Today was a very full and exhausting day, which began with a 4:30 AM wake-up call.
We arranged to go out on Lake Louise in a canoe at sunrise for a couple hours. When we arrived at the canoe dock, we were the only people registered, so we ended up having the entire lake to ourselves.
The sun started rising behind the Chateau, slowing casting light on the mountains at the back of Lake Louise. We paddled around the entire lake, taking in the changing views.
As we were floating around the far end of the lake, we heard what we first thought was thunder, and that a storm was rolling in. It turned out to be an avalanche on the centre peak at the back of the lake!
The weather was cold at that time of the morning, but it was clear. It was a wonderful couple of hours paddling around with nobody in sight!
Our plan for the rest of the day was to do some hiking around Lake Louise and up into the surrounding mountains. The hike started off easy, along a nice level path around the one side of the lake. As the day went on, it got progressively more difficult, with another elevation gain of over 1,600 feet.
Here is a picture of the easy part!
The trails started to get a little more difficult and narrow as we climbed, with the occasional snow covered section.
We were starting to climb up the hills below.
As the trails continued to climb, they continued to get narrower as we climbed a series of switchbacks.
The views of the peaks behind Lake Louise continue to get closer.
As we climbed higher, the trail became less recognizable as a trail, with increasing trees fallen across and they became further snow bound.
We continued climbing snowbound and tree covered switchbacks like the photo below for a long time.
After about an hour of worsening trail conditions (fortunately, the weather was bright and sunny), the snow was getting to be waist deep and more and more difficult to pass. The difficult conditions and our supply situation meant that we had to abandon our trek to the “Big Beehive” when only one more switchback from the top.
We climbed (and slid) back down the way we came to a different trail, thinking that retreating the route we knew was safer than trying to climb down the other side in unknown conditions that may have been worse.
Still at a high altitude, we trekked along some more passable trails for a few more miles along the back way into the Lake Agnes Tea House.
Here we are finally getting back to Lake Louise, although a long way above it!
Here’s the area we were almost on top of. You can see how much higher it is above the already high trail we are on.
We stopped at Mirror Lake before the final climb to the Lake Agnes. You get a view of the Big Beehive looking over the lake.
Here’s Lake Agnes, still frozen, except for the part by the outlet that flows into Mirror Lake through a nice waterfall.
And here’s the Tea House. We stopped in for lunch. They have a limited menu as they don’t have electricity (and therefore refrigeration) and supplies are either carried up by staff (who stay there for up to 5 days at a time) or in the case of products that don’t spoil, are helicopter dropped at the beginning of the season.
Here’s the waterfall flowing into Mirror Lake.
The rain was starting to fall, so it was time to start the climb back down to Lake Louise. The walk back down was only another 1.5 hours. By this point, we were feeling rather sore and really looking forward to getting back, so we didn’t take many more photos from this point.
We arrived back at the Chateau Lake Louise around 6:30, so our hike, minus about 45 minutes at the Tea House, lasted about 8 hours.
After getting cleaned up, we had drinks and appetizers in the Lakeview Lounge at the hotel.
I expect we will sleep very well tonight!
