I have more than 50 years of experience camping but almost exclusively in a tent so when I decided to visit the Canadian Rockies using a campervan, I was pretty excited for the new experience. As you can see from the image above, this campervan came equipped with a 30-liter refrigerator, a gas stove, utensils, pots and pans and of course...bear spray. As a nature photographer, this is simply the most flexible and practical way to travel due to the unpredictability of the weather.

Here's how it worked. After shooting a sunset which painted the mountains a beautiful orange, my guide Dani and I would look at the weather and make the decision on where to shoot the sunrise the following day. Next, we would strategically locate a rest area nearby the sunrise spot and hunker down for the night. There, I would prepare my dinner at about 9pm each night, wash the pans, make the coffee in my insulated thermos for the next morning, wash an apple and then set my alarm for 4:30am. Waking up in the dark in a unfamiliar vehicle requires advanced planning. Clothes were laid out, as was my toothbrush, water and deodorant because the sunrise waits for no one.

In the image above, you can see my sleeping arrangements which were thankfully on a comfortable sectional mattress with plenty of room for me to stretch out at night. The only challenge was the size and quantity of my luggage and that's self-inflicted as I am on a two and a half month group of voyages so I have a lot of stuff.

Now that I have touched on some of the logistics, here's more on what the typical day looked like. After the 4:30am wake up, we would head out at about 5:15 or 5:30am and drive to the sunrise shot location to set up and look for the best possible composition. Fortunately, my guide knew every puddle in the region so I was in excellent hands. I would shoot the sunrise and then a follow up early morning shot nearby. After that, I would eat breakfast at about 9:30am and was on my own until the afternoon or early evening. My daily plan was to drive around and serendipitously stop when I saw something cool to shoot.

Inevitably, I would start to feel tired of shooting about 11 or 11:30am and then had to figure out when I would stop for lunch. Prior to leaving Calgary, I did some shopping at the Canadian version of Walmart - the Real Canadian Superstore. Since this is Canada and not Arkansas, they treat their workers better than Walmart does. While shopping, I bought salad stuff, blueberries, shredded wheat cereal, bread and some smoked turkey slices from a Ukrainian immigrant named Viktor who was learning how to work the deli counter. That made me happy. Bottom line, I was prepared to eat on the road. Pro Tip - proper planning is key for a successful trip such as this because once you leave the Calgary area, the food choices are dramatically limited.

After lunch was always nap time. Napping is easy for me, so there was little problem to recharge the batteries a bit before going out for the sunset shoot. The challenge was to find a shady spot as it is still warm here in August. No worries, I slept.

One evening, we were settled in for the night in the parking lot of this fancy-schmancy American-owned lodge in front of the Athabasca glacier where they run glacier tourist trips. They had 2 proper restaurants, one of which posted a menu offering a slice of pizza for 13 CAD ($10USD and €9) and a whole pie...wait for it...priced at 65 CAD ($49USD and 44€). I happily ate Viktor's turkey sandwich and a salad for dinner trying to understand what kind of pizza is worth that kinda money.

Typically after dinner, I would retire to the campervan at about 9:30 or 9:45pm and quickly drift off into sleep. Tomorrow's 4:30am wake up call was never far away.

One of the highlights of the trip occured when I spotted an Osprey nest about 100 meters off the road and I stopped to check it out. After offering me her tripod to shoot from the roof of the campervan to maximize my elevation, Dani announced she was going to take a "5 minute nap". To be fair, I hired her for morning and evening shoots so this was her time anyhow. An hour later she woke up and I had the pleasure of witnessing two different fish being brought to the juvenile Ospreys in the nest and shot about 1200 images. In total, I spent a total of 90 minutes standing on the ledge of the campervan and waiting for the Ospreys to do some fun Osprey stuff (see the above image). Prior to today, I had not had a chance to use my big 400mm lens to shoot birds. With the Ospreys, I was shooting at f/8, ISO 3600 and at a focal length of 1120mm. For those of you who aren't photographers, that focal length is kinda like a baby telescope. Truth be told, I wasn't too confident about the image quality I would get using a lens with 2 teleconverters from a distance of 100 meters. As it turned out, I happily discovered an impressive image quality along with the effectiveness of Nikon's bird focusing firmware addition to the Z8. It was a great shoot.

Have a look at the the best 15 images from my week in the Canadian Rockies right here

After returning the campervan at the end of the trip, I must say that I was really happy to have 3 nights to chill in Calgary. Remember, I hadn't showered since Minneapolis 6 days before and was using biodegradable baby wipes to cleanup. Needless to say, that was one amazing shower when I checked into the hotel. Speaking of amazing, I thoroughly enjoyed the cold IPA and BBQ brisket platter for dinner that evening. Next Stop, Alaska.