Lake Louise

What a mixed bag Lake Louise was!

This is a most gobsmacking area, both for the quality of the views and also the ahem breadth of cuisines available in the area. At the same time as I struggled to find food to eat in the local mini-market, there is a hotel with fine dining room and pub that has European trained chefs, including pastry chefs, just around the corner. And I don't mean the Fairmont hotel at Lake Louise either! (Hint for coeliacs - BYO food!)

The village is small and has a shopping plaza with a very nice book shop. Not what one expects but it was a good shop. Wish we had bought something there. The national park place was interesting but dull at the same time. (Just like my notes accompanying these pictures!) Since we were whacked by the time we looked at the national park place, we just sat down and watched a kids' doco on how the Rockies formed. We enjoyed it. We watched all bar the credits at the end (and probably would've watched the credits but we got a subtle hint that they were closing - oh! People! You watched all of it????). The host of the doco was a complete whacko but we learned stuff. Like how to tell if rock is shale/mudstone (wet it and rub it). Sandstone feels rough against your teeth (!!!). Limestone dissolves in acid (not many of us carry vinegar around but maybe someone has a little sachet left over from some fish and chips! Not that I found fish and chips there. Gosh I miss fish and chips, not that I could have them Back 'Ome either....). The park ranger said we are about the first people to watch the whole thing. Well why not? It is amusing and educational, even for big Know-It-Alls like us!


Here's some shots taken walking up to the Lake from the village. It is only about 4km. We can eat 4km of walking normally, but this was in quite sub-zero temps (about -15C, I think almost subzero F as well) up a steep hill on ice and snow.


Along the way we met another AUSTRALIAN. How on earth do we do it? We are halfway around the world from home and we meet Aussies. Like doooods, we want to meet other people!


Even worse, he was from the same suburb of Melbourne where I spent the first 25 years of my life (Ringwood). He says it has gone downhill since I was there. He and Nathan had a good chat.




Crikey! The picnic ground is CLOSED? Y'kidding me! Whyeverso?


Aren't these chalets cute in the snow - it is dripping off them just like icing on gingerbread houses!


Nathan demonstrates how cold it was - our breath was forming hoar frost! It was driving me insane cos I could keep my face covered (so it didn't freeze) or I could see (my glasses kept fogging up if I breathed with my face covered). I chose to not see as well as I could. Mostly. After all, the scenery is on a grand scale and not being able to focus on it was not really impairing my ability to see it.


These were the best icicles we saw on the whole trip. Imagine one of them breaking off! Be like a spear through someone's head....


It might have been so cold that the hoar frost was building but the creek was still bounding along with some open water here and there.

Finally we came in sight of the World Famous Lake Louise Fairmont hotel. Have you ever heard of World Famous sites (or burgers/food) that you've never heard of before you came across them at their World Famous site? Well this one I reckon really is World Famous! This is one of the few World Famous sites that I've ever heard of!


Next - Lake Louise itself.

en route to Lake Louise

Despite a warm round of apparent indifference, I persist in posting more! Your feedback is welcome* - I can only imagine that photos of snow capped mountains don't do it for most people. I guess it is very normal for those in the north, but it sure as hell is different for someone who comes from a place where it NEVER snows. Also Australian mountains are in general pretty pathetic. Our ranges have been ground down over so many gazillions of years that there's only a couple of thousand metres (6,000') left if we are lucky. Mostly we aren't lucky. Plus not a whole lot of them get snow and nothing like the Rockies do.

The highlight of the short trip from Banff to Lake Louise on the Greyhound bus is this:


Castle Mountain.

There are other mountains and pretty views along the way


and a very interesting and pretty parkway to drive along if you have your own car, but this is The Big One.





We arrived at Lake Louise just at sunset.


After dragging our suitcases a few hundred metres through the snow, we found our lodgings for the night - the Lake Louise International Hostel. It's in two parts so if you go there you'll find reception at the back of the larger building on the left. Just follow the deck. Don't stand at the door to the rightwards building, like I did, and wonder why you can't get in. Duh!

At this point I should I found the international hostels in Calgary, Banff and Lake Louise to be clean and good places to stay, particularly if you are on a budget. I recommend them and would stay at them again, even if the Banff hostel is two km out of town. The Banff and Lake Louise hostels are quite new, which means they have nice furnishings and have not gotten shabby around the edges. (Though I would very much like it if the girls who shared the toilets with me, though not at the *exact* same time, had figured out that they were NOT auto-flushing - EWWWW!). I was surprised by the bed at Lake Louise when I flung myself on it - it was a 4" mattress pad. We had private rooms at each of them, though not always private bathrooms. The central Vancouver hostel was very interesting and they've tried hard to make it really funky, but it has challenges associated with old city buildings (including vermin problems) and does not have stoves/cookers/ranges due to fire regs! The Vancouver mob did fix our toilet promptly, as it kept flushing every 10 minutes, and the room was fine - rather cute in a vaguely art deco sort of way. Just don't get a room on the lower floors as there is a dance club under the hostel and boy does the noise travel! I have no idea why the Canadian hostels leave most of those in the USA so far in the dark - mebbe we have not stayed at the right hostels in the US.

Next - Way Too Many Pictures of a Very Snowy Lake Louise!

(*mrspao - this does not mean you need to comment on every post ;-) It is very sweet of you though)