Canadian Rockies Vacation 2019 (Days Three and Four)

note the eagle caught in flight!

Three hikes in one day. That's what I remember about Day Three.

We had breakfast at our hotel in Canmore. It was packed with people. Lots of Asian tourists. We got on the road by 8 am. We parked in the overflow lot and paid for the shuttle bus to Lake Louise. We got off in the parking lot of Lake Louise and then waited to buy tickets for the shuttle to Moraine Lake. I got cold waiting in line. I was wearing jeans and a windbreaker so it was pretty cold!  We purchased tickets for the 10:20 am bus. We walked around Lake Louise for a bit.

I got a cup of tea and a cookie from the cafe inside the Fairmount Lake Louise. The shuttle bus took 20 minutes to get to Moraine. We hiked up the rock pile to get the best view. The mountains were hidden by clouds but the colour of the water is so amazing!

We had hoped to hike to the tea house at Lake Louise (the afternoon before) but time didn't allow for it. J and I hiked to the tea house in the summer of 1997 when I showed J around Banff and Calgary during our engagement trip.

We had lunch in Lake Louise Village at Laggans. The food was good but sandwiches were 10 dollars.

We drove up Highway 93, also known as the Icefields Parkway. Our first stop was Peyto Lake. A short but steep hike. Gorgeous views.

C's new phone takes incredible photos. These are his. Click on them to enlarge.

Lots of wildflowers.

The funny thing about Peyto Lake was that one of A's school friends posted a photo of himself on Instagram at Peyto Lake a few days after we were there!

I took this photo of a glacier along Highway 93. I used my zoom lens.

I don't know its name

Along the highway, we stopped at the top of a huge hill to admire the view.

Columbia Icefields. This was the third hike of the day.

A bit north of the Columbia Icefields, there is a glass bridge that you can pay to visit. I'd be up for going on it but our son A said he'd never consider it. Here's a link to photos of it: Skywalk.

We saw lots and lots of wildflowers on the side of the road on Highway 93, especially Indian paintbrush.

We arrived in Jasper around 5:30 pm. This is the farthest north that J and the boys have ever been. The farthest north that I have been is Peace River, Alberta. We ate at Earl's. I had the quinoa avocado power bowl. We saw the Rocky Mountaineer train in Jasper. This is the scenic train that takes passengers during daylight hours through the Rockies. It is super expensive, though. We stayed at Pine Bungalows which has no TV and no Internet in the cabins.

Our oldest teenager hung out by the office (where there was wifi) and got bitten by the mosquitoes.

Day Four

J and I woke up early and went into town for breakfast at Smitty's. The boys slept in. We grabbed some sandwiches from town and then drove for an hour to Maligne Lake. We took the 12:30 pm boat cruise to Spirit Island. The entire trip was 1 1/2 hours.

We appreciated the informative and funny commentary on the boat by our guide Jen. The "cruise" is expensive but it is the only way to get to this amazing view. Unless you want to spend the entire day canoeing or kayaking.

We stopped at the viewpoint of Spirit Island for 15 minutes.

This is the view from the back of the boat.

After we finished with Maligne Lake, we drove to Maligne Canyon. It is named a canyon but it actually a gorge.

There are 4 bridges in the area but we only had time to get to two.

This was our hike of the day.

When we were back in Jasper, doing some window shopping, I noticed in a grocery store that bananas were a dollar a pound. Wow! It must be so expensive to live there. We had dinner at Authentic Burger which was a bit cheaper than most of the restaurants in town.


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