Whitehorse to Okanagan

The general route of my trip south had me turn off the Alaska Highway before Watson Lake to follow the length of the Stewart-Cassiar Highway #37, then east on the Yellowhead Highway #16 through Prince George before veering down Highway #5 to Kamloops and the Trans-Canada Highway #1 east to the North Okanagan. I took 4 days to do this and camped all 3 nights.

There is always far too much to be done at home on the day of departure for a trip and it was well into the afternoon of August 5th before I got away. I aimed to cover 520 kms that day and photography was not much on my mind with mostly flat grey skies and occasional drizzle anyway. I crossed into British Columbia on the Stewart-Cassiar and reached the Boya Lake Provincial Park campground just in time to set up camp in gathering darkness. Next day and a bit less than 500 kms later I still hadn't tripped the shutter when I pulled into the Meziadin Lake campground. But it was barely past mid-afternoon and I had reason to make camp here so early ... this was to be the jumping off point for an evening side trip to the town of Stewart, about 65 kms down the scenic Highway 37A. When I arrived at the glacier that descends near the road and is the highlight of this route, the lighting was unmanageable with the sun still fairly high and positioned behind the glacier. I carried on to Stewart, hoping for better light near sunset on the return leg. Supper in Stewart came with much slower service than I anticipated and I was further delayed getting gas when there was an issue with locked pumps after a shift change. The sun was almost down by the time I was back on my way but the light still wasn't great on the nearby waterfalls that I also had intended to photograph so I sailed past them with the aim of reaching the glacier while there was still usable light. This is where the photographic story begins.

Sunset over Stewart Hwy 37A The last direct rays of the day were kissing the mountain tops by the time I got back to the most scenic spot on the highway to Stewart. Photographic Info Camera: PENTAX K-5 \| ISO: 400 \| Exposure: 1/20s \| Aperture: ƒ/8.0 \| Focal Length: 36.3mm \| Lens: Tamron AF 17-50mm F2.8 XR Di-II LD Sunset over Stewart Hwy 37A	Stewart Hwy Glacier 1 The evening light was still difficult for photographing the glacier on the shadow side of the mountains. Photographic Info Camera: PENTAX K-5 \| ISO: 400 \| Exposure: 1/20s \| Aperture: ƒ/8.0 \| Focal Length: 42.5mm \| Lens: Tamron AF 17-50mm F2.8 XR Di-II LD Stewart Hwy Glacier 1	Stewart Hwy Glacier 2 Combining different exposures using high dynamic range (HDR) technique helped bring out definition in the important subject areas while reducing the unrecordable extremes of highlights and shadows. Photographic Info Camera: PENTAX K-5 \| ISO: 160 \| Exposure: 0.3s \| Aperture: ƒ/8.0 \| Focal Length: 28.1mm \| Lens: Tamron AF 17-50mm F2.8 XR Di-II LD Stewart Hwy Glacier 2	Stewart Hwy Glacier 3 The images that were not processed with HDR required heavy curves adjustment in software to bring up the shadow areas. The Pentax K-5 is superb at cleanly capturing this very underexposed information in its RAW files. Photographic Info Camera: PENTAX K-5 \| ISO: 160 \| Exposure: 0.5s \| Aperture: ƒ/8.0 \| Focal Length: 20.0mm \| Lens: Tamron AF 17-50mm F2.8 XR Di-II LD Stewart Hwy Glacier 3
Stewart Hwy Glacier 4 HDR image. Photographic Info Camera: PENTAX K-5 \| ISO: 160 \| Exposure: 0.7s \| Aperture: ƒ/8.0 \| Focal Length: 45.0mm Stewart Hwy Glacier 4	Sunset Sky over Stewart Hwy HDR image. Photographic Info Camera: PENTAX K-5 \| ISO: 160 \| Exposure: 1/8s \| Aperture: ƒ/8.0 \| Focal Length: 60.0mm \| Lens: SMC Pentax DA* 60-250mm F4 ED [IF] SDM Sunset Sky over Stewart Hwy	Yellowhead Respite Day 3 lunch break: A rest stop on Hwy 16 just outside of Topley provided welcome shade on a hot afternoon and this idyllic view of an adjacent farm. Photographic Info Camera: PENTAX K-5 \| ISO: 160 \| Exposure: 1/125s \| Aperture: ƒ/9.5 \| Focal Length: 45.0mm \| Lens: Tamron AF 17-50mm F2.8 XR Di-II LD Yellowhead Respite	Purden Lake 1 After a long day's ride, by the time I set up camp at Purden Lake Provincial Park the sun had set. Photographic Info Camera: PENTAX K-5 \| ISO: 400 \| Exposure: 1/30s \| Aperture: ƒ/6.7 \| Focal Length: 17.0mm \| Lens: Tamron AF 17-50mm F2.8 XR Di-II LD Purden Lake 1
Purden Lake 2 Photographic Info Camera: PENTAX K-5 \| ISO: 400 \| Exposure: 1/90s \| Aperture: ƒ/6.7 \| Focal Length: 42.5mm \| Lens: Tamron AF 17-50mm F2.8 XR Di-II LD Purden Lake 2	Purden Lake 3 Photographic Info Camera: PENTAX K-5 \| ISO: 1100 \| Exposure: 1/30s \| Aperture: ƒ/5.6 \| Focal Length: 17.0mm \| Lens: Tamron AF 17-50mm F2.8 XR Di-II LD Purden Lake 3