Canadian Rockies to The Great Lakes & Beyond travel blog

On the road to Moraine Lake

It's still really cloudy but lots of glacier/snow up there

 

At Moraine Lake

The peaks are a little obscured by the clouds still

The lake water just sparkles

Foxy & Joe pose for a picture

A little blue sky is peeking through

Thought all this driftwood was interesting

Chateau Lake Louise

Some of the scenery surrounding Lake Louise

Foxy & Joe pose here for me too at Lake Louise

Foxy making friends with the ladies

Another shot of Lake Louise with the Victoria Glacier

Pretty flowers around the Chateau

This little bird was busy hustling up seeds

Amazing how imposing the Chateau really is.

Yum, nice cold water from the Bow River

I keep trying to get this shot without the white puffy clouds..getting...


It rained most of the night and the forecast was absolutely dreadful for the day…rain and more rain. We worked around the coach and did some computer stuff and had lunch. Then, miraculously, as though someone flipped a switch, the sun emerged very tentatively. I needed to go to the Village to mail some stuff at the post office and I forgot to get milk at the market yesterday; so, we thought we’d just go get those errands done, expecting the forecast rain to return.

Sometimes, it’s just great when the weather forecasters get it wrong. Actually, around here, I think the mountains make their own weather and delight in showing the forecasters who’s really in charge.

Since it appeared the rain would hold off for a while, we decided to go to Moraine Lake. A winding 13 km road leads through the mountainous panorama to the lake. The lake is a sparkling turquoise reservoir fed by glacial run-off from the surrounding mountains. Speaking of mountains, they are known as the Wenkchemna Peaks, which means ten and apparently there are ten of them, all topping out over 3,000 meters or 10,000 feet. The area is known as the Valley of the Ten Peaks. We walked the trail around the lake and there were a few hardy tourists paddling the lake in canoes.

Lake Louise was next stop; this is arguably the most photographed place in Banff National Park. The 90-meter deep blue lake is surrounded by towering rugged mountains and the Victoria Glacier is a cool back drop. We escaped the hordes of tourists by walking a little further around the lake and then we doubled back near the imposing and elegant Chateau Lake Louise.

It was getting late and I was going to miss the post office if we didn’t get rolling so we headed back to the Village. We stopped at the post office, I bought a rain jacket, and we had coffee and some Danish for a snack (Foxy had ice cream) and we picked up the milk at the market and headed home.

We had a light supper at home and took a 2-mile walk along the trail by the Bow River. We’ve all definitely had our exercise for the day and I think we’ll sleep well tonight.

Share |