Lake Louise

Of all the places to see around Banff, Lake Louise and Lake Moraine are the most popular by far. So much so that they have closed the road into Lake Moraine and only allow shuttle buses in to avoid major traffic issues.

After 4 days of cold rainy weather, a sunny day finally was showing for the Friday. We drove back to Lake Louise Village from Calgary on Thursday night so we could arrive first thing in the morning. Every tourist guide and blog we read about how to visit Lake Louise recommended catching a shuttle. The chateau at the lakeside has parking but it was reported that it would fill up well before Sunrise each day.

After looking at tour options we decided they were too expensive and we would try our luck with the parking. One massive advantage we had was that we could arrive super early and then just roll back into bed in the back of the van.

And that’s exactly how it worked. 4am alarm in the roadside car park. 4:20am arrive to the chateau, snooze set for another 1.5hrs 👌

As soon as dawn started to break we knew we had scored the best weather. Clear still sky’s meant the view across the lake was picture perfect!

With the whole day ahead of us we packed our day packs and set off to explore. We followed our first trail around the lake front and up to Lake Agnes via Mirror Lake. From there we upped the ante and scaled the Big Beehive and Devils Thumb feature for views directly back down over the lakes.

The trail back took us further up the valley to the Plain of the six glaciers before following the creek back down to the lake.

Unbelievably we had covered 20kms and we’re still back to the van just after lunch time. With the whole afternoon ahead of us, and being so close to the Icefield Parkway, we decided to head back up to hopefully find some more bears.Read more