Springtime in the Mountains

Apr 6, 2024 | Landscapes | 0 comments

iPhone 13 | 14mm | 1/45s| f/2.4 | ISO 25

April in the mountains doesn’t look like springtime, but the warmth and longer daylight days, one can really feel the springtime coming.

Today was a 7km hike along the shoreline of Upper Kananaskis Lake. A trail I’ve hiked several times over the years and enjoyed each time. While doing some research about the area I came across information about a historical artifact that is still standing for almost 100 years. With all the exploring I’ve done along the lake; I’ve never seen this or even explored this location.

Back in 1930s before the area was flooded for the power generation dam, this area looked a bit different. The lake had more islands (according to historic photos). Back in the 1930s, Geoffrey Gaherty, president of Calgary Power company, built a cabin on the shoreline of Upper Kananaskis Lake. A beautiful spot for a remote wilderness cabin. But when the Calgary Power company built the dam in 1942 and raised the water level, it ended up eroding the shoreline near the cabin and at some point, the cabin was removed. All that remains now is this historic chimney on the very edge of the shoreline.

24mm | 1/400s | f/10 | ISO 100

24mm | 1/500s | f/11 | ISO 100

The historic chimney is right at the end of a peninsula and to get there we left the main shoreline trail and bushwhacked through 1-2 feet snow to find it. As we approached, we could see smoke rising from the chimney. We ended up meeting two guys enjoying the fireplace with dinner cooking on the fire.

We did a quick look around and then left the guys to their dinner and explored further along the shoreline trail.