Chasing the Aurora at Moraine Lake

Moraine Lake is one of those iconic locations in the Canadian Rockies. Just about every commercial you see of Canada contains at least a glimpse of this stunning view. I have personally visited this lake over 100 times. However there is a shot I have wanted for years now and that is a northern lights shot over the lake.

Moraine Lake, the previous year at the same time, with a fresh dusting of snow. 

Conditions for a shot like this don’t come easy, firstly this is a south facing location. So a solar storm must be so strong that it reaches the southern sky, a minimum for this would be a KP6 with no moon and higher depending on what stage in the moon cycle you are in.
Second would be weather, as with any iconic Canadian Rockies location, weather is crucial. However for northern lights, even a little cloud can turn amazing shots into duds and for the shot I wanted, I needed perfectly clear skies.
Third is knowing that for Moraine Lake you can no longer access this spot by car. You must park at Lake Louise and ride or hike to the lake shore. a 15km journey each way minimum, and when doing so in the dark, know its going to be cold and you are more likely than not to pass significant wildlife on this road.

So there we sat, at lake Louise checking the Aurora data, which currently sat at around KP8 on this crisp October evening. At this point however cloud cover wasn’t doing us any favours. However, we decided that the conditions were worth the risk, and we said “Fuck it” and took off on the long ride out to the lake.
Our goal was simple, Aurora over Moraine Lake, anything else was a bonus, but we had a larger goal in mind.

Blue Hour from Sentinel Pass waiting on the Aurora to arrive. 

after arriving at Moraine Lake, less than a week before the road closed completely for the season, we were pleasantly surprised by the low numbers of people out there. So given we still had about an hour til sunset, we decided to basically run up the trail to Larch valley and the beginning of Sentinel Pass. As we ascended, we passed hikers who were very vocal about their disapproval of our plan to night hike the region they were coming from. Especially considering the area is known to house a mother grizzly and her cubs. However, despite their objections, we arrived at the first Lake in the pass just as the sun dipped below the horizon.

Blue hour from the first lake, for a time lapse of this check my Instagram

It was literally moments between last light from the sun and the vibrant red and green colours gracing the skies. It began with a shimmer, then a dance then a full on solar storm was impacting right in front of our eyes.
We got some quick shots, set up a couple of time lapses for while we continued, then once again we began running for our lives up hill towards the higher lake. Upon arriving at the next lake, it felt as though the storm had calmed a little to our eyes, everything seemed red, but we couldn’t see the dancing Pilars we had seen just minutes before. However, once we aimed our cameras and took shots we realised we were about to be in for the show of our lives.
The “calm” we had witnessed was not calm at all but a storm so strong it was beyond having Pilars. It was pure light and all this vibrant pinky red colour across the entire sky north to south.
We stayed at this lake for an hour shooting then began our journey down towards Moraine Lake for the shot we had made this entire ordeal for.

Shooting back towards Moraine Lake from Sentinel Pass

Shooting from the other side of the lake towards Sentinel Pass with the aurora exploding above

Down the pitch black trail, we ran shouting to warn off any predators, though we really didn’t need to, our excitement for the moments we had just witnessed had not passed and we were rowdy beyond words. After what felt like only 30 minutes of run hiking down towards the lake, we arrived to find the lake busier than expected. A tour from the Fairmont had arrived only to sit in our favourite compositions on the rock pile. We waited patiently, shot different compositions then once the tour left and we had the entire area to ourselves we began shooting the bangers we had been waiting our entire photography careers for. And boy did it not disappoint.
Not a cloud in the sky, vibrant beams of green and pink, light so bright it felt like a full moon if not for the multicoloured hues.
A Night I will never forget as long as I live.