2012/07 Western Canada trip - Lake Louise |
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Thursday July 19th
On a sunny cold morning we were headed for the Lake Louise area, an hour’s drive south. John was interested in walking up to the tea house on the Plain of Six Glaciers. I’d once made it halfway up the trail but I’d run out of light, so this would be new to all of us. John wasn’t so sure when he found out that it’s a seven mile round trip to the tea house, but he said he’d give it a try.
We began our walk with the familiar and beautiful view of the mountains and the Victoria Glacier across the lake. And the crowds, of course, milling around the lake and chateau. We’d be hiking the flat trail around the lake and then climbing steadily up to the plain. Lake Louise was also running high with all the recent rain, so the flat section was often an inch or two below the lake.
On the right is a less familiar view of the lake, this time looking back towards the chateau.
By the time we’d reached the end of the lake and begun the climb the crowds had thinned out. Lots more dropped out as they found the trail to be quite steep, and then there were a few stretches where the trail was covered in steep and very slippery snow. There was a short section where the trail followed a ledge in the cliff face with chains to hang onto. All the while the scenery was 
getting starker and more dramatic, and we could hear the sound of distant avalanches crashing off the glacier. As we climbed we could see that the flat wall of mountains and glaciers viewed from the chateau is much more complicated, as we should have expected from the name “six glaciers”. All around were cliffs of ice, hundreds of feet high, with a great variety of cracks, crevasses, and shades of blue and white
The area around the tea house was littered with hikers soaking up the sun and cooling their feet in the streams. The teahouse’s verandahs were jam packed, but we found a table inside. The menu was limited as there’s no electricity, but the food was good and the scones and sandwiches were very welcome.
John and Edna headed back down while I continued up the trail to the viewpoint. The last piece of the trail runs along a single-file knife edge ridge, one of the glacier’s lateral moraines. Not a good place for tripping over, but a great spot for taking pictures.
Below the ridge I could see that what looked like a field of gravel was actually a thin layer of gravel above the glacier, and the surface was much fractured with bluish crevasses, not a place for hikers. High up above one of the glaciers I could see the Adams hut, a refuge for mountaineers.
It was only after getting back off the ridge that I realized that the strange notices written in lawyerese “Pursuant to subsection ….” were warning me that the ridge trail had been closed for my safety. I never saw anyone read beyond the “pursuant”.
I caught up with John and Edna at the parking lot; they’d been checking out the chateau. We drove over to Moraine Lake, a very popular spot. We were lucky that it was late in the day as there is very little parking space for motorhomes. They walked the lake trail while I took the trail to the top of the “moraine”, which is actually an ancient avalanche. Partway up I met a wedding party coming down, complete with the Mountie groom in red serge. The view from the top is fantastic even on a murky day, but doubly so on a sunny evening. There are ten mountain peaks above the turquoise lake water.
On our way back we stopped at the overlook for the salt lick. We’ve seen moose there in the past but not this time. I did get this shot though of Bident Mountain and its enormous glacier perched above the valley.
We were almost back to Rampart Creek when we saw something slink across the road, definitely a large cat of some kind. John said that it turned and looked at us and that it was definitely a bobcat, short-tailed, flat-faced and without the distinctive ears of a lynx. No bobcat pictures unfortunately. But I had been taking pictures of flowers and animals all day. They tend to get lost amongst all the pictures of scenic marvels, but I’ve glued a few together here.
Back at the campground we found we had an additional car and tent and person on our site. He had a heavy French accent and claimed that he didn’t understand the camping rules. He moved his car out of our way but begged to keep his tent in place. We were leaving in the morning anyway, so it was no big deal.
Down in Hope, the boys had spent the day splashing around in Sucker Creek’s warm waters. Stew was flying into Abbotsford and they would all be traveling back the next day with the trailer in tow.