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fa63yyc · Joined: 01 Jun 2006 Posts: 812 Location: Calgary, Canada

Well folks, I'm off tomorrow morning for a solo 2500+ km road trip. Calgary to Vancouver back to Calgary via a circle route of sorts. I hope along the way to get plenty of shots: plenty of late winter snow, mountains, glaciers, towns, rural, industrial, scenery, animals and what have you. Some Pink Floyd, Steely Dan and other assorted music to keep me company, not many radio stations in the mountains. If I don’t come back with at least 400 clips, I’m doing something wrong. So if you don’t hear from me for the next week, you’ll know why. I’m pretty sure I’ll hit my 3000 clip goal before the end of June now.

Francois

larshalbauer · Joined: 29 Oct 2006 Posts: 131

Hi Francois,

have a nice trip and show us a little bit from canada when you come back.

Lars

varius · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 11:39 am

Good luck and return savely. :)

I've got some quite extensive family over in the Jasper region. If you don't report back in 10 days I'll send them as a rescue team. ;-)

If you find a two-year old girl with 5 nationalities, that's my niece (once removed). LOL.

drz00m · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 11:45 am

Go get em

bobb · Joined: 13 Jul 2005 Posts: 162

Have a safe journey.
Are you taking Highway 1?

fa63yyc · Joined: 01 Jun 2006 Posts: 812 Location: Calgary, Canada

Thanks all,

Yes, and for those interested in google-mapping the trip: taking #1 Trans-Canada Highway to Banff/Lake Louise Alberta/Golden British Columbia/ Revelestoke BC/Sicamous south on #97 to Vernon overnight then on to Kelowna #97c to Merrit on to #5 over the Coquihalla down to Hope reconnect with the #1 to Vancouver. Spend a couple of days shooting around Vancouver.

Return back via #1 to Hope then through the Fraser Canyon and Hell's Gate through to Cache Creek/Kamloops and finally Vernon, overnight then carry on #1 to Calgary. A couple of sidebar trips along the way for Photo/video ops. I figure about 2500km total. If I'm real lucky, get a shot of fresh avalanche path!

I'll have my laptop with me and a few decent WiFi spots, so I'll report back and give everyone daily updates.

Francois

varius · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:39 pm

chadchud · Joined: 15 Jan 2006 Posts: 510 Location: London, England

have a safe trip and don't drink too much ;)

wmsimmons · Joined: 27 Feb 2006 Posts: 314

and don't forget to write!

fa63yyc · Joined: 01 Jun 2006 Posts: 812 Location: Calgary, Canada

Gosh all these demands ;-)

I will be careful of avalanches, they are big fast and heavy and I'm not... I will drink but only at my destination and only fine wine... and I will write but not while I'm drinking wine and dodging avalanches as I can't multi-task quite that well...

Francois

despain · Joined: 28 May 2005 Posts: 155

We need a few clips with you in them. Shouldn't be a problem getting a photo release ;)

fa63yyc · Joined: 01 Jun 2006 Posts: 812 Location: Calgary, Canada

Day 1 –

859 km and 330 more than planned, or... I probably shouldn't have wished for it...

5 AM and we're off, well ok, just me. Good weather, 0c clear, this should be good. A cup of coffee in hand and I'm heading west in my trusty 2000 VW Jetta TDI. Ya just got to love Teutonic engineering, eh Ulrich? A comfortable 60 MPG sedan... nice ride. Get to Banff, still dark, dawn is just creeping in, listening to local news, oh-oh... bad news the highway ahead is closed. Overnight a mud slide has blocked the highway just east of Golden BC, ok, now what to do? Hmmmmmm... okay, carry on to Lake Louise get my sunrise whatever the weather brings. 45 minutes later... standing on the edge of the lake getting a nice time-lapse shot of clouds, mountain and the lake, nice but much sun, oh well, we'll see how it turns out in the edit suite.

Despite the news, I decide to drive on to Golden on #1 highway, see how close I can get to the mudslide, might get some usable shots. 1 hour later, no joy, too big and too unstable, therefore too dangerous. The crew there advise me it is covering the entire highway some 40m wide and some 8m deep… holy cow! This is a big one. That’ll teach me for wishing something like this. Oh well, turn around and head to #93 and 3+ hour 330 km detour. I should mention, there was no one lse on the road for an hour, very spooky on a highway that usually has a few hundred vehicles per hour even in the slow winter months.

