Where Is Jasper National Park And Where Are The Bighorn Rams?
Jasper National Park is in the Alberta province of Canada. It is in the area known as the Canadian Rocky Mountains. It is the same area as Banff National Park and Lake Louise but farther north up the Icefields Parkway. While the Banff and Lake Louise area tends to be far more popular and well known than Jasper, Jasper is well worth a visit for a day or even a few weeks if you can get away for that long.
When you go anywhere in the Canadian Rockies, there is plenty of wildlife to see all over the place. You’ll probably see bears, elk, moose and very often bighorn sheep. Any and all of those creatures may be seen anywhere in the parks. If you are at Jasper in the winter, a common place to see bighorn rams is along the Yellowhead Highway (16) that goes from the town of Jasper down toward Hinton. You’ll want to drive down past the turnoff to head up to Maligne Lake and end up somewhere around the Morro Slabs hiking trail. In this area you can often find huge flocks of rams hanging out and often blocking traffic.
What Is It Like To Travel To And Photograph Bighorn Rams At Jasper National Park?
If you are coming from the US or even most parts of Canada a trip to Jasper could be quite an undertaking. It is fairly remote, the closest airport is Edmonton. If you re going to Banff National Park as well you may want to fly into Calgary. It is a long road trip from anywhere but if you are going to Glacier National Park in Montana, USA and have time for an extended trip you could reasonably go up to Jasper National Park as part of your trip.
There is quite a variety of lodging up in Jasper from people who rent out rooms in their homes to hotels, campground and the Jasper Hostel International Hostel. The Hostel is quite new and a very nice place to stay if you don’t mind sharing a bunk room with fellow travelers from around the world.
Once you have your lodging all setup you’ll probably want to eat. There are a ton of restaurants in downtown Jasper as well as two grocery stores and a lot of places to buy souvenirs and outdoor equipment that may come in handy during your adventures in Jasper.
If you’ve come to find wildlife, chances are you’ll see some just driving around the park. Unlike parks like Yellowstone, the park rangers in Jasper, Banff and the surrounding parks do not want you to stop near wildlife. Within the park, you’ll generally need to get quick shots and won’t be able to pull off the road for an extended shoot. Fortunately the area mentioned above where the bighorn sheep hang out is probably outside of the park and you’ll be able to stop and park in the pull-off there. You never know when the bighorn rams will decide to come down and hang out but they are there frequently in the winter.
The bighorn rams in this area are pretty tame. They don’t seem to mind people much and often stand in the middle of the road blocking traffic. Despite this you must remember they are wild animals and should keep as much distance as possible or remain in your car if they are very close.
What Does It Take To Get A Wall Art Quality Photo Of Bighorn Rams At Jasper National Park?
Like any wild animals, you’ll need some luck to find them and you’ll need to pack your patience since wildlife are, well, wild. That area of the Yellowhead Highway is probably your best bet to spot them. Bighorn sheep are often spotted along the Maligne Lake Road (also known as Range Road 260A depending on what is programmed into your GPS. Along the Maligne Lake road, I’ve often only see a couple bighorn sheep in random spots along the road but along the Yellowhead Highway in the winter there can be TONS of them.
A cloudy day will provide the best light for photographing bighorn rams in Jasper or at least a day with enough cloud cover in the sky to diffuse the light a little bit to smooth out the bright spots that appear on the lighter spots of hair on the bighorn rams if they are in full sun.
In order to photograph them safely and be able to photograph them if they are far away you’ll want to use a camera with a telephoto lens. You’ll likely want to have a telephoto with a zoom feature so you can adjust your lens depending on how close or far away the sheep are as they move around. If you are in Jasper in the winter be sure to pack REALLY WARM clothes. The temps can dip down to 35 below zero and some days may remain below zero during the day.
What Is The Best Gear For Photographing Bighorn Rams At Jasper National Park?
Since you will be photographing wildlife and wildlife tends to be far away and tends to move, you will probably not get very good photos of the bighorn rams with a cel phone. You may be able to get decent photos of them with a small point and shoot camera. Your best bet will be a DSLR or mirrorless camera with a long telephoto zoom lens.
For the absolute sharpest photos you’ll probably want to have a fixed length prime lens that is 400mm or 600mm. The problem with using a fixed length prime lens is of course the tremendous expense of such lenses. The other problem with a fixed length lens is that it is fixed. If the rams are really far away, it is not a problem. Sometimes bighorn rams around Jasper will get within 25 feet of you while you are in your car. If they get that close and you can’t zoom out you’ll be able to get really good closeup photos of their eyes but you won’t be able to get full body shots or include multiple rams in a single shot like the photo highlighted in this article.
