Banff and Lake Louise

Yoho National Park, the Quieter Banff

We're staying in Golden, which is about and hour west of Lake Louise and and hour and a half from Banff.  Since we needed a 2 bedroom so that Stephen would have a closed room to work from and there aren't a lot of those in Banff and Lake Louise towns at reasonable rates, this made sense for us.  We've got awesome views and a hot tub on the deck to look out from all for about $1500 for the week vs. $400-600 a night for a just a room in either town.  The only downside is that we have a drive each morning.  We rented a Jeep Wrangler from Turo and so pop the top off above the front seats and enjoy some open air driving on the way.  It makes the drive more fun.

Also, staying in Golden means we are closer to Yoho National Park.  Yoho abuts Banff National Park to the west.  The boundary between Alberta and British Columbia separates the two parks.  Yoho is a LOT less crowded than Banff and has a lot of the same views and geological features, if not some of the iconic sites.  We didn't realize how much more peaceful it would be until we visited some of the sites in Banff and Lake Louise later in the week.

We started in Yoho today to get a sense of of the area with two relatively short, easy hikes, the first to Wapta falls, and the other around Emerald Lake.  In total it was about 8 miles of trails on mostly flat topography.  Both trails were heavily forested for the most part.  As we walked along the trails, the scent of pine was overwhelming; it felt like the first day you have a fresh cut Christmas tree in the house, but it was constant.  For us it added to the experience.  As we hiked, we would encounter a few other hikers here and there but nothing really to disturb the peacefulness of the walk.  Emerald lake lived up to its name, although sometimes it had a look of almost ice blue depending on the angle of the sun.  Both sites were a nice introduction to the area.  In between the two we stopped at Natural Bridge which had a view to two tall peaks, one being the namesake mountain of Stephen.

We headed back around 3pm so Eli could take a work call and then made dinner for ourselves and soaked in the hot tub for a bit before calling it a night.

Bow Lake, The Icefields Parkway, and Columbia Glacier

Today we thought we'd wake up early and try to get to Lake Louise before the parking lot filled up.  We wanted to do a 4-5 hour hike called the Plain of Six Glaciers.  We left the Airbnb at 8 thinking that there would be no way it would fill up before 9.  We arrived and sure enough, the parking lot was already filled.  They gave us the option to keep circling back to see if a spot opened up, but that seemed like a losing battle.  We also learned that to get to Lake Moraine, you have to take a shuttle options; you're no longer allowed to drive there at all.  We drove back to town to see about getting one of the shuttle options back up to the lake. 

We stopped in at the tourist info booth.  There is a park-run shuttle that's about $9 a ride, but that was booked for the day.  You have to make reservations for that bus days in advance if you want your choice of times.  We wanted to go in the morning so we could start our hike and all they had were times after 4pm for the next few days.  They also had a list of private shuttle options that you could call to arrange transportation up.  If you're interested in learning more, you should check out our article on best ways to get up to Lake Louise and Lake Moraine.

Since at this point it was already 10 am, we decided to change our plan for today and instead drive up the ice fields parkway to Bow Lake and the Columbia Ice Fields.  Bow Lake is known for it's beautiful mirror-calm waters that allow you to capture the reflection of the mountains and glaciers behind it.  As we headed toward the glacier field, we stopped along the way  a few more times to capture some beautiful scenery.  We arrived at the Columbia Glacier Visitor Center which is across the street from the glacier field.  Back in the day, the glacier would have been all the way across the road, but it has retreated significantly over the last 40 years, and it's been accelerating since the early 2000's.  We had seen online that they had a glass bridge and so we thought that would be a more ecologically responsible way to get close to the glacier rather than doing one of their "walk on the glacier" tours (which we didn't think was terribly healthy for the glacier).  However, the skybridge was over the valley rather than the glacier and didn't give any viewing opportunities that were better than the parking lot across the road.  As a glacier, if you've seen glaciers in Alaska or Patagonia, the Columbia fields aren't nearly as impressive, but still important to see as pretty soon they'll be completely gone. 

We headed back home to make dinner, have a soak in the hot tub, and create a plan for the next day to get back to Lake Louise for our hike.  The list from the tourist info center had just telephone numbers and email addresses, but we figured we could use the domain names from the email addresses to see if any companies had websites to online book.  They all did, and we ended up selecting Ten Peaks.  They offered the option to extend our stay at Lake Louise and come back on a different shuttle than with the group we went up with.  Afterward, though, we saw a cheaper option that would have worked for us too, but it had Banff in its name and we thought that that's where they would have picked up.  Lesson learned to check everything out.  In the end, though, we lucked out with Ten Peaks... (read the next post to find out why).

Lake Louise, Lake Moraine, a Hike, and a Crisis

We woke up at 5:30 to make sure we could get to our shuttle departure at 7:30am.  The options that they had for long-term parking was further away from the closest pick-up to us, but it was nice to get to drive a bit on the Bow Valley Parkway, one of the famous scenic drives.  Our driver, Eddine, arrived right on time and with more energy than seemed possible for that outdoor temperature at that early in the morning.  He's from France and a snowboard instructor during the winter at the Lake Louise ski resort.  During the summer he travels and works random jobs.  We immediately took to him and the other two guests he picked up at our stop, a husband and wife from the Seattle area.  One was a professor at the University of Washington in experimental psychology and the other worked contract for Microsoft.  They were closing in on retirement but had tons of inquisitive energy.  We had a blast talking to all three, particularly hypothesizing about the origins of different types of rocks and soil in the area.

