July 7 Day 7

Not a lot of riding today, as we wanted to do some sight seeing around the Banff and Lake Louise areas. We headed out in the morning and stopped at the Banff Springs Hotel. The current stone and concrete hotel structure was built in 1911. The hotel was only used in the summer months until it was winterized in 1968, which is surprising since summer is so short up here. It is hard to get a good photo of the hotel while on the actual property due to its huge size. Here is a shot of the Eastern most wing as we walked to the hotel from the parking lot.

As expected, the interior of the hotel is beautiful, and huge. I am standing in the center of the main lobby area, looking toward my left.

Here I am standing in the same spot and looking toward the right.

Here is one of the reasons that folks like to stay here... this is a photo of the view from a terrace at the back of the hotel. You can swim or lounge by the outdoor pool and look at this view all day. There are also a number of upscale shops in the hotel selling anything from clothes, to jewelry, to artwork and sculptures. Nothing found in my price range:)

After visiting the Banff Springs, we drove back through the town of Banff and headed up the Trans-Canadian Highway (Rt 1) toward Lake Louise. Lake Louise is a much smaller town than Banff, it's actually a village. There are only a couple of hotels in the village, and a small number of restaurants and shops, pretty basic stuff. Also much less crowded than Banff. We checked in to our hotel, dropped off our luggage, and headed out for some lunch.

After lunch, we headed up to see the actual Lake Louise lake. There is another very upscale hotel right on the lake called the Chateau Lake Louise. The original hotel was built in the late 1800's and was a wooden structure. It eventually was lost to fire. The hotel was rebuilt in the early 1900's (no wood this time). The hotel was originally intended to attract visitors to the area for hiking, canoeing, and other summer activities. Years later, the natural areas surrounding the hotel were incorporated into the Banff National Park. It was not until 1982 that the hotel was winterized and is now a favorite place to stay for skiers visiting the area.

Here is a shot of a portion of the front of the hotel.

This is a shot of a portion of the rear of the hotel. Like the Banff Springs, the hotel is just to large to fit into a single photo from the hotel grounds.

Like the Banff Springs, the Chateau Lake Louise has a spectacular view from the rear lawn and terrace area...

Still a lot of snow left in the mountains surrounding the hotel. The lake is very cold, but has a gorgeous emerald green color.

There is a small dock area where you can rent a canoe for a paddle on the lake.

You can rent your own small canoe, or hire a guide with an over-sized canoe to help direct you around the sites on the lake.

From Lake Louise, we headed down the road to see Moraine Lake. Moraine is a glacier fed lake just a few miles from Lake Louise. Here is a shot of the peaks that surround Moraine Lake.

Like Lake Louise, the water here is a deep emerald color. The color is due to the light refracting off of the "rock flour" deposited in the lake (fine grained silt created by the glacial erosion).

One last stop before heading back to the hotel for the day. We swing into the Lake Louise ski resort. There is a gondola that you can ride to the top but it was already closed down for the day. The workers indicated that they were required to close at 5:00 PM due to park regulations. The ski area is actually inside the Banff National Park, and the 5:00 closing time is due to wildlife considerations.

A shot of lift areas located directly behind the main lodge.

A closer shot of the upper mountain area.

And, a shot of the back of the main lodge. I have actually skied here, back in the mid 90's.

One additional tidbit about the ski area... Will and Kate (yes, the royal couple) were in the area for the Calgary Stampede. They secretly lodged at a private cabin that belongs to the owner of the ski resort. On Friday, the royal couple was flown by helicopter to the ski lodge shown above, so that they could change clothes before moving on with their travels of the Calgary/Banff area. No one in the area had any idea they would be landing and using the lodge, so there were only about 50 folks on the grounds at the time (tourists wanting to take the gondola ride). We arrived at the resort about an hour after the royal couple left. So, no brush with British royals for us.

Tomorrow we will head back into the states, specifically Idaho. This will set us up to hit Washington and Oregon over the next few days.

Our stats for today indicate that we covered a whopping 64 miles, bringing our trip total to 2488 miles. Below is a map of our route from today.