Camping at Manning Park – in a Different Light

We camped up at Buckhorn Camp, in Manning Park, on the trail to Three Brothers Mountain, this weekend.  Generally good weather… some fun photo ops. Here’s one:

30 second exposure – F8 ISO 100. 1/2 hour after sunset.
 
Two people IN the tent, painting the interior with LED headlamps, and one outside the tent painting the ground around the base to give it some "ground to sit on".

 
Hope you like it. It was fun to make!

For the 360 degree panorama from Three Brothers Mountain: http://members.shaw.ca/brian.hampson/3BrosPano.mov (courtesy of Mrs D)

Technorati Tags: Manning Park, Buckhorn Camp, Three Brothers, Night Photography, Hiking, Canon 50D

We rode the KVR August 11-16, 2009

The 40th Marpole Scouts and 28th Kitsilano Scouts went out to the Okanagan for a 4 day bike ride on the Kettle Valley Railway (KVR) trail spanning 200km.

We left Vancouver on August 11th with 11 youth and 7 adults.  4 of us were going to ride and we had 3 support drivers.  We headed out with 2 minivans, a Toyota Tundra and an F350 1ton cargo van.  We had 15 bikes to rack, 18 backpacks and all the assorted group gear and food. We were loaded to the hilt! 

The ride along Highway 3 is actually quite pleasant in the day in the middle of summer, even if it’s long.  It took us about 7 hours to reach our starting point for the ride, Kettle River Provincial Park.    It was warm.  At 1800 it was still 26C.  It was shaping up to be a typical, hot, Okanagan ride.

The plan was to get up at 0600 every day so that we could be on the trail before 0800.   That kind of fell apart by the last day.

km’s cycled each day:

• Kettle River Provincial Park->Beaverdell: 46km  (FLAT)
• Beaverdell->Pear Lake: 59km (1% uphill)
• Pear Lake->end of Myra Canyon Trestles: 26km (followed by “rescue”) (FLAT)
• Chute Lake->Penticton: 47km (2% downhill)

The weather was comfortably cool most days except on day 3 it was 10C, raining and we all ended up mildly hypothermic…Geesh – the OKANAGAN isn’t supposed to be like that!  It’s supposed to be 35C and sweltering.  Cursed weather!

It’s hard to take a lot of pictures while cycling, but I did manage a few.  Those will come later.  I also brought the little SD780is – not to take pictures (stills SUCK, but for it’s HD video!)  Here’s a quick video I put together from the last part of the ride (from Chute Lake to Penticton)

At least the last day was fun! 😉

We stayed in Penticton on the last night and dined on real food before heading home on the Sunday via the Coquihalla. The drive was fast – just slowed down when we hit the usual traffic coming into the Port Mann.

It sure felt good to get home and hang up our gear 🙂

Tonight we head back to our Scout Hall and fold up the tents that have been drying out.   Another GREAT summer expedition under our belts.

Here’s a pano of “Summit Lake” –  a private lake near Hydraulic Lake along the KVR.  Beautiful lake with a little gazebo along it:

Summit Lake along the KVR

World Police and Fire Games Judo was great!

I made it out on Saturday to watch day 2 of the World Police and Fire Games (WPFG) Judo.  The light in the BCIT gym was better than many places, but I was still stuck shooting at 2.8, ISO 3200 1/640s.

The Judo was great.   There were some excellent players and some incredible Judo.    It was my first time watching international Judo. It’s really quite something to see the local fans cheer on athletes from their home country.  The russians and the Croatians had big cheering squads, but the Taiwanese and Brazilians made themselves heard (both the fans with their cheers and the athletes in their action!)  The action was on two mats, so I missed photographing some of it.  The other parts that I missed were due to people wandering in front of the shot just as the big technique occured.  It would have probably been a good idea to try to work my way over to the “official” photography side of the gym so that I wouldn’t have been blocked so often.  Sigh… you get what you can when you don’t step up I guess.

I’ve separated the pictures into 3 galleries…

WPFG Judo Competition 

WPFG Judo Awards Ceremonies

WPFG Judo – People

It’s in my homemade photo gallery, hosted on a private system so you’re going to have to be a bit patient. 

I hope the pictures help convey the great day that it was.

If you would like a copy of an image in higher resolution, please let me know in the comments!

9 years!

I know for some of you out there 9 years is just a scratch on the surface but for we young’uns it’s an accomplishment!

One more and we move into double digits!

Was it really only 9 years ago???

Eight years ago – for our first Anniversary I made THIS for Mrs D. (Unzip the file and view the slideshow)… My how time flies!

Cooling down on a HOT summer day in Brandywine Meadows

When you’re out in the alpine meadows and it’s over 30C it can get pretty hot out. What’s a guy to do but perhaps a quick dunk in the creek to cool down…..

Innocently – I plunge my head into the cool creek…

Only to discover – it’s FREAKIN’ FREEZING!!!! (Actually about 12C – BRAINFREEZE!)

"Hey Joe – is my face still attached?!?!?"

Brandywine Creek, Near Whistler BC, Canada

images posted with permission – Copyright Joe Ng

A quick walk into Brandywine Meadows

Yesterday, we took a couple of friends in to see Brandywine meadows.  The road to get there is a little more confusing but it’s not too hard.

Having a 4 wheel drive Tundra is handy.. Instead of having to hike up 600m to get to the meadows, we can pretty much drive to within 30 minutes of them!  It was VERY hot but we were rewarded with some amazing views.

Here is the headwaters of Brandywine Creek – Brandywine Mountain and Metal Dome – a 37 photo panorama

Beautiful place!

Another from the hike.  5 shot pano.  Beautiful pink flowers in abundance:

2009-08-06:  I created a PHOTOSYNTH of the meadows…  Not bad for a first attempt