after leaving whitehorse, i traveled to the small town of haines junction, located near to the kluane national park. the trip to haines junction already presented beautiful scenery.

in haines junction, i stayed in a small but very nice cabin. if you’re interested in visiting haines junction and staying in a small cabin, featuring pretty much everything you need (except a bathroom, for which you have to leave the cabin and which you share), you might want to contact paddle wheel adventures.

my first trip starting in haines junction was north to the kluane lake, a rather large lake. here is a panoramic view:

this trip also resulted in a variety of beautiful shots:

on the trip back, i encountered the following lake, which i tried to catch in another panorama:

at the evening of that day, i noticed an aurora. unfortunately, it was pretty cloudy over haines junction, so i drove out of town. after a few kilometers, i got a much better sight.

the next day, i wanted to do some flightseeing of the kluane national park, as hiking is not really an option to do alone. at the airport, i was told to come back later, so i spend the time exploring the area south of haines junction.

finally, i drove back to the airport, and encountered a group of tourists which also wanted to do flightseeing. so we ended up filling two cessnas and flying over the mountains and glaciers:

this was really magnificent.

the last two weeks, i traveled the yukon, canadas smallest northern territory. my trip began and ended in whitehorse, yukon’s capital and now largest city. hundret years ago, during the klondike gold rush, dawson, my third destination, was the largest city and capital of the yukon.

my first stay in whitehorse began with a bit of rain and continued with beautiful weather.

returning to whitehorse at the end of my trip, the beautiful weather was exchanged with snow and rain.

today, i went hiking with a friend. our destination were cirque lake and cephren lake, located at the icefields parkway. the trip went pretty smooth, and we decided to first go to cirque lake. there was a bit of rain in the beginning, a few drops during the hike, but nothing serious, and soon the sun came out and presented everything in its full beauty. the hike turned out to be harder than expected, whence we decided to skip cephren lake, but we were rewarded with a really gorgeous view on cirque lake. here are some impressions of the hike to the lake, and the lake itself:

(note that the first photo was taken somewhere between calgary and banff, and not anywhere near to cirque lake. the first photo in the second row is a view of the upper waterfowl lake, if i’m not mistaken.)
unfortunately, while resting at the lake, it started dripping again, and when heading back the drops turned into water turned into graupel. not that much fun. we got pretty wet, and the trail continued and continued and didn’t want to end, until it stopped raining. only after that we left the forest and returned to the car, too exhausted to do anything more, so we returned home.

while watching tng, i noticed fireworks out in the sky, for the chinatown 100 fireworks grand celebration. (there will be some more fireworks soon, due to a fireworks festival.) i grabbed my camera as well as my tripod, and started taking pictures.

fireworks.

here are some impressions from the fireworks. shot with iso 6400.

some night shots.

when the fireworks were over, i played around a bit more. here are two nice shots.

star trek – the next generation. memories: old memories, and good memories. i used to watch that when i was a kid. probably the most influental science fiction series for me. i also read a huge amount of tng books, before later starting to read also a lot of star wars books. unfortunately, except the movie appearances of the tng crew, i haven’t seen any of the series for a long, long time. until a few days ago, when i noticed all seasons sitting in the dvd shelf. well, guess what i’m doing now. :) i guess that will keep me busy for some time…
one thing which is funny is that before, i always saw star trek movies and series in german, and never in english. which makes a huge difference, the voices are completely different, most notably the one of captain picard, played by patrick stewart. in most of the series and the movies, he was dubbed by rolf schult. the combination patrick stewart/rolf schult also appeared in the x-men movies, and everytime i hear and see it i have to think of captain picard… and now, i’m watching the series in english, i see patrick stewart playing captain picard… and it sounds so alien to hear his real voice. well. after a few seasons, i guess i will have adjusted.

for the third time, i visited calgary’s zoo on this weekend. this time, i bought an annual pass, so i will go there a few more times this year. this is a very good opportunity to try out my new toy, a 400 mm telephoto lens.

red panda.

i began by visiting the red panda, watching him for quite a while.

siberian tiger.

after that, i went over to the siberian tigers.

black swan.

on some pond, a few black swans were floating.

snow leopard.

elephant.

an elephant, bathing himself with sand.

giraffe.

lion.

the lions were pretty sleepy. but at some point, one lion got up and walked around a bit.

grizzly bear.

the grizzly bear was sleepy as well, and so was the black bear which was more brown than black. but i got a nice paw shot

wolf.

the last times i was at the zoo, the wolves were rather sleepy. but this time, they were running around, playing, having fun. so i took the chance to take some pictures.

mountain goat.

miscellaneous.

some random impressions.

sunrise.

on saturday, i got up very early, namely at 5 am, to take a view photos of the rising sun from patricia lake. the sun was rising somewhere i couldn’t really see, but what i could see was its impact on the surroundings. i went back to bed around 7 am, sleeping another two hours. here are some impressions:

sunset.

on the evening, i also took pictures of the beautiful sunset, which beautifully lit up the clouds and the water:

this time, we also did a trip to maligne lake. last time, we arrived in the early evening, with not much sun left, and shortly after we arrived a storm began to brew up, so we didn’t stay long. this time, i decided to take a boat trip to spirit island; spirit island is one of the most famous views from the canadian rocky mountains. shortly after the boat trip started, the weather began to turn bad, it started raining. but near the island it stopped again, and the sun came out. there were still some dark clouds at the sky, but besides that it was georgous. on the way back, it eventually started to rain again. well, at least here are some rain-free impressions; note that the first two shots are from medicine lake.