Trains and Grizzly Bears, A Canadian Roadtrip - Rocky Mountaineer Day 6

Saturday, September 7 - Lake Louise

Today is a free day for us in Lake Louise so we slept in.  A good night’s sleep did me a lot of good as I felt much better this morning, but I decided it would be unwise to press my luck and do something too strenuous today as I didn't want a repeat of yesterday afternoon.  Even though we slept late, I did get up as the sun was rising and looked out the window to see how it looked and was rewarded with a beautiful sight.  The top of the mountains at the far end of Lake Louise were pink and there was perfect reflection in the still waters of the lake.  I took some pictures through a very dirty window and went back to bed.

Lake Louise at sunrise, too bad it was shot through a dirty window.

When I got up a little later, the pink was gone, but the mountains were still reflected nicely in the lake so I quickly dressed and went down to take some pictures.  Unfortunately, the reflection I saw from our fifth floor window is not what you see from the lake shore as the angle is different and although beautiful, not nearly as nice of a reflection.

After taking my pictures, I returned to the hotel and entered through the lower level where I saw a restaurant called the Poppy Brasserie that looked like it would be good for breakfast.  When I got back to the room, I told Val about it and it sounded good to her so after we finished getting cleaned up, we made our way back down to have breakfast.  Our breakfast was very good plus we had a seat next to a window with a view of the lake, a great way to start the day.

After finishing breakfast, we decided to take the shuttle to the Lake Louise Gondola.  The shuttle leaves the hotel every 30 minutes and after a short wait for the next one to arrive, we were on our way.  This gondola was different than the one in Banff as this was part of a ski area so that was its main purpose.  We had a choice of either a gondola or an open chair so we opted for the chair as it was such a beautiful day we wanted to be out in the open.

It seemed like a long trip to the top, but the views were great going up.  There was not the big facility at the top as there was in Banff, but we did walk to a viewing platform where we had a distant view of Lake Louise.  There is also a restaurant somewhere up there, but you had to hike to it and we had no interest in eating anything anyway so we took the chair lift back down.

We start our journey up the mountain in the chairlift.  Chairs and gondolas are mixed, but it was such a beautiful day, most people opted for the chair where the views were much better.

 

We finally reached the top.  You can see Lake Louise and the Lake Louise Chateau far in the distance in the middle of the picture.

This is how the chair lift looked from the ground.  You can see there are both chairs and gondolas.

A closer look at Lake Louise and the hotel.

 

We start our the trip back down the mountain.

 

Luckily for us we had made a reservation for the return shuttle when we arrived as we found there was a lot of people waiting for it.  It doesn’t make much sense, but the shuttle runs every half hour from the hotel, but only once an hour back to the hotel, hence a big back up of people.  We did have a forty-five minute wait for our pickup time so we had something to drink and relaxed a bit before making our way to the shuttle pickup point.  We found some frustrated people who hadn’t made a reservation finding out they had to wait two hours before they could get back so we were really glad we had.

We ended up getting back to the hotel just before 3:00 and we had another trip planned for 3:30 so we didn’t have much time to catch our breath.  In regards to the gondola, we did enjoy the ride up and down the mountain, but the amount of waiting we did getting there and back made it seem like we had wasted a lot of time and probably wouldn’t have done it if we had known about that beforehand.  We also thought that the views from the Banff gondola were much better.  That said, we were glad we did it, but with a limited time to see things it did take up a lot of our day.

Before starting our next activity, we decided to make dinner reservations at one of the several hotel restaurants, but soon realized we had waited too long as most restaurants at the hotel didn’t any reservations available until 8:30 and we didn’t want to eat that late.  We finally found an opening at 6:30 at the Fairview Restaurant and jumped on that, which we would find out later, was very fortunate for us.

On our tour from Banff to Lake Louise, our guide had said his favorite place in Lake Louise was Moraine Lake in the late afternoon so when we arrived yesterday, we booked the 3:30 shuttle to the lake.  There was only one other person on the shuttle so this was already better than the gondola shuttle.  When we left Lake Louise, the sun was shining and it was warm, but as we neared Moraine Lake clouds moved in and it started to pour.  We jumped out of the shuttle and ran for the lodge where we joined a throng of people under the overhang, waiting for the rain to abate.

I am usually always prepared for rain with a rain jacket, umbrella and protective covers for our cameras, but I didn’t even think of it this afternoon and certainly paid the price.  Val did have her rain jacket in her bag so at least she had that, but we weren’t really very well prepared.  After about a 20 minute wait, the rain finally fell off to a drizzle so we started up the trail.  There were puddles everywhere, but the views of the lake were beautiful and we took a lot of pictures.  I’m sure the water would have been much prettier on a nice sunny day, but we made the best of it and enjoyed our visit.

Moraine Lake was beautiful even in the rain.  There was blue sky in the distance, but it never got to us.

 

Even in the rain you can see the deep aqua color of the water.

 

You can see the rain drops splashing in the lake.

We had to cut our walk short as the last shuttle back to the hotel was at 5:00 and we had spent a lot of time waiting for the rain to stop.  We got back to the shuttle stop and found the driver waiting.  We did make one quick stop on the way back to view a glacier across the valley, but otherwise went straight back to the hotel.  When we got back, it was still warm and sunny at the hotel so the rain was isolated in the high valley where the Moraine Lake was; I guess it was just a typical afternoon isolated mountain downpour.  We had a little time before having to get ready for dinner so we spent that resting after a hectic but enjoyable day.

At 6:30 we made our way to the Fairview Restaurant and much to our delight, we were seated at a table for two right next to a large window looking out over Lake Louise, how lucky were we?  We had a delicious dinner and thoroughly enjoyed our evening at the Fairview.  After dinner, we walked outside and down to the lake for a bit and then went to the hotel General Store where I wanted to buy some cough syrup just in case my cold was going into the coughing stage.

We had a great view of the lake and had wonderful dinner.

We capped off our delicious dinner with a very tasty dessert.

The view we had as we ate.

We made our purchases and went back to the room and called it a night.  We had a good time today despite the frustration with spending so much time waiting.  We really enjoyed our stay in Lake Louise, and except for the rain at Moraine Lake, the weather has been perfect.  Tomorrow we will be taking a bus transfer / tour north to Jasper National Park.