Canadian Rockies Trip: Day 3 (Banff and Lake Louise)

Sunday: July 25th

First Vermilion Lake at Sunrise

I woke up before sunrise to go and photograph morning light on
Mt Rundle from the Vermilion lakes just outside Banff townsite.

Mount Rundle Reflected on Two Jack Lake

Unfortunately, the morning light was not very good on Mt Rundle, and I
got some more interesting pictures at Two Jack Lake instead.

Moraine Lake

Moraine Lake: We started our day by driving into Moraine Lake.  It is
one of the most beautiful lakes in the Rockies with intense blue water
and beautiful valley of the Ten Peaks rising behind it.  There were
beautiful red canoes paddling on the lake which added more contrast to
the scene.  After the lake, we decided to take a hike to Larch Valley.
All the hikes around Moraine Lake required hikers to travel in groups
of four to protec against grizzly bears.  We fell in with a couple and
started, but the thin air at this high altitude (6000+ ft) and
steepness of the trail stopped us after a bit.  We decided to drive to
lake Louise instead.

Lake Louise

Lake Louise: A very crowded lake with bus load of tourists and a
beautiful hotel right next to it.  There was a wedding going on at the
hotel at the lake shore.

lake Agnes

We started on the lake Agnes trail (6.8 km
round trip, 285 m gain) and were at the lake in an hour.  The lake is
set in a cirque surrounded by snow covered peaks and in the midst of
it all, there is a tea house serving many kinds of exotic tea.  The
tea house is clearly very popular with the hikers as well as the horse
back riders.  We had our lunch on the lake shore, turned back and were
back at the trail head soon.  From the trail, the intermittent view of
Lake Louise was awesome.

Big Horn Sheep on Bow Valley Parkway

Bow Valley Parkway: Instead of taking the Hwy 1 back to our hotel, we
drove on Bow valley parkway which parallels Hwy 1 between Lake Louise
and Banff townsite.  There are many viewpoints on the parkway, but the
most interesting thing we saw were a herd of bighorn sheep which were
grazing by the road.

Chiranjeeb