Notes from a Travel Journal: Lake Louise

Today's travel post comes from a trip to Canada this summer with my parents. We spent time in Vancouver, Banff and Jasper and it was a real trip-of-a-lifetime, and fulfilled a long-held ambition of my Dad's in particular.  We had an incredible time, but today I want to share a snippet from my travel journal documenting our visit to Lake Louise. Canada is stunning, there is no getting away from that, but I think these views were some of my favourites of all...

After the significant challenges parking posed and the busyness of Banff generally, we decided to get the bus to Lake Louise. We got up early and caught the 8:00am shuttle, arriving at the lake by 9:00am. The parking was already full. Smart move!

But Lake Louise was absolutely stunning. We crowded the shore with others to take some pictures and admire the pristine turquoise of the water framed by perfect peaks.

We started the trail up to Lake Agnes and the tea house, which was a fairly steep climb. In 4km and change, we scaled quite a height, passing other tourists as we got going. The weather was perfect: sunny with clear skies and not too warm.

We hiked through a couple of switch backs and arrived at the Mirror Lake: a smaller lake higher up in the peaks with a huge mountain behind it known as the Beehive. Which perfectly described its rounded shape.

Another half a mile’s climb brought us to Lake Ages and the the Lake Agnes Tea House. We queued for a cuppa and sat by the lakeside enjoying the view as the water cascaded over the lip into the valley below. Everything at the teahouse is hiked up by staff apart from dry goods which are delivered by helicopter once a year(!).

Tea consumed (along with salt and vinegar goldfish crackers and some shortbread) we packed up our rubbish to walk back down. Due to forest fires, burning the rubbish had been banned and so the staff were asking people to hike down with any rubbish that they could. The descent was much quicker, and all in all, we completed the 8-9km round trip in less than 3 hours even with the stops. Not bad given the gradient!

We picnicked back by Lake Louise and then caught the shuttle back to Banff. We had a wander round town, I had a go in the hotel’s hot tub and then we went next door for dinner at a restaurant called El Toro - pretty tasty butternut squash ravioli. Then there was just enough time for me to lose a round of Backpacker before bed.

Kisses xxx

P.S. This blog post is part of my November travel series; I'm spending the month documenting some of the trips I've taken this year, sharing extracts from my travel journal and my photos. My aim is to do this for each day in November as a personal challenge, to get photos and words put together and record some of my favourite experiences from the year. As the weather turns chilly, it's a lovely feeling to curl up in doors and reminisce about travels past, and plot travels for the future.