Trip Report - Read's Tower

Jas and I set out to bag Read's Tower this past Saturday. We gained the 928m of elevation in under 2 hours, which is a pretty fast pace considering our geriatric bodies. The day started out nice, but the weather turned to rain, snow, and cloud cover as we approached the summit. I like how the photos at the top look like we were shooting an ad for the North Face or some other outdoor gear brand. Jas may yet still have a career as an 'insta-influencer'. Now, if you make it all the way to the end of the photos, I promise you will be rewarded by a shot of an incredibly detailed and life-like snowman that was freshly erected that day.


Social Media Influencer?


The clouds, rain, and light snow rolled in as we hit the summit.


It's me!




Summit of Read's Tower on the right, Mt. Sparrowhawk on the left.












Summit Beers: St. Ambroise Pamplemousse IPA, and some random Mikkeler Sour.










See... I told you there'd be a snowMAN. I had no hand in building this sculpture, but I will admit to giggling immaturely at it.

Blossom Season

It's blossom season in Calgary. Maybe 'season' is a bit of an exaggeration though... blink and you might miss the 3 or 4 day explosion of beautiful pink tones in this city. If you haven't yet gone to check out your neighbourhood foliage, do it soon before it all fades rapidly.

And because I'm a sucker for milestones, I somehow managed to miss an impressive one with my last blog post, which marked my 700th entry on this silly blog. Hard to believe that I've been polluting the web with crap photos and and even crappier sentences for a full 700 posts. #sorrynotsorry

Cussing out Maze Peak

Just in case you thought summer was around the corner, I thought I'd remind you how silly that notion is. It's only May long weekend, so of course there's still wintery conditions out there in the mountains. :\

Anita and I took a drive up towards the Ya Ha Tinda area on Sunday, and barely made it without busting an axle or blowing a tire on the dumptruck sized potholes along the dirt roads leading in. We scrambled up Maze Peak, which involved hiking up a steep face with some of the most rotten rock I've ever encountered. Every step you took, the brittle shale scree underneath would shatter. The going was of the annoying 'take one step up, slide half a step down' variety, which was rather irritating. I caught faint echoes of F-bombs raining down and for a second, thought it was me unconsciously expressing my dismay with the terrain. But I turned around and quickly realized it was Anita in the distance cussing out the ground. LOL. A short while later, we would gain the ridge to discover full blown winter, wind, and cold, which would make Anita even that much more pleased with life. Needless to say, we didn't summit because I didn't want to get pushed off a mountain. #pickyourbattles




The day started out promising... with warm sun, and snow free slopes.




Tree drool!


Slobberific!


And then it started to get a little bit wintery.








Hard to believe this is the same hike as the above photos.














Anita looks across the Red Deer River, over towards Labyrinth Mountain.






Summit Brew: Tooth and Nail Brewing's Sucker Punch Double IPA. It was so cold up top, I waited until we descended back down towards the warm and dry front side before cracking this bad boy.

Night Photography Workshop

Another no mountain weekend due to the weather, because apparently Mother Nature hates me. So instead, check out some shots from a night photography walk I hosted last weekend. We captured some long exposures and panning shots, got heckled by a moron who thought we should've been photographing him instead of the trains, and got startled by a stealthy beaver in the river. Just a regular night in downtown Calgary.


Moments before this shot, I was startled by a beaver lurking in the water... stealthy like a ninja.


"Ludicrous speed!"




Apparently, I own a crystal ball now. Should I start charging $$$ to read people's futures?