(Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada)
Right before our first day of skiing, we visited the legendary Lake Louise (the village, the lake, and the hotel, but not the ski area…yet).
I’m sure every Canadian has seen multiple pictures of Lake Louise: the grand hotel overlooking the narrow mountain lake with snowy peaks in the background…it is an iconic Canadian sight.
And yet, it wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined it. I thought it would be at the bottom of a steep and narrow alpine valley. But that would be wrong: it is actually located some distance up from the broad valley floor, on a winding mountain road.
It actually reminds me quite a bit of St. Moritz, Switzerland…except that there is only one hotel (rather than hundreds) and it seems isolated even with hundreds of people enjoying the lake.
Anyway, it is definitely beautiful and there was plenty going on when we arrived. There was a fully operational ice bar, a huge number of ice sculptures, multiple hockey games in progress on the lake, cross-country skiers darting to and fro, and many others just walking on and around the lake. A horse-drawn sled was ferrying people around the coastal trail, while some fearless folks were climbing an ice waterfall.
As we were just visiting and not actually staying at the hotel, we chose to walk the length of the lake (about 2 km) and back, taking in the views and the general good cheer about winter. It seemed like the right thing to do, given that the temperatures were more than cold enough for us to curse them. Of course, the happiest creature we saw was a very photogenic husky. Sadly, I didn’t take a picture!
Lake Louise (the lake, with the hotel) also turns out to be different from Lake Louise (the village) and Lake Louise (the ski area). The village is on the valley floor, a couple of kilometers down from the lake, on the Trans-Canada Highway. The ski area is even further from the lake, on the other side of the valley.
The verdict: yes, as you can see, it is definitely worth a visit. I’m sure I haven’t seen the last of this famous lake…and hopefully, I will get back here at least once in the warmer seasons, so I can see the lake’s (apparently) mesmerizing colours for myself.