Author Archives: Dave Hodson

Day 2 – Banff and Lake Louise

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We had breakfast at the hotel, and then had to make a quick stop at Sobeys for some supplies before heading to the mountains.

It was a rather snowy and windy day, and we encountered a number of accidents, black ice patches and white out sections along Hwy 1. We took it slow, and the weather started to clear as we were approaching Canmore.

As our check-in time in Lake Louise isn’t until later in the afternoon, we decided to stop in Banff and do some shopping. We picked up some more nice ski clothing (because you can never have enough!), and explored our favourite shops and art galleries on Banff Avenue.

After a quick lunch and exploring Banff for a few hours, we headed back to the van and resumed our drive toward Lake Louise. We have a nice Lakeview Suite here for the next 10 nights. It’s quite spacious, with a big bathroom, a great view over the lake, and lots of storage for our ski clothing.

Below is the separate living area off the master bedroom.  We had a lovely welcome amenity, with a large fruit platter in the living room that was replenished daily, and two platters of sweets in the bedroom.

Here is the view out one of the windows.

We have dinner reservations at The Fairview tonight, which is one of our favourite restaurants. Before dinner, we took some time to explore the Chateau grounds, which featured the many ice sculptures from the recent competition that is held here every January.

Here is the Chateau Lake Louise outdoor Ice Bar.

They moved the ice castle this year. Instead of being in the middle of the large skating rink, it’s in front of it, leaving a more open ice rink behind.

After a nice relaxing walk around the grounds, we returned to our room to dress for dinner.

Day 1 – Leaving Toronto

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It’s only been a couple of weeks since our return from skiing in Mont-Tremblant, but we’re excited to get away for some more skiing. This time, we’re heading west. Last year, we split our time between the Fairmont’s at Whistler and Banff, but we loved the skiing best at Lake Louise. Therefore, this time, we’re concentrating all of our time at the Chateau Lake Louise.

Here we are after our arrival at Pearson airport. Did I mention that we don’t know how to travel light? Ski gear can be bulky. Good thing our baggage allowance is 6 x 70 Lbs, or this could be expensive!

By the way, for anyone else who loves to ski, and travels with good equipment, we love our SporTube. We’ve been using this thing for several years, on several airline trips. It’s picked up a few dents along the way, but the skis inside were always protected.

We have a late afternoon flight, arriving in Calgary in the evening. Here we are at check-in for our flight.

After arriving in Calgary, we claimed our luggage, and picked up our rental van. We’re staying in a hotel by the airport for the night, and plan to make our way to Banff National Park first thing in the morning.

Day 12 – Heading Home

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We’ve come to the end of another great trip, and shortly it will be time to head home.

On the day we arrived at the Banff Springs, I talked about the Gold lounge, but I didn’t post any photos. Below are a few photos of the lounge where we had many of our morning and evening meals this week. Because we had breakfast early, and also because the holiday weekend is over, I was able to get a few photos without crowds of people.

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This was a nice cozy spot to relax with a drink by the fire!

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The kitchen area was very well set up.

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This is an additional lounge area across the hall.

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As I mentioned before, I’m not sure I’d choose to stay on the gold floor here again. The lounge itself is nice enough, but I find it large and not as personal as Fairmont Gold at other properties we frequent. We also get better views from our regular suite on the 6th floor. This hotel has nice lounges, restaurants and common areas, which are just fine for spending time.

After breakfast, I managed to secure a massage appointment at the Willow Stream Spa, which is probably our favourite spa anywhere. It was a nice way to finish the trip; to relax the sore muscles from the skiing and hiking.

We checked out of our room and headed downstairs to load up our van. I’m always impressed by the lobby here.

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Before leaving town, we decided to drive down the hill to Bow falls at the intersection of the Bow and Spray Rivers, just to see it up close in winter. There’s not nearly as much water flowing over the falls in the winter!

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Here is a short video panorama.

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And then it was time to drive to Calgary to head home.

Upon arrival in Calgary, we stopped for lunch, and saw that bad weather back east was causing havoc with airline schedules today. The weather was fabulous here, but the aircraft we needed was still delayed somewhere else. Our early afternoon flight was delayed multiple times, eventually leaving well past midnight. Fortunately, we were able to standby for an earlier flight, which was also badly delayed from earlier this morning, but ended up leaving not too long after our original flight was scheduled to depart. The list of delayed passengers hoping to get on the flight was long, so were very happy when the gate agent called us up before boarding. Not the smoothest travel day we’ve ever had, and we had to take an involuntary downgrade from Business Class (for which Air Canada was later good about refunding the ticket price difference), but we made it back home safely.

It was a great trip and a great skiing experience, and we’re excited to return next winter. Skiing the rest of the winter back home in Ontario is going to be quite the let down!