{"id":418,"date":"2013-06-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/?p=418"},"modified":"2017-09-22T23:27:31","modified_gmt":"2017-09-23T03:27:31","slug":"day-3-lake-louise-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/?p=418","title":{"rendered":"Day 3 &ndash; Lake Louise Area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The weather today was mostly overcast, so we are glad that we did our big hike yesterday when the sun was shining.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At least it\u2019s not raining!<\/p>\n<p>Today, we started with breakfast at the Lake Louise shoreline before heading out to see some local attractions.<\/p>\n<p>We drove about 15 minutes west into British Columbia to the Kicking Horse Pass to see the CPR Spiral Tunnels.\u00a0 Basically, when the CPR was trying to get the railway across the Kicking Horse Pass, the railway had to ascend too much elevation over too short a distance.\u00a0 The narrow valley and high mountains limited the amount of area available for the railway to spread out to reduce the steepness of the track.\u00a0 The solution was to build a series of spiral tunnels into the mountain sides.\u00a0 Very cool feat of engineering, especially when you consider how long ago this was built!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2013\/P61802111.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" width=\"570\" height=\"577\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We drove out to a viewing area to see the Upper Spiral Tunnels, and were lucky enough to see a train pass through while we were there.\u00a0 In the video and photo below, you will see the train enter one end of the tunnel and exit in the other direction through the other opening.\u00a0 The loud sound you hear in the background of the video is the rushing water of the Kicking Horse River below.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2013\/P61802431.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" width=\"570\" height=\"428\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rI-PwMAgL6k?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>After watching the train pass, we returned to the car to head back to Lake Louise.\u00a0 But as we were leaving, we noticed a second train coming up the valley.\u00a0 So instead of heading straight back to Lake Louise, we quickly headed up the highway to the Lower Spiral Tunnels viewpoint to watch it pass through there.\u00a0 On particularly long trains, you are able to see the same train in three different places simultaneously at the Lower Spiral Tunnels\u2014first as it passes through the lower tunnel, second as it emerges from the upper end of the tunnel, and third as the train crosses the river and turns back toward the Upper Spiral Tunnels to complete another loop.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2013\/P61802611.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" width=\"570\" height=\"428\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zIQBhpZwUN8?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We then returned to Lake Louise to visit the ski area to ride the gondola up the mountain.\u00a0 We had heard that this is one of the best places in the area for spotting grizzly bears.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2013\/P61802741.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" width=\"570\" height=\"428\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a photo looking out toward Lake Louise from the viewing area at the top of the gondola.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure it would look much nicer on a clear day!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"P6180306\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2013\/P61803062.jpg\" alt=\"P6180306\" width=\"570\" height=\"428\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We visited the wildlife interpretation center at the top of the mountain, and then returned to the gondola for the ride back down.\u00a0 Along the way, we did spot a grizzly bear!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2013\/P61803281.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" width=\"570\" height=\"415\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here are a few other photos from the ride.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2013\/P61803191.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" width=\"570\" height=\"428\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2013\/P61803481.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         \" width=\"570\" height=\"428\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>After reaching the base lodge, we headed into Lake Louise village for some dinner. and then back to the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise for the evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The weather today was mostly overcast, so we are glad that we did our big hike yesterday when the sun was shining.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At least it\u2019s not raining! Today, we started with breakfast at the Lake Louise shoreline before heading out &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/?p=418\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canadian-rockies-2013","tag-lake-louise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3501,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions\/3501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}