Up highway #93 over Storm Pass…great now it’s snowing and windy, well it’s always windy up here, hence “Storm Pass”. Got some great shots, mountains, snow, forests, the usual stuff.

3PM finally arrived in Golden, scout some shots for my return trip and head straight for Vernon. Arrive at Roger’s pass an hour later, pause to get a few shots of the snow sheds and the incredible peaks, utterly snow covered, keep an eye out for any rumble sounds, this is avalanche country after all. Got my shots and I’m off…

5 PM and I’m Vernon, what a drive, time to relax have dinner with a buddy and get some rest for the night. I have another 500 or Km tomorrow. Not a bad day, shot about 48 minutes of total footage. Too overcast and grey to get any shots here.

The mud slide? They’re still trying to clear it away, won’t be till at least mid day Friday. Good thing I didn’t wait….

more tomorrow...

Francois

chadchud · Joined: 15 Jan 2006 Posts: 510 Location: London, England

I await your next entry!

You should make a video diary and see if SS will accept it!

fa63yyc · Joined: 01 Jun 2006 Posts: 812 Location: Calgary, Canada

Day 2

8 AM after coffee and reading the news, I was off. Heading back north on highway 97 to reconnect with the Trans-Canada and head west. Shortly out of Vernon I made my first stop for location shooting at one of the largest lumber mills in the interior of the province. The weather was perfect, the sun was rising, the air clear and crisp and hardly a breeze. Very nice. Got a few dozen shots of timber and related materials in about a half hour. Back on the road, what a gorgeous morning. Stopped at another lumber mill, another dozen shots. Yep. Today should be a good day.

Driving north through quaint little villages with odd names like Enderby and Grindrod, I never get tired of this part of the country. The Okanagan Valley stretches over 300 km from the US border to Sicamous, orchards, vineyards, farms, acreages and many towns make up the valley. The low mountain ranges paralleling the valley run north and south topped with an endless forest of spruce, cedar, hemlock jack-pine occasionally broken by steep cliffs and rock faces. The scenery is stunning and relaxing.

Back on the Trans-Canada Highway I was stopped… again… another detour. Arggghhh! This time not for a mudslide but a wrecked transport truck and trailer that overshot a corner some 25km ahead. I figured I’d try again, bound to get something. Before continuing on, I got various clips of houseboats, Sicamous Lake and other odds & sodds, so many opportunities, didn’t want to miss out given the bright sunshine.

Camera safely back in the car, another coffee and drive west, wonder what I’ll see with this wreck. Didn’t take long to find out, at the top of CPR Hill the entire road was blocked by 3 huge tow trucks, the 30,000Kg types. Oh boy, this is going to be fun! My tripod safely set up along the edge of steep ravine I started getting shots of the wreck. This was unbelievable! It appears the driver was driving too fast and seriously overshot the corner doing his best to impersonate an F-14 Tomcat trying to launch off the deck of the USS Nimitz. Truck, trailer and a load of 24 tonnes of cottage cheese was 100 feet down the ravine stopped only by trees. The trailer was peeled open like a can of sardines. Remarkably the driver was completely uninjured. 3 hours later the truck and trailer were back on the road, completely written off, but back on the road none the less. These senior tow truck operators handled their winches like a well choreographed slow motion ballet. Cool! I was back on the road by 1 PM, 3 hours behind, oh well.

Arrived in Kamloops about 2 PM , refueled with 1169 km on the first tank. A bite to eat and driving west now in the Thompson Valley, if Canada has anything approaching a desert, this is it. Dry, sage brush, not completely uninhabited but close enough, the temperature had shot up to 15c, a little warm this early in the year. A few more shots of the desert, a long abandoned wooden canal along the hillside and the Thompson River. Ahhhhh, the late afternoon sun on my face. Another 100 km and I arrived in Ashcroft (good luck finding it on the map!). A very nice last shot of the day, a 12 minute time lapse of the light of the setting sun on a barren hillside. Ashcroft is a great little ranching town, Country and Western music plays in the bar and only Country and Western music plays in the bar! Pick-up trucks everywhere but still I found a wi-fi source in town.

410 km for the day, very productive with 2 hrs 30 minutes of footage in the can over two days.

Tomorrow , the Fraser Canyon, Hell’s Gate Canyon and Vancouver… hopefully the weather will hold.

Francois

rinder99 · Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 1:41 am

would you please take suhendri with you????