Author Archives: Dave Hodson

Day 8 – Relaxation

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After a lot of physical activity, the plan today was to do the opposite!

Today is the Saturday of the Family Day weekend in Alberta. When we were here last year, we learned quickly that it means things get busy. In particular, the ski hill will be packed. Therefore, we had planned to not ski today, but instead booked treatments at the hotel spa. It was a very relaxing way to spend the day.

Also because it was a busy weekend, we made sure that we had booked dinner reservations well in advance (months in advance, actually). Tonight, we were heading down to the Banff Springs Hotel, to one of our favourite restaurants. A dinner at Castello has become a bit of a tradition for us whenever we’re out this way.

Here we are at our regular table!

After a lovely dinner, we headed back toward Lake Louise. The weather was picking up a bit, so we were glad to have booked the early 6PM sitting for dinner, so as not to be driving back too lake in the winter conditions.

Day 7 – Back to Skiing

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The weather gods blessed us today, with great temperatures and some sunshine.  It was the perfect day for skiing!

Here’s a view from my first run down the mountain.

I’m sorry I didn’t take a lot of photos today, but I was pre-occupied having fun skiing. Other than quick break for lunch at Temple Lodge, skiing is what we did!

After a nice full day, we had a casual dinner back at the Chateau.

Day 6 – Snow Shoeing

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Instead of skiing today, we decided to go snowshoeing! As you will see from the photos below, the views aren’t great, because it’s rather overcast and snowing heavily.

We set out along the north shore of Lake Louise.

Here we are passing by the little trickle of water coming down from Mirror Lake and Lake Agnes above.

We continued walking down toward the end of the lake.

When we reached the back of the lake, we watched some ice climbers on the cliffs above.

After a bit of a rest, we pushed on toward the Plain of Six Glaciers trail.

Here is Nadine standing below the cliffs above the back of the lake.

We’ve passed this spot many times in the summer, but this is our first time here in the winter.

We continued up the valley, mindful of our surroundings. There are risks of avalanche further along this trail, so we won’t be going too much further.

Here we are crossing a snowbridge over some water feeding Lake Louise.

We paused to take in the beauty of the area, with the sounds of trickling water in the background, as seen in the video below.

Notice the green plants growing in the moving water, even in the winter.

Continuing up the valley…

We pushed on a bit further, but this is about as far as we felt comfortable going, so we’re turning around now.

It’s roughly 3 km back to the Chateau, and the snow seems to be getting heavier and heavier, so we didn’t stop for too many photos on the return. It’s still beautiful out here in the heavy snow, but photography is really hard!

By the time we made it back to the hotel, it was a bit after 5PM, and we were getting hungry. Since we felt we got a fair amount of exercise in today, we felt we deserved a nice dinner. After getting cleaned up, we headed down to the Lakeview Lounge. We really like the lounge, with it’s big bright windows to the grounds in front of the lake, and a center of activity off the main hallway in the hotel. The food is also excellent.