This is the tenth in a series of posts about our bicycling trip down the Icefield Parkway, through Jasper and Banff National Parks in Alberta, Canada. The full series can be found here.
We had two overnights at the Lake Louise Hostel, and Tuesday was our day for exploring the area. The town of Lake Louise isn’t very big — some hotels, a few shops — but it is the hub for a lot of the more iconic things to do in Banff National Park; we chose to ride back to the lake, on the Tramway Trail rather than that twisty mountain road, and then hike from there up to the famous Tea House next to Lake Agnes. I’ll skip the bike maps for this since we just rode a few miles, but here are a few photos from the ride and our first view of Lake Louise:
Lake Louise itself was beautiful, but the area immediately around it was incredibly crowded so we didn’t stick around, we just started to climb:
I expected our day to be a leisurely ramble around a few lakes, followed by tea at some lonely, isolated bastion of decorum, maybe even some kind of Zen mountain retreat… Well there were lakes, and tea, but the “ramble” was decidedly more rugged than I was envisioning, and the trail to the tea house was extremely popular — I was constantly being surprised by the hardiness of our fellow tourists. There were children, and parents and grandparents, all cheerfully marching along with us up the ten percent grade (though the trail was smooth and wide, so it really wasn’t too bad), and we arrived at the tea house at what looked like the morning rush. We got our tea and some fresh baked pastries, and had our tea party along the lake. Here are some pictures from our hike up:
The tea house itself was a marvel, without electricity or running water, and accessible only on foot, even for resupply. It was run by a bunch of cheerful, rugged young park interns, who were constantly baking more pastries and biscuits and selling tea as fast as they could hand it out. Things quieted down considerably after a short while, and when the crowd thinned out we did the same. (On the way back down to the lake, we actually ran into some of the people who helped Julie with the bus situation the day before.)
Then we were back down at Lake Louise again, and I got some more shots of the lake, as well as of the luxurious old hotel, the Chateau Lake Louise:
We walked back through the crowds and the buses and cars, and then rode the Tramway Trail back to town:
We explored town some more, then made made dinner at the hostel. I personally crashed at this point, as my inner ear and sinuses were feeling pretty miserable.
