17. Lake Louise

A great way to start our visit with a 10k run along the Tramline trail all the way from our hotel to Lake Louise!

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On Day 2 we did our 1st guided hike of the whole trip.  This goes by the name of the "Valley of 10 Peaks" hike and was with our guide Nadine.  Including Nadine there was a group of 8 of us.  The rest of the group were nice friendly people and Nadine gave us her top 10 things for the hike including reference to the wildlife (shrews and nutcracker birds) to the history of the first people to map out and hike the region in the late 1800's/early 1900's (eg Samuel Allen); to why Moraine Lake has such a brilliant green/blue colour!

In front of Moraine lake at the end of our hike...the lake probably doesn't look quite so blue compared to my hoodie, you'll just have to trust me on this one!

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On a showery Day 3 Svan and I did the "Plain of 6 Glaciers" hike via Lake Agnes and the Big Beehive lookout.  This hike starts and finishes at Lake Louise.  There were a lot of tourists to start but those not wearing the right equipment eg Japanese tourists wearing high heels, meant that the numbers thinned out after a while. We were however surprised to see the number of people running this trail especially considering its steepness in parts (even Svan struggled to keep up with these guys!)  There are 2 tea houses en route, but we bypassed the first and carried straight on until the second which is around half way through.  We heard from other hikers that this 2nd tea house sold great chocolate cake.  The idea of this definitely kept me going - the 2nd pic above shows us tasting a slice (or two).  Two ladies sitting on the same table as us turned out to be not only experienced Canadian hikers, but accountants - those guys seem to get everywhere don't they! This was a fun hike, and without being in a group we were back to being able to go at our own pace.  The chocolate cake at half way was also a highlight! :)

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Day 4 saw us taking on our 3rd hike in the same number of days.  We were joined by our friend Katherine who had made the drive over from Calgary.  This hike was in the Yoho National Park, and went by the name of the "Iceline Trail" starting at Laughing Falls, and follows points 4->6->5->4 on the map above.  This was going to be a good one!  Rated in the top five hikes in Canada, we were curious how it would compare to the Crypt hike which we had already done in Waterton (rated #1), which I had loved!

This was indeed a great hike, with waterfalls, views of some great peaks and glaciers and some terrain even looking like the moon's surface! After gaining a lot of elevation through the first part of the hike, the end flattens out with the trail winding through a beautiful forest!  We met some cool people along the way, one couple were kind enough to let us share their trail mix to keep us going, although the lodge at halfway is home to the "Alpine Hiking Club of Canada". They turned out to be a snobby and pretentious bunch who made it quite clear that their lodge was for members only.  You can often spot these guys as they wear short shorts, knee length cream coloured socks with boot covers plus the rest of the "kit"...oh they are so up themselves!

We finished the day by popping in to see Emerald Lake which happened to be just down the road. One of the guys from the group hike earlier in the week had recommended it and had also mentioned it had a nice restaurant.  The lake was pretty, although not quite up there with Maligne, Louise or Moraine, but it was close!  We were all starving by the time we arrived as it had been a full day's hike (starting at 11am and finishing at 5.45pm).  We all demolished a huge plate of nachos before tucking into our mains, and I washed mine down with a pint of the local beer!

We had a great 5 days in Lake Louise, and must have covered 75km on foot during this time across 2 runs and 3 hikes!  This will pale into insignificance though as we now start the next part of our trip in the Yukon where we will canoe 700km up the Yukon river from Whitehorse to Dawson.  There won't be any updates for a while, so wish us luck!