Day 7: Lake Louise and Moraine Lake

We kicked off the day with an early 7 a.m. start to catch our shuttle to Lake Louise. Wifi at the Lake Louise park and ride means bonus phone games. Only Rob’s cell phone plan includes Canada, so Cooper and I usually have to wait until we are back at the RV to use Starlink to see our messages.

The bus dropped us off right at Lake Louise, so we soaked in that famous view right away.

Nicholas and Cooper have both loved taking pictures with their own cameras this trip.

We then started our hike to the Lake Agnes Tea House, which involved a pretty good uphill climb that rewarded us with some amazing views. This is Lake Louise from halfway up to Lake Agnes.

We enjoyed some scones at the Lake Agnes Tea House (2.5 miles and 1,627ft elevation gain to that point).

From there we kept going up, to Little Beehive. 

Nicholas took dozens of chipmunk pictures, so this is just a single sample of his work.

We tried to do Big Beehive, but there was just too much snow making it slick and tricky with the steep switchbacks, so we opted to turn around. Trying the Big Beehive did take us to the side of Agnes Lake opposite the tea house, where the view and quiet were magical.

Cooper and Nicholas couldn’t resist a snowball fight at the other end of Lake Agnes. They looked like mountain goats with their agility on these rocks.

Our stats from this first part of our day: 8 miles, 2,400+ feet elevation gain, and over 20k steps.

We were all pretty wiped, but pushed through and opted to take the connector shuttle over to Moraine Lake. Rockpile is the famous “hike” there, and at 0.6 miles the kids agreed to give it a go. We may have burned them out on picture taking today, but everything was so beautiful we couldn’t help ourselves.

The kids begged for the Canadian McDonald’s experience to be able to compare it to New Zealand and Tahiti, so tonight felt like the right night to make it happen. I drove around the block while they went in since parking was $12/hr in Banff, and that felt like a lot for getting McDonald’s to go.

We were finally back to the RV at 7 p.m. for some late dinner, unpacking, and relaxing. We were all wiped.