In this case, I would suggest a DSLR or mirrorless camera with a telephoto zoom lens that goes from 150mm – 600mm. Such lenses tend to be much cheaper than the fixed prime lenses yet still take pretty awesome photos. If you take one of these lenses to Jasper, you’ll be able to get great wildlife photos all over Jasper and Banff if you spend time down there.
What Is The Story Behind This Photo Print Of The Snowbird Trams?
During 2015 I spent most of the year on the road. It was an endless road trip though the national parks in the western US and Canada. I was able to spend months in the Canadian Rockies hopping between hostels. While in Jasper I stayed at the Jasper HI Hostel and the World Travellers Fraternity (that is now just a standard since family rental I believe).
It got COLD early in Jasper that year. Maligne Lake was mostly frozen pretty early in the late fall/winter season so there were not many photos to be had up around the lake. There was nobody up there anytime I did go up. By that time the boat cruises out to Spirit Island have long since stopped. There is no lodging up there so for most people there is no reason to go up to Maligne Lake in the winter.
I spent a fair amount of time exploring the area between the town of Jasper and the road down toward the small town of Hinton but never drove all the way down to Hinton. Talbot Lake and other small and large bodies of water provided opportunities for some cool shots. In addition to wildlife and amazing landscapes, Jasper National Park can be a great spot to see the Northern Lights. During the fall and early winter of 2015 I did get some cool views of the Northern Light and just about froze to death.
One day when I was driving down toward Hinton, there were a TON of bighorn sheep (mostly rams) on the side of the road and on the road sometimes blocking traffic. This is a known spot for bighorn sheep by the Park Canada or whoever maintains the roads around Jasper. Right where the bighorn sheep were hanging out was a wildlife crossing sign. The speed limit is also lower in this area so as to prevent cars from hitting them. Once I discovered this hangout I’d drive by it just about every day. I probably spent at least 10 days photographing the bighorn rams around Jasper National Park during that visit.
On the day this photo was taken there must have been at least 40 bighorn sheep in the area along the Yellowhead Highway. Most of them were rams. The others were either youngsters or small females. November is generally the start of the rut when bighorn rams battle each other for the right to mate with the most desirable females in the flock. While I’ve sen the bighorn rams battle at the National Elk Refuge in Jackson, Wyoming they were not in battle mode in November in Jasper. They were just standing and wandering around grazing on the brown grass that was sticking up through the ice and light snow on the ground. In this photo, they just huddled together. Some seemed to be more apart of group while others like the one on the right seemed to be loners.
For this photo the rams were gathered across the road. They weren’t too far away and seemed pretty tame. For the most part I either sat in my car to photograph them and try to keep my body from freezing and my fingers from falling off or stood behind my car and leaned over the hood. I’ve never know a bighorn sheep to attack a person but it never hurts to be cautious around them. I hung out for a couple hours and took hundreds of photos. Around dusk they headed off. I got back in the car, cranked up the heat and headed back to the hostel to edit photos, take a shower and start watching the Northern Light tracker to see if I should plan to head back out for a Northern Lights display.
What Formats Is This Jasper National Park Bighorn Rams Print Available?
This print of four bighorn rams huddling together is available on paper, canvas, metal, acrylic, and wood. It comes in sizes up to 40×60 inches. If you plan to hang it in an area with diffused lighting then any print material with any finish will look great. Shinier surfaces like metal, acrylic and glossy canvas will have a brighter look while matte canvas and paper prints will have a more subtle refined look. If you plan to hang the print in an area with bright direct light, you’ll probably want to order a print with a matte finish. The more glossy finishes may be a bit reflective under direct light or bright natural light.
If you’d like to add wildlife touch to your bathroom, this image is available on bath towels and shower curtains. The shower curtains are really awesome! The prints are vibrant, the shower curtain very high quality and can work just fine with or without a shower curtain liner. The shower curtains could even be treated like tapestries and hung on a wall like a piece of art.
If your area has banned those plastic shopping or grocery bags and you need one or more bags to use when out shopping, you can get this image on a few different sizes of canvas tote bags. The largest “weekender” size is perfect for use as a large grocery bag that will hold about as much as you would want to carry in one bag. It can double as a durable bag you can use to take stuff to the beach or pack with enough things for an overnight or weekend trip out with a friend.
Finally, if you or someone who might be on your gift list enjoys jigsaw puzzles, this image is available on 500 and 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles. The puzzles come in cardboard boxes with the image printed on the box for reference. The 1,000 piece puzzles provide a great challenge for the puzzle enthusiast!
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