Anniversary Trip, Day 3

{Catch up on Day 1 here}
{Catch up on Day 2 here}

On Saturday morning we were up by 5:15, donning hiking gear, packing a lunch, and sucking down coffee.  Just after 6 we were on the road to Lake Louise.

Here's our Sinclair Canyon footage... we threaded the needle through these cliffs every time we left Radium!

Just after passing through the canyon we saw a female bighorn sheep in the middle of the road!

Grainy picture taken out the back of the car window, but you get the idea!

We had brought a breakfast of boiled eggs and toast for the car, but oddly neither M nor I found ourselves very hungry.  I think part of it was the time change, and part of it may have been our gigantic feast at Old Salzburg Restaurant the night before, followed by about half a pint of Ben & Jerry's each in the hotel room after we got back from the hot springs pools.  Did I fail to mention that little ice cream indulgence?  Oops.  ;-}  I managed to force down one toast and one egg because I knew that energy would be needed for the hike.

As we pulled on to the Trans-Canada Highway in Banff National Park we had our second grizzly bear sighting in as many days.

Sorry the footage is so shaky; M was walking while filming, holding his phone above his head and trying to keep up with this guy who was obviously beating a hasty retreat to a more private part of the woods.  We felt extra specially glad after this that we had sprung for that bear spray!

We arrived at Lake Louise around 8 AM, purchased our day pass at the checkpoint as we entered the parking lot, and scored one of the very last parking spots in the main lot that day.  Did I mention this place is popular?  We were relieved not to have to park in the overflow lot which is about 8 km from Lake Louise.  You can park there and get a shuttle to the lake, but that would have cut into our hiking time.  Note to anyone who ever goes-- if you're going to Lake Louise on a summer weekend, get there before 8 AM if you want a parking spot!

We used the public restroom, gathered our gear and made the short walk down to the lake shore.  We were greeted by this sight:

Gorgeous view.  Lots of people taking pictures.

We stopped by the ATM at the Fairmont Chateu because we knew that the tea house didn't take credit cards.  I later learned that you can have high tea at the Fairmont which is something I would love to do if we ever go back here.  It was an absolutely beautiful place!

Canadian cash featuring the Queen in hand, ready to go!

We began hiking just before 9 AM.  The Plain of Six Glaciers trail wound around the north side of the lake towards Mount Victoria which contains the Victoria glacier you see pictured in the photo above.  BTW, Lake Louise is named after Victoria and Albert's sixth daughter, who was just born in the most recent season of PBS's Victoria... little trivia for you there.  :)  The melting of the Victoria glacier is what feeds Lake Louise, and I read somewhere that they took that into consideration when naming them both-- the glacier gives life to the lake just as Victoria gave life to Louise.  Cool huh?

The path around the lake was quite flat and it was so nice to enjoy the amazing view of the beautiful blue waters of the lake as we were walking.

There were, as we had expected, plenty of people on the path, so we were navigating getting out around people and/or stopping and starting as we walked, but there was definitely a lot of noise and conversations going on to scare off any bears, so... our plan worked!

After we finished the lake-side portion of the trail we wound through some rivulets from the melting glacier on the southwest side of the lake.

Then we started ascending the side of Devil's Thumb on our right, still overlooking the valley the whole time, with gorgeous views.

We saw some climbers with ropes ascending the cliffs on the west side of Devil's Thumb.  They (the cliffs) were quite impressive!

The pictures don't really do them justice, actually.

The trail was a pretty moderate combination of gentle uphill climbs, flat, and even a small bit of downhill as we wound around the valley towards Mount Victoria.  There was a bit of a scary section (for me and my intense fear of heights anyway; it was really not too bad) where we walked along a narrow section of slippery wet trail with a dropoff on the left.

(looking back the way we came)

M posed for this picture as an inside joke for the girls... "This is a dry rock!"

{pretends to slip and fall}

We made it through that semi-scary section and then there were a few steeper switchbacks to get us up to the tea house.  I was feeling the elevation more than M and getting winded, so he had to stop and wait for me a few times.  I will admit we had a few grumpy words with one another about my slower pace that day, but we worked it out.  That's the way it goes sometimes when you're hiking.  Basically we took only one water break until we made it to the tea house (M obviously took more breaks than me because he had to keep waiting), which totaled about 6k of hiking from our starting point.

We had decided ahead of time not to stop for tea until we were on our way back (the full hike takes you about 1.5k past the tea house to the actual Plain of Six Glaciers).  Thunderstorms were in the forecast for the later afternoon, and we wanted to get most of the hiking behind us earlier in the day.  So we took another quick water break at the tea house, enjoyed the view for a bit, and then pressed on.

We rounded around a few bends closer and closer to the Victoria glacier, and we kept hearing rumblings which sounded a bit like thunder, but I was also hearing loud popping/cracking noises that made me suspect that the rumblings were actually mini avalanches.  At one point I thought I saw a spray of snow but the view was blocked by trees so I couldn't tell.  Of course I was a little afraid this snow was going to fall on top of us from somewhere.  I turned my camera phone on and had it at the ready in case we witnessed anything, and sure enough, as we rounded a bend in the trail, this happened:

It's a bit hard to differentiate the rumbling from the sound of the wind in the video, but trust me... the sound of the snow hitting those rocks was like an explosion.  So powerful!  Wow.

I actually think I'm going to end this post here, since it's already getting pretty long, and do a Day 3 Part 2 coming up!  Spoiler alert: we don't get buried by an avalanche.  More coming soon; stay tuned!

{Move on to Day 3, part 2 here}