Lake Louise, Banff National Park

Our 6th week in the Canadian Rockies was a vacation week for Michael. We were in Lake Louise, the most iconic and most popular area of Banff National Park. Lake Louise is a teeny tiny village with a huge campground, a ski resort, and a stunning turquoise lake with a resort-style hotel. There is an even more stunning lake named Moraine Lake (cover photo) nearby that is one of the most photographed sites in all of Canada.

We stayed at the Lake Louise Hardsided Campground, which has been our least favorite of the amazing Parks Canada campgrounds we’ve stayed on this trip. It’s an electric-only campground and 99% of the pull-through sites are actually double sites with the slide-outs of 2 RVs almost touching. We happened to be next to the bathroom and think that’s the only reason that we didn’t have another RV crammed into our site. Additionally, there was no usable cell service and too many trees for Starlink.

This unbelievably beautiful area of the Canadian Rockies is no secret. It’s one of the most crowded and touristy areas we’ve visited in our 3.5 years of RV traveling.

With the crowds come problems with parking and Parks Canada’s solution is shuttle buses that require reservations that we made months ago. We had to park at the ski resort and take a shuttle bus to either Moraine or Lake Louise each morning. This sadly meant we couldn’t bring our kayaks to these amazing lakes. You can rent a canoe for $130/hour but we opted just to hike.

We visited Moraine Lake first. And, what?!? How does this lake color even exist? And surrounded by the Ten Peaks which makes it even more mesmerizing.

We hiked the Sentinel Pass trail from Moraine Lake. Clockwise photos below are of the Moraine Lakeshore, looking up at Sentinel Pass, and the view from the top of the pass. The top of the pass had an amazing view of the Ten Peaks from another perspective.

We spent more time walking around Moraine Lake and taking photos when we returned from the hike.

We had to come back to Moraine Lake a second time to confirm that color and found it the same so we are assuming it’s real. We also hiked the Consolation Lakes trail.

Next, we visited Lake Louise. We were on one of the earliest shuttles and found an uncrowded gorgeous lake. And bulldozing and jackhammering at the fancy hotel. I think I will now forever know to check on construction projects before making reservations at a fancy hotel.

We combined several trails to make a long day hike at Lake Louise. I wouldn’t say that this has been a favorite hike, but certainly one of the most unique and photogenic. The hike took us to not one, but two teahouses! The Lake Agnes Teahouse is the closest to Lake Louise and there must have been 100 people waiting in line. We skipped that one.

Next, we got to see Lake Louise from a couple of different perspectives. The photo on the left is from the Big Beehive lookout and the right is from the opposite end of the lake on the Plain of Six Glaciers trail.

The Plain of Six Glaciers trail took us to the second teahouse and to the base of the Victoria Glacier.

Being ~5 miles from Lake Louise via the most direct trail, we had no trouble getting a table of the Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse. We thought these family-owned and operated teahouses were very neat. Pantry staples are flown in twice a year by helicopter and perishables are hiked/horsebacked in almost every day.

While at the teahouse we listened to the glacier popping and cracking. It was an amazing sound to hear, best described as high-pitched long-lasting thunder.

By the time we got back to Lake Louise, there were probably 1,000 people wandering along the shore!

We had planned to spend a couple of days hiking/paddling at nearby Yoho National Park while staying in Lake Louise. Like Kootenay NP, Yoho is just across the continental divide from Banff NP in British Columbia. Unfortunately, we lost 2.5 days due to wildfire smoke and rain (one day there were both simultaneously) so we only got to do one hike there.

We chose the Iceline/Yoho Valley Loop trail. We saw two waterfalls on this hike. Takakkaw Falls, mostly covered by a cloud, is the second tallest in Canada at 1,224ft (left). We came to Laughing Falls later in the day (right).

We chose this trail because of the Iceline, a ~ 4-mile ridgeline span in the middle of the hike with a glacier on one side and mountain views on the other. There were shaded areas that had a fresh dusting of snow up there!

Yoho is a beautiful park and hopefully, we will be able to explore more of it one day.

Next up is our last stop in the Canadian Rockies, the town of Banff.