We had pretty much exhausted the best day hiking trips in Jasper and moved our base to Lake Louise in Banff National Park. We camped at the Lake Louise campground and had four days to explore the area, with which we were familiar from previous vacations. Lake Louise and Moraine Lake are two stunningly beautiful turquoise lakes surrounded by mountains and accordingly very busy with tourists and hikers. In addition to visiting these hot spots we had hoped to venture into Paradise Valley, but did not have good luck hooking up with other hikers (restrictions require minimum group size of four) and chose more popular hikes instead. We had a surprise beautiful afternoon when we hiked to Lake Agnes and the Beehives from Lake Louise, a nice hike to Consolation Lakes, and a snowy day at Sentinel Pass. Our fourth day was a complete wash with steady rain all day and we spent it at Banff visiting the Upper Hot Springs, walking around town, and seeing a movie. I did catch one lucky break when I went to Moraine Lake for sunrise one morning. There wasn’t a colorful sunrise, but the fog/clouds lifted for a brief window when the sun was rising and there was a fantastic reflection of the mountains in the lake. This was the final portion of our trip. We drove the Icefields Parkway (more snow) and Saskatchewan Crossing back to Edmonton for one more night in Canada before flying home the next morning.

Resources:

Banff National Park list of hikes: Hiking in Banff National Park

In Lake Louise The Trailhead Cafe has good breakfast burritos, Laggan’s Mountain Bakery has good breakfast foods (loved their nutella bar for a hiking snack), and Bill Petyo’s Cafe is reasonably priced for all meals (the better food options in Lake Louise were more than we wanted to spend).

Pipestone Quarry is a fantastic little rock/mineral/fossil ship in Lake Louise village. We made several trips here. Norah cracked her own geode and the staff were very helpful and knowledgable.

On all four of our trips Brian Patton and Bart Robinson’s book has been indispensable in planning: Canadian Rockies Trail Guide