2015 Summer Roadtrip: Day 38—Tuesday—7/21: Lake Louise: Chair lift at the ski area, Wildflowers, vistas, and Lake Moraine

We went to the ski area across from Lake Louise and bought a ticket for 2 rides up the ski lift plus a breakfast buffet. We decided to go up the lift right away and try to see grisly bears who are sometimes in the area in the mornings. One funny thing about the ski lift is that the same lift has both chairs and small gondolas, so you can choose if you want to ride on an open car (chair lift) or a covered car (gondola). We tried both, but the chair lift was better on a beautiful sunny day. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any bears, so we rode back down the lift to get breakfast, which was more of a brunch for us. Then we went back up the lift and spent some time enjoying the view of Lake Louise and the beautiful mountains with glaciers on them. The hills around us were filled with purple, pink, red, yellow, and white wildflowers – it was beautiful! We walked to the Wildlife Interpretive Center at the top of the mountain, and learned a little more about the wildlife in the Canadian Rockies (bears, elk, caribou, wolves, coyotes, big-horn sheep, mountain goats, marmots, and several types of squirrels).

Next we drove to Lake Moraine, which was absolutely stunning! We were lucky to get a parking spot, and when we walked to the lake, the kids made it obvious that they didn’t want to walk around another lake. There was a huge rock pile right at the beginning of the lake, so the kids got excited about scrambling up it. The only tricky part was that we had to walk on a bunch of logs that were floating at the end of the lake right before the stream that flows out of the lake. The large logs were stable and easy to walk on, but among them are some smaller logs that sink if you try to stand on them. Everyone did pretty well at avoiding the sinking logs until Andrea stepped on one and her leg plunged into the water up to her knee. Luckily, it was a warm, sunny day so the cold water didn’t bother her too much. At the top of the rock pile, we had a really nice view of the lake and surrounding mountains. The color of the water was a gorgeous blue color, darker and deeper than the color of Lake Louise. It is also a glacier-fed lake, but apparently it has less rock flour, which makes some of the other lakes in the area have a lighter, milky look to them. After scrambling, everyone was tired so we had some sweets and then headed back to our campground.