Banff National Park: Moraine Lake & Lake Louise
We chose Banff as a base to spend two days seeing two of the most iconic sites in the Canadian Rockies. First up, Moraine Lake, called “Canada’s $20 View” because it is the image printed on its (old) $20 bill. (The new currency shows an image of the Vimy Memorial, a tribute to WWI soldiers. I had to look this up.)
We parked in Lake Louise village and took a shuttle to avoid a parking nightmare that I read about in numerous blogs when planning the trip. It was an easy trip and we soon found ourselves starting our most significant hike for the day, not to Moraine Lake, but to a spot nearby called Consolation Lake.
The trail ended suddenly at a huge boulder field, about one lake short of our intended destination. Perhaps the real trail route was flooded, but we found it just as fun to pick through the boulders and climb around as to make it to the official end of the trail. We also met a really cute marmot along the way.
Eli and Ray took the high road, so to speak, and headed up the mountain. Ben and I chose to pick through the boulders closer to shore. It’s not clear which method was easier. When we’d had enough, we reversed direction to head back towards the trail.
We chose this spot for one of our prettiest lunch picnics of the whole trip.
After lunch, we returned to the main spur and headed up a short path to see Moraine Lake itself. We actually hurried up the path because it appeared that clouds were forming in the valley and our opportunity to take postcard worthy pictures was going to be short.
Mission accomplished.
From here, we hopped back on the shuttle to the park-and-ride where the kids and I opted to take the summer chair lift at the Lake Louise Ski Lodge. It was sunny when we bought the tickets, raining the whole way up the mountain, and snowing at the top!
Rather than linger, we flipped around and immediately got back in line to go back down. But as luck would have it, in the few minutes that we were waiting for a return gondola, the skies cleared and the sun appeared, and we opted to take an open chairlift again on the way back down. The views of the valley were beautiful. We could see (1) Moraine Lake, where we visited today, (2) Lake Louise, where we will visit tomorrow, and (3) up the valley towards the Ice Field Parkway, where we spent the better part of a week.
Our second day in Banff, we returned to the same area of the park to spend a day at Lake Louise. We woke up to perfect weather – bright blue skies and very few clouds – and the makings of a great day.
At the base of Lake Louise, we wrestled our way through a crowd of other tourists to recapture this photo of me, taken in approximately the same spot, when I was seventeen.
Two things are striking about this: (1) the change in snow, particularly at the lower elevation of the mountain in the back and (2) that I have had something of a glow-up, don’t you think?
Our plan was to hike from the base of Lake Louise to Lake Agnes where there’s a small, well-known tea house. This is the most popular hike at Lake Louise so it wasn’t exactly a quiet experience in nature. But, it was still very pretty and an uphill challenge for the kids.
We stopped for tea and snacks at the tea stop, which should have been awesome. But, honestly, everyone was a bit cranky, and it wasn’t the moment of family bliss I had anticipated.
But, the break seemed to restore our energy and good will and from the tea house we continued up the mountain on the Little Beehive Trail. Here, the views of Lake Louise below were astounding so we stopped at the top to enjoy lunch with a view and take about a million pictures before making our way back to the start of the trail and then returning back to our campsite in Banff.
Banff town was an excellent home base for a few days. We visited the Banff Hot Springs, did our share of shopping and got our Mexican, Indian, and Pizza fixes.
I also arranged for a dog walker through a local app since we couldn’t bring Toby along on the shuttles. Instead, I got this photo of him living his best life on a trail of his own.
Honorable mention: Ben’s love for the dollar store (especially the Canadian dollar store where $1 is like the $1.25. Score!) merged with Canada Day for the perfect purchase: Ben bought a 50-pack of mini-Canadian flags while we were in Jasper. Since then, Ben makes a point to lay claim to something on behalf of Canada, planting little flags wherever we go. This scenic view: Claimed for Canada! This campground: Claimed for Canada! This butterscotch sundae: Claimed for Canada!
As a bonus, his Lego guys, who we often stage in scenic places on our travels, have gotten into the act. Here they are claiming Consolation Lake for Canada.
