Monday August 17, 2015
Today’s agenda focused on Lake Louise. We had heard the nightmare stories about crowds and lack of parking at the lake, so we were out of the hotel and on our way there bright and early. We arrived right as parking opened but were far from the first guests of the day.
Turns out, that didn’t really matter. The entire lake was shrouded with fog so thick you could hardly see your hand in front of your face. Of course this was a major disappointment – we came to see the scenery, not the fog! Chad and I had visited some years prior, but the kids had never seen the brilliant turquoise water before.
We decided to kill some time with a hike, and started off on a path called the Fairview Lookout that runs to the left of the lake as you face it from the hotel. The path climbs up about a kilometer or so to a viewing platform. It’s a pretty steep hike; our lungs, which are much more acclimated to sea level, definitely felt the burn. However, the view down over the lake and the hotel is worth it in the end, and was made even more so by the fact that when we reached the lookout, we could see the fog on the lake lifting.
We hoofed it back down the path in a hurry, because we wanted to rent canoes to paddle the lake, and knew that those could go quickly. Luckily, the boathouse was just opening up as we got into the queue, and there were still lots of canoes left.
The price of renting a canoe on Lake Louise will make you cry even more today than it did then. In 2015 I believe we paid $55 per hour per canoe, and there was no half hour option available. Today the rate has climbed to $125 per hour, or $115 per half hour. Of course, with 4 of us, we needed 2 canoes. The upside to this is that we were able to get some good photos of each other out on the water. And it does provide a unique vantage point of the hotel to see it from the water. So if I were to go again today, I would still (begrudgingly) do it.
Leaving Lake Louise, we went to Laggan’s for lunch. Laggan’s is in Lake Louise village and is a convenient place to buy sandwiches and baked goods for a quick meal.
Then we were on to our afternoon activity: riding the Lake Louise gondola. We chose to do this because of the possibility of seeing grizzly bears in the area, and it was our lucky day, because we had the perfect sighting: a grizzly sauntered under the cable way just as we were passing over top! At the top of the gondola, we hiked around on a couple of trails for a bit, and stopped in at the visitor centre, before taking the return ride back down.
We had one more stop before our day was over. As the day went on, we had passed by the road to Moraine Lake a couple of times, and it was always closed to traffic, which I understand is what happens when the parking lot fills up and the park rangers need to enforce some crowd control. It was getting late in the day, perhaps 5-6 pm, and finally the road was open again. We wasted no time turning down the road and securing a parking spot in the main lot by the lake. This was perhaps our favourite stop of the day. The lake was beautiful, even more gorgeous than Lake Louise. There is a huge rock pile on the lakeshore that the kids had a blast running up and down. On top of that, the rock pile provided a natural habitat for pikas. We saw several pikas there, and spent a while watching them scurry about the pile and listening to their high-pitched whistles.
I don’t have anything noted about dinner that night, so I’m not sure where we ate once we returned to Banff; but I’m pretty sure we probably topped it off with another BeaverTail before bed.
Cook Family Travels 