Advertisement
Published: October 16th 2007
Edit Blog Post
As I have said before, I get uncomfortable with being a tourist. I try to be more of a traveler. I prefer to experience things, places and people rather than merely see them. But, while in the Rockies, we were definitely well and truly 100 percent the tourists.
Today we drove to Lake Louise via the Bow Valley, stopping via Johnston Canyon and checking out Morraine Lake on the way home. Every one of these stops is clearly written on every tourist map. We were glad to be traveling in non-peak time, otherwise it would have felt like a circus. As it was, it felt busy. (Apparently in summer, peak time, Lake Louise gets 10 000 people visiting a day!)
The drive through the Bow valley was stunning. We had to keep stopping to get out of the car and look at the scenery, feeling self conscious about being such consumer tourists as we were doing it. To alleviate this self-consciousness, I think, we tsk tsk'ed about this car load of people who we kept leap frogging with, because
they did not even make the effort to get out of the car. They would merely pull over, shove the
camera out of the window, snap up the scene and drive away. As we were getting back into the car at one of the many stops, we realised that the boot was open, and had probably been so since the last stop, where we had opened it to put bags of litter that we'd collected. We turned around and re-traced our drive looking for items that may have fallen out, on the way we passed this car that we'd been paying out, and they made frantic gestures at us, which we knew meant "You idiots. You have left your boot open and your stuff is dotted all along the road." Oh well. There's a lesson or two there. As it was we had only lost Marilyn's bag and a water bottle. Both of which we re-collected. Not that losing Marilyn's bag would have been any small loss, as it had her wallet and passport and everything in it.
The day, our third day in this awesome place, was even better though, then the one before. Each day so has left us more and more impressed. Everywhere you look is just absolutely amazing.
Lake Louise, deserves its title as
"gem of the rockies". Unfortunately humans do not like to leave gems alone, and Lake Louise is no exception.
Despite the mega-hotel "The Lake Louise Chateau" (where you can get a room for upwards of $500) on its shore, packs of tourists and a tea house up on the ridge top, the Lake still manages to shine through. It is such an incredible turquoise colour, either opaque or transparent crystal clear depending on the angle at which you are looking at it. We could have payed $50 an hour to kayak around the lake. The business manager must have got his or her inspiration from the mountains behind his boat house. (ie, steep) We walked around it though which did not cost a cent.
Jono and I walked up to the summit behind the lake, to get a closer view of the glacier. It was pretty amazing. The closest I had ever been to a glacier. It didn't feel too adventurous considering there was a teahouse right behind us, but absolutely beautiful just the same. I was totally struck by the larch trees - although it has the needles of an evergreen, they turn colour and drop in
Jono and Richard
At one of the stop overs on the road through Bow Valley the fall like a deciduous tree. Pretty unique.
Likewise, Lake Morraine, in the valley of ten peaks, was beautiful and iconic. I just wish we had more time to explore all of these areas properly, but a taste is better than nothing at all. Apparently the glacially-fed lakes, get their color from the refraction of light off the rock flour deposited in the lake on a continual basis.
Oh and I saw a Pika, which I think made my day. It was adorable. It just sat there on a rock and looked at me and made its whistle-like squeaky alarming noise which can not really be translated very well through a keyboard, and then ran away. I did not get to take a photo of it, but here are some photos by other
people . Pikas are native to cold climates, mostly in Asia, North America and parts of eastern Europe. The name pika is used for any member of the Ochotonidae, a family within the order of lagomorphs, which also includes the Leporidae (rabbits and hares). And did I say they are cute?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.205s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 16; qc: 71; dbt: 0.1385s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
capsfan2002
capsfan
Photos
You posted some GREAT photos. The sunrise ones were so pretty. Just thought I'd drop a comment and let you know. Had to rate a few of your photos as a result! Keep blogging...