Celebrating Women's Stories: Renee's Moment

March is Women's History Month and we’re highlighting the work of some of the amazing women photographers on Flickr. This week, we invite you to explore an album curated by the talented photographer, Renee and read the story behind these stunning landscape photos.

View the album here.

"I am Renee Jiang, a radiation expert focusing on high dose Brain Mets SRS, Lung cancer SBRT and Breath hold breast cancer treatments.

My main hobbies are photography and travel. I have a passion for nature, love to see the first light in the early morning and stay late for sunset.

We were lucky enough to book the hut at Mount Assiniboine, which is a pyramidal peak mountain located on the Great Divide, on the British Columbia/Alberta border in Canada. It is the highest peak (3,618 m) in the Southern Continental Ranges of the Canadian Rockies. There are two ways to get here: one is to get in and out by helicopter, and the other is to walk more than 30 kilometers one way. The helicopter lifts to huts or lodges at Lake Magog. Mount Assiniboine rises nearly 1,525m above Lake Magog.

Spent three days in a hut by helicopter in Mt. Assiniboine Provincial Park, with no electricity, no signal, and heated by a campfire. There are only 5 huts in the park, and limited campsites and lodges for people to stay overnight. Luggage by helicopter cannot exceed 40 pounds. Need to bring my own garbage down the mountain.

From the huts to the top of the mountain, I had to climb 5.7 kilometers to Niblet to shoot the sunrise and sunset at Sunburst Peaks. The hiking trail from the huts to Nub Peak via Niblet was the best trail ever. Woke up at 4am in the morning and climbed the mountain with a headlamp on, also with bear spray, to capture the sunrise; hiked down the mountains and climbed up again before sunset to capture sunset… After the sunset, it was dark, I went down the mountain with my headlamp on, so afraid of contacting bears ... Did like this for two days. No electricity and no signal for three days, went to the river to get water, boiled water at the public "kitchen".

The recent trips have changed quite a bit. Instead of taking sunrise/sunset photos, went to the peaks every day, actually climbing/scrambling to the peaks ;)) average 20km per day, over 800 meters elevation. No tree line above 800 meters, and the weather was changing dramatically.

In the past fall trip, we climbed 14 mountain peaks. The views from the top were breathtaking... kind of addicted to it. The only downside is that the bears were everywhere, not safe at all, also scrambling most peaks of the last couple of hundred meters was tough.

The experiences on the summit could not be expressed with words! Especially found the black metal box, it looks like finding the treasure... under the pile of stones on the summit! There was a small notebook, all the hikers who reached the summit, wrote down their names on it. The signatures were traced back to 20 years ago! Four of us put our signatures on the last page! There would be metal boxes (Black or Pink) with notebooks inside on all the challenging/difficult summits all over the world, it was an honor putting signatures on it. I was so proud of writing my signature with all other hikers' signatures in the past 20 years together in this summit!

It was snowing with strong wind and hail when we reached the summit. It was just 10 minutes later, the trail was covered with snow, we could not see where the trail was, we had to climb zig zag patterns down on meadows… In about half an hour, snow stopped, and we were treated to a breathtaking view with fog and sunshine…!

Hiking in the wilderness is kind of cleansing the soul, I just hope I can do more in the next several years."

- Renee

Photo ©: Renee

Taken on: March 19, 2024

Sets appears in: • Celebrating Women's Stories

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