascading down its flank. Sometimes it flowed around me as an inch-deep, whizzing river - it was awesome! 

The friendly gully and the big, hissing buttress

The bottom gulley

Half way up the gully, I used the ski pole like I was cross-checking with a hockey stick to keep from sinking too deeply, I knew that if I stopped to take a photo, things would start happening, sure enough, the buttress dropped its first load, notice that I took the fall line on a rise far away from the buttress

Looking west towards Battery.

Two blurry gullies on the buttress are the remnants of the first dump, notice that I am well away, and I have good terrain protection above.