Beautiful Hues of Blue!

If your goal is to stay near Lake Louise, the Fairmount Chateau is pretty much the only option…and worth every bit of what they charge! The vast hotel sits directly in front of this pristine lake with its gorgeous water and shore-lined peaks. In fact, the best rooms in the hotel gift you with this spectacular view out your window. (The tiny specs in the water are people canoeing, underscoring its sheer size and expansiveness!)

More on Lake Louise in an upcoming post, as we plan to do a sunrise tour of both it and Moraine Lake on Wednesday.

After a restful Saturday night, we met our Radventures guide, Amelia, on Sunday morning for our private Icefields Parkway and lakes tour, taking us through both Banff and Jasper National Parks. We set out from Lake Louise, winding our way north on the Icefields Parkway, a 140-mile stretch often touted as one of the most scenic drives in the world. It didn’t take long to see why. Our first stop was Peyto Lake. A short uphill walk to the viewing platform rewarded us with a stunning view of the lake’s unmistakable wolf-head shape and its striking turquoise hue.

Waterfowl Lake was our next stop, offering us more spectacular views and a perfect reflection of the surrounding peaks. The water cast a beautiful milky green hue, caused by the “glacial rock flour,” an extremely fine powder of silt and clay particles of rock created from glacier ice grinding against the bedrock.

As we continued northward, we couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer scale and beauty of the surrounding terrain: glacier-fed rivers all around us, mountainous peaks, and deep pine forests as far as the eye could see. This is even more majestic than I imagined the Canadian Rockies to be!

We made our way to the Columbia Icefield, home to one of the largest non-polar ice masses in the world. We hiked the short but steep trail to the toe of the Athabasca Glacier, stopping along the way at markers showing where the glacier once extended just decades ago – a sobering reminder of the impacts of climate change. Again, the photos don’t do justice to the size of this glacier. If you zoom in on the left side, you can see tiny specs that are actually massive four-wheel drive ice trucks, reinforcing how massive it really is.

After catching our breath (from both the altitude and the trek), we made our way back down, and then continued our journey back toward Lake Louise. We stopped for a quick look at Panther Falls, with gorgeous views every direction.

Our final lake stop was Bow Lake, with the surrounding peaks of the Wapta Icefield serving as a backdrop to its cerulean blue waters. We could not get over the color of this water!

And lastly, we took in quick views of the Saskatchewan River snaking below even more peaks.

Back at the hotel, we said our goodbyes to our fantastic guide, Amelia, and had a delicious dinner at the Lakeview restaurant on-site. We took advantage of our free morning on Monday by sleeping in and enjoying a relaxing breakfast, then packed, and made our transfer to the Rimrock Hotel in Banff, our destination for the remainder of our stay in Canada.

We ventured into this charming town for dinner at Park Distillery – highly recommend! Upon our return, we were rewarded with the most amazing sunset reflecting off the mountain peaks behind our hotel.

Tuesday’s itinerary includes more time exploring the town and an evening wildlife tour.