Lake Louise

Hello all,

We had a yummy dinner at a local Greek place last night which we really enjoyed, before walking around the town of Banff a little bit. It was pretty chilly! Upon returning to our hotel, the staff off of the Rocky Mountaineer were all checking in for the night too. The two of us stayed up for the footy, me until 2am and Rob until 3am as both of our teams were playing. Both games didn’t involve a fine display of goal kicking. The pies came away with another win but sadly the Roos didn’t for Rob.

We had a sleep in today and set off about 10.30am to get a coffee. Banff is a cute town, but it’s sooooo much more touristy than Jasper. Even in shoulder season at the moment the footpaths are packed here. They reckon they have 50,000 people visiting/staying per day here in the summer which would be awful.

Banff exists as a town because in the early 1880s three Canadian Pacific Railway workers building the railway saw the potential of the hot springs here. The president of the railway then named the town Banff after his birthplace of Banffshire in Scotland.

After getting our coffee we hopped in our car and set off for the famous Lake Louise. We’ve been treated to lots of different lakes whilst here so far: frozen lakes, green lakes, blue lakes etc. Lake Louise is probably the most famous one in Canada, and it was pretty crowded already today so again, summer must be a nightmare! We didn’t enjoy how many people were around, but managed to find a few quiet spaces where we could stand and admire the lake. Adam and Rhiannon were here a week or so ago and it was so frozen people were walking out onto the lake. However, after the recent burst of warmer weather the edges of the lake were melting and we could see a bit of its colour peering through.

In August 1882 a horse packer for the railway company was taken to the lake by a First Nations person that was showing him the area. He called it Emerald Lake but it was renamed in 1884 after Queen Victoria’s fourth daughter. In 1890 a chalet was built by the lake, which was replaced after it burnt down. Today it is one of the numerous Fairmonts in Canada that the railway company still own. In 1899 the railway company hired Swiss mountain guides to lead hiking expeditions, and for that reason the area has a distinct European flavour. There are a couple of teahouses up on hiking trails that open in summer, the first built in 1905.

We walked around part of the lake’s perimeter before ascending up the trail to the Lake Agnes Teahouse. Our crampons came in handy again as sections of the trail were icy and snowy and these made it much easier. We even saw one section with lots of downed trees where we assume an avalanche had come through at some point recently. We really enjoyed this trail as most of the tourists down below gave it a miss, so it was quiet and peaceful. We had a nice view of the lake from above at one point, then of Mirror Lake and the Big Beehive Rock, and eventually reached Lake Agnes and sat and ate our lunch. The view was serene and beautiful, and very snowy. We were so high up we were level with a sightseeing plane that we saw fly past at one point. For a good 10-15 minutes we were the only people up there.

When we came back down, the sun was out a bit (it was pretty cloudy in the morning) and we could hear the ice cracking and see parts of it melting on the lake. The First Nations people apparently called it the Lake of Little Fishes, as its cold temperatures and silty water mean not many fish call it home. Even in summer, the water is less than 10 degrees celcius, and it’s frozen from November to June. The ice can be more than a metre thick in winter, and the lake is 70m deep in some parts. The lake is this cold as it sits at an elevation of 1731m, with 700mm of rain annually that falls as snow, and average air temperatures of -14 in January and 13 in July. My Apple Watch told me our hike was an average of a balmy 3 degrees! The famous powdery green/blue colour you’ve probably seen in photos comes about in mid summer, and is due to the six glaciers at the head of the valley that feed the lake with meltwaters. They grind rock beneath them into a fine powder which is called rock flour. This then washes into the lake and results in silty water that absorbs all colours of light except for turquoise and blue.

We cleaned our crampons in the water and sat for a while. We can definitely see why this area was incorporated into the first national park in Canada in 1902, and we think we want to visit in summer one day to see the colour then. We shall see! The colours would be magnificent.

We drove back and had a rest before heading to Eddie’s Burger Bar for an early dinner and to watch the ice hockey playoffs between Toronto and Florida. Afterwards, we headed to the hot springs here but decided they were too busy tonight. So instead we drove to the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel and checked it out. It’s designed to look like a scottish castle, and first opened in 1888 but was rebuilt in 1914 and added to in 1928. We went inside and checked out a display of old photos before heading to a viewpoint to appreciate it from afar.

We are having an early night now as a big day after staying up so late has hit us like a bus!!

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox