"Postcards from Greg Hemmings #19" Rockies Avelanche

Telegraph Journal entry #19

“Rocky Mountain Avalanche”

Photo Credit: Andrew Tidby

Spring time in the Rocky Mountains is a magical time. There is still plenty of snow, but the sun beats hot, and all you want to do is take your shirt off and lay on the snow to get a tan just for the sake of irony. Filmmaker Andrew Tidby and I were hiking as far up as we could with our camera gear to film time lapses of clouds, mountains and sun positions. Despite the warm sun, it was quite windy and cool when we got to the point in the climb where we could go no further. As I was filming this panoramic view of the valley below, we were both startled with a sound similar to that of a giant bomb exploding a few hundred feet away. We both looked around surprised to see a massive avalanche of snow racing down the mountain side. We were almost too close for comfort, but the awareness of nature’s power was awesome. We hiked back down the mountain to where we our camp was set up for a good night’s sleep before another big day of mountain adventure!

"Postcards from Greg Hemmings #3" - Lake Louise

Saturday, Feb 28th
Telegraph Journal entry #3

Lake Louise - a lake of clouds

Feb, 2009

I arrived at the dark, cold and rainy base of Lake Louise Mountain, excited that I was finally getting a chance to snowboard the Rockies again, despite the weather. You can’t beat riding the high altitude power fields here, or as the West coast girls that I came with say…”It kicks shredding the gnar pow at these rad alts!”. The significance of this picture is that as the chair-lift took us up to the top of the mountain 2,672 meter above sea level, I was shocked how quickly we rose above the stormy clouds, and how warm, peaceful and beautiful it was to see the world from above with clarity. Looking down at the “lake of clouds” it encouraged me to keep passionately adventuring through life, even if I can’t clearly see the way to my destination. There will be a time that I will rise above the cloud cover, and as Paulo Coehelo says in the Alchemist, find my personal legend.