Abraham Lake Shore Stumps

The pinnacle of our tour was returning to Abraham Lake.  In the winter this massive reservoir for the Bighorn Dam on the North Saskatchewan freezes up.  Throughout the winter, the lower runoff from the mountains and the requirement to operate the dam makes the lake level retreat. I just love this area.  It has some amazing scenery and great photo opportunities.  Best of all is that it is off the beaten tourist track, so crowds are few and far between.  This picture was taken just before the warm sunrise light peaked over the eastern horizon.  I had to take a 8 second exposure to get it right, while the howling wind blew in my face.

©Matt Graham 2010 - Abraham Lake Tree Stumps

Rocking the Beds

Since I graduated from engineering at the U of A in 2004, I have been very interested in geology.  I prior to that I never really knew that oil and gas come from rocks, not the huge basins they showed us in cartoons. Now that I work everyday on designs to extract natural gas from rocks, seeing outcrops like this always amaze me.

©Matt Graham 2010 - Rocking the Beds

The Galleria

The Galleria is an amazing venue for ice climbing.  During our time there, preparations were being made for Tri-Ice-a-Thon, a yearly ice climbing event in the Nordegg area. I'd love to go back in the summer as well as the winter as this place is well tucked into the Cline RIver valley and hardly visited, compare to some other areas of the Rockies.

© Matt Graham 2010 - The Galleria