Our first stop was Lake Louise.  The lake is quite dramatic with the sheet cliff on the left side diving right into the lake and the glacier in the background.  We understand why it's so often photographed.  The standard option for Ten Peaks give you 2.5 hours here which is enough to do one of the shorter hikes.  With our extension we'd have 4.5 hours which would be enough to do  the Plain of Six Glaciers hike, which is an out an back.  We figured that if we were a bit slow we could just turn back early before finishing.  About three quarters of the way up the trail there is a tea house where you can stop and have drinks and light nourishment.  They bring provisions up by donkey so there were sections of the trail that were marred by donkey poop; we had to be careful where we stuck the tips of our hiking poles.  We started our hike about 8:30 and the section along Lake Louise was pretty calm with few other hikers.  The Plain of Six Glaciers trail is a pretty steady climb with grades of around 20% but nothing like the 30-50% grades we had on the hike at Ijen volcano.  Six Glaciers was about 300 feet less of elevation gain but over a longer trail by half.  It leads though a variety of different climatic zones over the 1600 feet of elevation gain.  We walked through some forested sections along the lake and creek, then to some rocky trails, and then above the tree line with close-up views of the glacial plain.

We stopped at the tea house, but decided against having refreshments as we wanted to make it to the final lookout point and back in time for our shuttle.  The tea house is staffed by a single guy who stays up there all summer long.  We imagine it's quite a life of solitude up there for the 15 hours a day when there are no hikers.  As we trudged on,  Stephen started moving slower, the official trail stopped and the part ahead was not well maintained, and a hiker on their way back said that it was further that what the map was indicating. we decided to head back. With that said, there is a nice viewpoint of the glacier just a few hundred meters up from the tea house, even if it's not where All Trails showed the trail ending.  We'd suggest stopping there and then giving yourself some time at the teahouse.  The hike was the perfect level of length and difficulty for us.  once we hit the section back at the lake though, our tranquil state was broken.  In the ensuing 4 hours, the area around the lake was now teeming with people having all kinds of loud conversations along the trail.  It was a very different experience at 12noon than what we had at 8:30.  One of the other guests on the van was complaining about it, saying it felt like a tourist trap.  We had a take more that it is a part of our natural heritage and it should be available to all, but that yes it can be challenging when we all want to see it at the same time.

Eddine met us back at the pickup point with a new set of tourists on the van with us, and we headed to Lake Moraine.  Eddine suggested doing a hike with about 800 feet of elevation gain in about 3 miles, but we decided we'd rest a bit.  We hiked up the rock pile to get some shots of the lake and then headed to section with picnic tables shaded by some tall pine trees to relax before the shuttle came back.  We laid down on the benches and stared up at the pine canopy above.

Eddine was back again to pick us up (this time a bit late because he had to wait on some guests at Lake Louise who did end up showing up on time) and then he took us back to our car, stopping to drop the other guests off on the way.  We had a section of the drive where it was just the three of us so we chatted a bit about life and he gave us some recommendations of things to see and places to go.  We said our goodbyes and Eli decided he wanted to drive home.  Stephen reached into his pocket to get the car key and.... no car key.  It had fallen out somewhere over the day.  Now Stephen is freaking out, Eli has a better head on him about it, and Eddine offers to take us back to Lake Louise and Moraine to search to find the key.  On the way, Stephen couldn't stop thinking about what we were going to do if we couldn't find the key.  It was a Turo rental, so it's not like we got roadside assistance from a company; the owner would have to somehow get all the way here from Calgary to get us a key.  And meanwhile we're staying an hour and a half away from where the car was and there really isn't any transportation between the two locations other than private vehicles.

We started at Moraine figuring that was the most likely place for it to be... Stephen was pretty sure he still had the key in his pocket when he was in the gift shop there and  Eli thought it was likely that it had dropped out as we were laying on the picnic benches.  Eddine ran ahead of us to the location where the bench was we were sitting at and sure enough, it was there.  WHEW!  Crisis averted.  We were lucky to have had Eddine and Ten Peaks as our drivers.   We can't imagine any of the cheaper companies supporting us in this way.

We decided we didn't want to cook, so we headed to a brew pub in Golden called The Wolf's Den.  We went especially for the game meats they prepare.   Stephen had bison ribs and Eli had an Elk burger (both with a side of poutine) and we both tried two of their house brews (both were excellent).  The service was super friendly as well.   Canadians are even nicer than Minnesotans.

Sights and Sounds around Banff Town

Today we drove further into Banff National Park to see the sights closest to the town of Banff.  We drove around to different vistas that Eddine had recommended.  Parking was a challenge at many of the locations, which made it a bit frustrating.  Since we had had such an active day the day prior, we took it easy today and just did some light walking around some of the vista points.  

We headed in to Banff town to check it out.  It's definitely cute but a lot of the town has been redeveloped with newer "alpine style" buildings with retail below and hotel rooms above in the last 20 years.  We did find parts of the town with some original bungalows from the turn of the 20th century, though.  The setting of the town is pretty spectacular, too, with the Bow river running through it and some of the most interesting mountain formations around it.