More little guys at my feeder today! We're just waiting to see how Hurricane Fiona goes, and we had moments of really awesome light, followed by clouds and wind...
Looking at a painting at the church Pio Monte della Misericordia.
Cropped from left and right, Hand Held, relying on Camera IBIS, A1 and Voigtlander 50mm f2 Apo-Lanthar Asph, FE mount; silent shutter.
ISO 1600, f2.8, 1/160 second.
Exposure Corrected +0.09 Stops.
March 20, 2022
At the church Pio Monte della Misericordia, Napoli (Naples), Italy.
This day was the toughest hike of the trip (at least for this old man). It's 10.5 miles from Waterton River to Fifty Mountain Campground with a 4.5 mile climb of just over 2500 ft. At least our packs were starting to feel a bit lighter. The trail started of nice and flat with scenes of tall pines and tall raspberry shrubs. The raspberries were so tall in some places that I could barely see my son in front of me. It also means we couldn't see any bears so we were doing a lot of talking. We made a brief visit to Kootenai Lake.
We stopped for lunch at a ranger supply house which was near a stream with a wood bridge. It was a perfect opportunity to set up a tripod for some cascading water. Following lunch, we started to climb. Our pace was steady and I was probably pushing my pace a bit so some breaks along the way made for more photographic opportunities. Along a narrow trail along a ridge we found a waterfall to our left and a gorgeous mountain/valley view to our right. The haze from the wildfires was beginning to make its return.
We reached the top of the pass walking under Cathedral Peak, a massive wall of mountain shooting straight up. We were now above tree line in an alpine meadow. The landscape was different than what we had seen to date. We stopped by a spring to drink and resupply. We were glad to find this spring as every creek bed we passed had been dry and we were beginning to wonder whether this spot would be able to supply us with much needed water.
While resting here, I spotted a Grizzly bear with three cubs. They were about 200 yards away. The cubs were frolicking in the meadow and mother bear kept chasing after them. We quickly gathered our packs in case they decided they were thirsty! However, they stayed their distance and panned from right to left and into a thicket of huckleberry bushes. We got to witness just how fast a grizzly bear can run . . . scary fast!
We got back on the trail with only half a mile to camp. Fifty Mountain Campsite is so named because you get a 360 degree view of 50 or so mountains. However, we could only make out silhouettes as the smoke became as thick as we had seen it all week. The smoky sunset with burned pines made for some fun photography.
ILCE-1FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS lens105mmf/8.01/125s640 ISO-0.3 EV
ILCE-1FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS lens24mmf/8.01/125s200 ISO-0.7 EV
ILCE-1FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS lens30mmf/11.01/2s50 ISO-0.3 EV
ILCE-1FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS lens24mmf/16.01/3s50 ISO-0.7 EV
ILCE-1FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS lens33mmf/8.01/200s100 ISO-0.3 EV
ILCE-1FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS lens105mmf/8.01/160s125 ISO-0.3 EV
ILCE-1FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS lens24mmf/8.01/80s100 ISO-0.7 EV
ILCE-1FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS lens34mmf/16.01/320s100 ISO-1.0 EV
OL
