September 23, 2016

The crazy thing about Banff is there is something to see down every road. In one turn off is Lake Louise, Lake Agnes and Lake Moraine. We first parked at Lake Louise. There is tons of parking, but there are TONS of tourists. We got lucky and we found a spot in the main lot right next to the resort. In doing research on what to see in Banff we looked at hundreds of pictures of Lake Louise. Would it look like the pictures in real life? Was it that blue? Was it that magnificent?  Would we be disappointed?

One word, unbelievable.

It was cloudy, so it wasn’t as blue, but the water was clear and misty and the back drop helped.  So we decided to hike to Lake Agnes. We read that there was a tea house at the top so yes please!  We were also hoping that the sun would come up as we were heading up or down. This hike is moderate, and only climbs. Its about 3.5 miles round trip. It is the start of a couple other popluar hikes. (Beehive takes you to a point where you can see all of Lake Louise. I have heard it is strenuous, let us know if you have done it!!)

The first attraction of the hike was mirror lake. A very small lake to stop and let the dogs get a drink.

Onward and upward.

Then this beautiful alps looking lake appeared.

Unfortunately it was impossible to get served anything, so we headed back down.  Fortunately the sun came out a bit and the blue showed!  Plus we weren’t with the hoards of tourists taking photos. This photo isn’t edited in any way. That is truly the blue in the sun!

It was the most unreal blue I had ever seen in my life.

When we got to the bottom, the tourists were swarming so we decided to leave. We almost skipped Moraine to do another day but we couldn’t help ourselves. We were blown away again.

I would add more pictures but you only need one to see the magnitude of the beauty.  We climbed the rocks to get the best view.  The 10 peaks behind it were out of this world. We couldn’t go hiking because of the bear activity in the area.

It was a good thing that we did this all in one day and on a week day. Kevin and I tried to go back Saturday to do a hike in both areas but we couldn’t get a parking spot at Lake Louise and the road to Lake Moraine was closed.

Advice: Its this crazy busy for a reason. It is worth the torment of oblivious tourists. Just grab that camera and see some of the most beautiful places on earth.