About the Photo #3: Crossing Avalanche Lake
For the New Year of 2017, Elizabeth, myself and Scotie Jacobs made our way to the High Peaks Region of the Adirondacks in New York. This is one of our favorite places to adventure and is where Elizabeth & I began our greatest adventure to date, marriage. The goal for these handful of days in the High Peaks was to feel the power of winter, enjoy a few days of camping in the backcountry and see what mountains mother winter would lets us climb.
Here we are about to cross Avalanche Lake from the south end. We had just come off of Mt Colden (4,714 ft) after an attempt to summit but with 70+ mph winds, near whiteout conditions and a mountain top full of thick ice, we safely reversed our course just a 100 feet or so from the summit and headed back down towards Lake Colden.
The trail to Mt Golden is just off of Lake Colden itself so when we reached the bottom on our way back we crossed it on our way towards Avalanche Lake, and eventually to our little basecamp that we set up between the Pass and Marcy Dam.
The wind was hallowing as we made our way out onto the ice of Avalanche Lake. The snow was picking up and the temps dropped even further; at this point we were hovering around 0º and it was around 4pm. I stopped just as I set foot on the southern most part of the ice, as Elizabeth & Scotie continued. After about 50 yards, they paused for a moment to gaze at the far end of the lake and I took this photo. You could see the wind hurling snow from the ice, eventually decreasing visibility where you couldn't make out just where exactly you were as we walked down the center of the lake. To see our Adventure Post from the trip (includes more photos and a video), click here.
Camera & Settings
Photo by Joe Azze
Camera - Sony RX 100 M2
Aperture - 5.6
Shutter speed - 320
ISO - 160
Focal Range - 10.4mm
File & Editing - JPEG with a small amount of post processing, mainly bringing down the highlights and to bring into view the northern section of the lake.
