Last Sunday we were granted two tickets to hike the Sunshine Meadows in one of my favorite ski resorts in Alberta, Sunshine Village. The Meadows are accessible from the parking lot of the base station by bus which takes you up to Sunshine Village (you can also hike up the mountain for 2h). The meadows are located on the backside of Standish Mountain and it is just a 2km hike up the Strawberry lift  and you are reaching the beautiful Rock Isle Lake (left on Panorama). After resting there and marveling at the golden larches, which peaked this time of the year, we took a 5 km loop leading us to the Larix (middle lake) and Grizzly Lake (right side).

The loop is simply stunning, small rivers, waterfalls, wetlands and alpine meadows lead you to the Larix Lake, which itself is super clear and blue waters. On the shores least chipmunks were collecting food and on the meadows grey jays were flying around us. The Grizzly Lake is flat and remote. A steeper trail leads you back to the Rock Isle Lake and from there we climbed the Standish Viewpoint from were I took this panoramic shot (composed of 32 single pics and 19000x5000 pixels). Above the rocky island in the first lake and between the two peaks in the foreground you can see the Peak of Mt. Assiniboine, the Matterhorn of the Canadian Rockies. 
From the viewpoint you can take a loop through alpine meadows back to Sunshine Village, or take the trail you came, as we did. Christine and I had a lot of fun out there and both came to the resume that this is indeed one of the best hikes in the high alpine Rockies. Thanks again Sunshine Village for that awesome day.

I hope the pictures transport the beauty of that place and hiking there around noon it was tough to shoot with the bright sun. I really love my gradient ND Filter for that, as I can reduce the exposure of the bright sky and maintain an even histogram that way. 

Leave comments and critique if you like!

Monday evening. You sit in your chair and realize that their is a geomagnetic storm going on. But it was cloudy all day long and it is miserable outside. But why not check the cloud cover around Edmonton. And I what I saw made me believe I might get lucky that night, clouds clearing north of Edmonton. I picked up a fellow German, who wanted to see the aurora borealis in all its beauty as well and we headed north of the city. Edmonton is a big mess of light pollution, so you want to get either north or west of the city where the northern lights will appear without any city lights. We found a nice place on a small waterhole north of Morinville, but despite a KP-Value of 6-, which suggests that the Aurora should be very active and a geomagnetic storm is going on, we just saw an arch of green on the horizon with a view rays popping through the clouds. So in the aftermath I got to know that the earths magnetic field was pointing northwards and it should be southward for a strong display. So one lesson you learn when observing natural phenomena is that you can plan and predict them somehow, put in a complex system as the earths magnetic field the slightest change in a complex set of parameters will destroy your plans. All in all a good night with good company and one nice picture.

Auroral Disaster