Peyto Lake

We woke up at 6am and quickly packed our bags for the day. We made sure to pack our rain jackets and double checked we had all the food for the day. We would be driving up the Icefields Parkway today with our first stop being Peyto Lake.

It was about 1.5 hours to get to the lake and it was freezing outside. The car was all frosted over so Scott turned on the heater and heated seats for 10 minutes prior to getting in the car. The car said it was negative 5 degrees outside.

We arrived at Peyto Lake at sunrise and there were a few snowflakes falling around us. It also looked like there had been fresh snow last night or yesterday when it rained at Lake Moraine.

We walked to the Peyto Lake viewpoint where we could see the lake and the surrounding mountains. We could see the glacier and there was information about where the glacier used to be over 100 years ago. It had receded a lot!

We were walking to Bow Lake summit and shortly after leaving the Peyto Lake viewpoint we put on our ice cleats as it was very early. We could see snow falling in the distance and thought we should walk quickly to the top before the bag weather comes in so we can see the views. The walk was 3.5km to the top and it was really nice with snow capped mountains surrounding us. The last 500m we were walking through ankle deep snow and even deeper in some areas and we were the first to make the tracks in the snow to the top.

We stopped for breakfast at the summit with views of the surrounding mountains and Bow Lake. It was a short stop as it was absolutely freezing. On the way back to the carpark we passed a family who appeared from the bushes. They said to follow there tracks to a beautiful view of Peyto Lake. It only took a couple of minutes to the viewpoint and we could see a much better view of Peyto Lake.

We continued back to the carpark and noticed the storm had actually bypassed us which we were a bit disappointed about as we were hoping to see snow falling!Læs mere