There was no sign of the promised rain when we rose in the morning, so we had a quick breakfast of mediocre hotel room coffee and peanut butter on rye bread. We drove to the lake. It was not yet nine in the morning, but the parking lot was already fairly full. Our plan was to hike up to the Plain of the Six Glaciers. In areas like the national parks bilingualism is strictly observed. This often seems a little absurd at times, but there was something about the translation of our destination into French – Le plaine des six glaciers – which made it seem more romantic and less geological. On the map, this looked like a relatively short and easy hike. It proved to be neither of those things, but both of us were glad we did it.
The trail next to the lake is wide, flat and easy, but as soon as we left the lakeshore we were steadily climbing in elevation and often climbing over rocks, too. Fortunately, there were lots of places to stop along the way not only to catch your breath but to take a picture. Once again we had some people offer to take a group picture of us. You can see the hotel at the very end of the lake.
I snapped this picture of John…
and he snapped this one of Edie.
It took some cajoling to get her to sit on that rock.
The area is dominated by the Victoria glacier. The lake is named after one of Queen Victoria’s daughters. I guess the nineteenth century Englishmen who gave names to all these places thought of the glacier as the mother of the lake. Although still a very impressive ice field, the Victoria glacier has diminished considerably in the last 50 years as a result of climate change.
At the very end of the trail there is a teahouse. The woman who runs the place has her own dog there, and all the dogs played around for a bit while we ordered a light lunch. Since this place was so remote, we were neither surprised nor upset that it was not cheap. We were surprised that the soup and the bread were so good!
Most people eat upstairs, but with the dogs we ate outside. We were joined by Hannah, a precocious third grader from Toronto, who is obviously crazy about dogs. “She’ll talk your ear off,” her mother warned us. She told us all about the results of her research project on Los Angeles and also the plots of several episodes of Marmaduke.
As usual, the trail back was a bit easier. We were tempted to let Edie off-leash to make it easier to walk, but when we saw some horses on the trail we thought better of it. Towards the end of the trail, we reached the point where the stream from the melting glacier enters the lake. Glacial silt, the fine sand formed from the crushed rock beneath the glacier, not only give the lake its famous turquoise color but also creates a beach of sorts at the delta.
After we finished this hike – a longer one than either of us expected it to be – we needed to figure out what to do for the rest of the afternoon. It was starting to cloud up a bit, but it was not raining. John said he was not up for any more major hikes today. I suggested that we go to Takkakaw Falls.
The Canadian Rockies have four national parks all adjacent to each other. Banff, where Lake Louise is located, is the most famous, but Jasper, Kootenay, and Yoho have equally impressive sights. Takkakaw Falls is in Yoho National Park. Since this is in British Columbia, not Alberta, we had to drive about 30 minutes west to get there. It was worth it! This is the largest waterfall in the Canadian Rockies. As I’ve noted before, it isn’t easy to get a picture of a waterfall. The motion of the water and the sound the water creates are simply cannot be captured by a still image, and even video somehow seems inadequate.
Edie did not share my fascination here, but was still willing to pose for a picture.
As we were leaving the lake, the rain finally started to fall. We returned to our hotel room. To make the time as productive as possible, we did a couple loads of laundry. This is an important part of traveling, but one that is not worthy of either pictures or commentary.
There was a fair bit of thunder with this storm, though we did not see much lightning. The dogs were tired and quite contented to sleep. So we left them in the room and went to look at the big, famous hotel. John snapped this picture of the side of the hotel with the mountains in the distance fading into the rain.
While the exterior of the hotel shows extensive renovations, some parts of the interior are still old and somewhat charming. In the picture below, you can see the lobby from the mezzanine. The Canadian Pacific chose to market the Lake Louise area as the North American Alps, so there is a vague Swiss theme throughout. You can see a bit of that in the chandelier.
The rain began to diminish, so we went back to the hotel and picked up the dogs. We drove this time to Moraine Lake. This is smaller than Lake Louise, but in some ways it is more dramatic. The lake is named after a pile of rock slag left at one end by a retreating glacier. Around the lake, ten different mountain peaks are visible. Some of these were covered in clouds which came and went as we did our lakefront walk. There were relatively few tourists here, so the dogs could really frolic.
Tomorrow, we will spend our last few hours in the Rockies and head towards our final Canadian destination, Calgary.
