Aspen

I've been working in the Peace River area of Northern BC quite a bit this summer. Although it's far from my favourite place, it does have a beautiful valley with tons of aspen trees. To some, aspen aren't very interesting - they certainly aren't as economically important as the Douglas-fir, nor do they grow to be giants, and they definitely don't live as long as some trees. Nevertheless, having lived in the Caribou region for seven years and spending many summers at our cabin, aspen have come to be something that reminds me of home. The trees themselves are elegant, tall with few branches (at least older ones). A whole stand of aspen can be quite beautiful, especially in the fall, but also year round.

Northeast of Chetwynd in early July

 I spent a long time in July trying to figure out how exactly to take photos of stands of aspen. It's hard to capture just how beautiful they are..

Near the Moberly River, mid September

 I wish I had more time while I was taking these.. turning the shutter speed up a bit would have been better.

Awesome reds, greens and yellows.

 The aspen in Hudson's Hope were more red than anywhere else I saw. So pretty!

Across from our campsite near the Moberly River.

 Using the "vivid" setting on my camera really brought out the colour of the sky and the trees. The whole valley looks like this, and once the weather cooled down just a bit more, the yellows became even more vibrant.

Beautiful aspen stand near the Moberly River

Bad but kinda cool lighting.

 I love the faded look of this photo, even if it's a bit too white near the top.

The valley looking towards the Rockies.

I wish I had taken a few more photos of the valley after our camping trip. We were on the river for three days and the change in temperature (from ~30 degrees before to ~15 degrees during) caused the aspen to turn even more yellow.