Canadian Rockies II

Return to Part 1 of the Canadian Rockies trip report

DAY 5 (CALGARY VISIT, BANFF, MORAINE LAKE CANOEING): We woke up early in Morley and made the short drive into Calgary, where we first visited our Grandma, and then our Uncle and his two kids. We were served a delicious breakfast - thanks! We drove out to Banff with Doug, Theo and Astrid where we enjoyed a backpacker's lunch and some ice cream.

We drove on to Moraine Lake. Uncle Doug had the brilliant idea to bring his canoe and kayak, so we launched them in Moraine Lake and took turns paddling around as the sun started to set. It was cool being out in the middle of the lake, instead of just walking around the shore. It was beautiful and a very deep blue colour. As we were about to leave, we scrambled up a small rock moraine, and saw a Search and Rescue helicopter do an alpine rescue - pretty exciting! I think the guy was okay because it looked like he walked around without any help after the helicopter dropped him off.

We went into Lake Louise town and had a delicious dinner at the family diner. After dinner, Mark and I went our seperate way from Doug and his kids, who headed back to Calgary. We then drove a little ways up the Icefields Parkway and parked our van at the Bow Lake viewpoint, and slept in the back.

DAY 6 (SOUTHERN ICEFIELDS PARKWAY, EIFFEL LAKE, LAKE LOUISE, KOOTENAYS): We were rudely awoken at 6:30am by a wretched horde of bus tourists taking photos of Bow Lake and milling around our van. We contemplated setting off a bear banger to scare them off, but settled for cooking a quick breakfast of oatmeal, checking out Bow Lake, and driving a little further to check out majestic Peyto Lake. Both were either car or 5-minute walk accessible. We then turned around and drove back to Moraine Lake, and secured one of the last few parking spots around 9:30am.

We got to the trailhead and discovered that Parks Canada was requiring people to hike in groups of 4+ as a bear deterrent! Mark and I joined up with various groups throughout the hike to comply with the rule, which was kind of a pain because it seemed like most people on the trail were quite slow. We climbed a lot of steep switchbacks before the trail leveled out and began to enter the alpine. We left our original group and joined a pair of girls from France for this section of the hike, which had spectacular views down into the Valley of the Ten Peaks, and of Moraine Lake. We crossed a bit of scree and got to Eiffel Lake around noon, where we ate lunch and enjoyed more glacier views.

On the hike back we tried to catch a faster group but it took longer than we expected to catch up, so we hiked alone for most of the trail - oh well! When we left the Moraine Lake parking lot, cars were literally parked for kilometers down the road beyond the end of the parking lot - it was insanely busy. I'm sure glad that we got there early and got a spot, otherwise our hike would have been a lot longer! We stopped at Lake Louise and braved the rampaging mob of tourists to take a few quick photos of the "pristine, untouched" lake.

From there we started the LONG drive back home. We got to Revelstoke and decided to take the scenic route home along Arrow Lakes and through Nakusp (very cool, sleepy town the night we passed through), which included two awesome (free) inland ferries. After getting off the last ferry at Fauquier, we saw a total of 29 deer on the highway, and decided to pull over and sleep in the van, otherwise we were going to hit something!

DAY 6 (OKANAGAN TO HOME): Our final day was just a relaxed day of driving through the Okanagan, buying fresh fruit and veggies from a stand, and passing through Manning Park. We saw some very beautiful scenery but didn't have enough time to check everything out, so sometime soon I'll have to go back to the Okanagan. We got back to Vancouver around 2pm, which was around the same time that Jodi got back from Korea, so we all had a great lunch at my Mom's house and swapped travel stories. A fantastic week - thanks Mark for planning it out!