Misty Mountains on the David Thompson Highway
Soft pastels on Pastel Card 9 x 7  $175 FRAMED

A few weeks ago, we drove to Jasper (Alberta) for a mini-vacation for our 8th anniversary.   Jasper is about a 4 hour drive from Edmonton normally, if you take Highway 16 (the Yellowhead,) but we decided to take a different, longer route.  The David Thompson Highway (Hwy 11) is a beautiful scenic, historic route that technically starts at Rocky Mountain House (west of Red Deer) and intersects the Columbia Icefield Highway (Hwy 93) between Banff and Jasper.  It’s really out of the way if you’re going from Edmonton to Jasper, but it’s a beautiful highway and an amazing way to approach the Rocky Mountains.

As the highway lead deeper and higher into the foothills and mountains, the weather became colder and we found ourselves driving into misty low hanging clouds and the fall colours around us became muted.  Even so, the tamaracks gilded the hillsides with sunny bands of gold between the dark spruce and pines.

I took almost 500 photos on this two day trip and hope to paint at least four pastel paintings from them.  This is the second.