Winter Family Travels in 2005: Day Twenty Two

Today we left for a trip to Lake Louise. We first drove to Moraine Lake. Walked a bit around the lake. There are trails to go further around but you need to have 6 people minimum and stay no further thean 3 metres apart due to grizzly bears in the area. These signs were on all of the interior trails here. There is a huge rock pile at the lakehead that was fun to climb around. We drove to a picnic ground and made lunch. We tried our canoe camp little stove for the first time. Our instructions have disappeared, but how hard can it be. We figured it out after the second light and with some tall flames, and were able to have soup on this cool day. Some ravens watched from the tree tops and 3 Gray jays came down and Margot, Kaitlin and Brenna were able to feed them some bread.

At Lake Louise we had decided to do the Plain of Six Glacier hike up to the Glaciers at the end of the lake that feed this blue wonder. At the top of the hike there is a tea house. The book said it was 5 km. We thought that meant return but we were wrong it was 5km one way. As you start on trail it is swamped with people until you get to the end of Lake Louise. After that you start climbing up and the number of people becomes a lot more reasonable.

It was a very big climb and hike but the footing is very good compared to Lake Superior for instance. It is a very popular trail and there were many people on it at stages so the Grizzly bear warnings were not at this trailhead. We climbed up 450m into the clouds topping out at 2100m. It was quite damp near the top. We saw many different kinds of wildflowers. We spotted little Picas -- they look like a giant hampster. Margot was the first to spot two hoary marmots.

Start out going the length of Lake Louise. This is followed by a forested section climbing slowly. Then you get into shorter alpine trees. As you approach the bottom end of the glacier, you cross narrow ledges to the right of the glacier. This area was quite damp as we had reached the cloud level. After crossing a large patch of snow, we ascended via a series of switchbacks to the top. We finally made it to the the tea house which is at the top (2100m). This tea house was built in the 1920's by two swiss guides. Today, they drop 15,000 lb of supplies by helicopter in the spring and then the rest come up by horse or by the ladies and one guy that work there. They stay at the chalet for 5 days then hike down for 2 and then hike back up. We throughly enjoyed our chocolate cake and apple pie. The climb down was most enjoyable and we were able to appreciate the surroundings a bit better. We saw two rainbows over the lake and we were actually above them. We made it back to our car by 8.00 pm (5 to 6 hours in total) and were too tired to cook at camp so found a restaurant and then headed home for bed. This is a hike we will never forget.