Day 6 - Something for your "Bucket List"

We spent the day exploring Banff and Lake Louise - if you haven't had a chance to visit this place, it is really worth a trip . . . add this to your "Bucket List". First we headed to the Banff Springs Hotel. This hotel looks like a castle - everything about it is impressive. We spent some time just walking around grounds and taking in the grandeur.

From there, we headed to Lake Louise. It is only about 30 miles away, but with construction, it took us about an hour. The Triple A book recommends visiting before 10 AM or after 4PM, due to crowds. Of course, it was about 1:30 when we got there and there was absolutely no place to park - so we ended up turning around and parking on the side of the road, along with numerous other people. We hiked up the hill to the parking area and spent some time wandering around the Chateau Lake Louise. This is another impressive, castle-like structure - the interior reminded us of Yosemite's grand hotel! From there we walked out to Lake Louise and just soaked up the sites: the beautiful turquoise blue lake, the snow capped mountains, and various assortment of trees and native plants.

We headed down a paved walkway along the way, and then Scott noticed a sign for a "short" hike to the Lake Agnes Teahouse. Laurie was thrilled because this was the same hike that she went on when she was 16! (The teahouse is right where the snow is in the middle of the picture) So we headed up the trail . . . however it was a lot more strenuous than Laurie remembered! About half-way up the 3.3 km hike we realized that we didn't even bring a bottle of water! Allison was a trooper and patiently waited for Scott and Laurie to catch their breathes a few times . . .Laurie was sure her heart was going to explode out of her chest! It was very humbling to remember that Laurie's parents were 53 when they did this same hike, and Laurie doesn't remember them complaining about the difficulty of the hike! Before reaching the Teahouse, we came to Mirror Lake and had two hiking options for the remainder of the hike. One trail was 0.8 km and the other was 0.7km - we chose the shorter option only to realize it was very steep! We hung in there and soon saw the steps to the actual Teahouse - all 89 of them! By the time we got to our destination, Scott and Laurie were a sweaty mess! It was a welcome respite to sit at the rustic Teahouse and feast on tea and chocolate chip cookies. We were entertained by the chipmunks that were begging for food - they were very well-fed chipmunks. One chipmunk crawled up Scott's leg and sat on his knee waiting for a bite of cookie - of course after such an arduous hike, there was no way Scott was parting with ANY of his cookie! After catching our breath, we were ready for the hike back down the trail. (This is Mirror Lake at the Teahouse) Let's just say, going down was much more our speed! We met some very interesting young "20 somethings" on the hike down. They were from various parts of Canada working for a theater company in Banff for the summer. We appreciated their humor! When we finally reached our van, we were one of the only vehicles left on the road. We headed back into Banff to do some laundry. We got the downtown laundromat at 8:35 PM only to discover that the last load had to be started by 7:30 PM - so we were out of luck. Went to the nearby DQ for a grilled chicken salad - and they were out of salads! Ordered a bite to eat (not on the plan) but kind of out of options at this point! It had been a full day and time to call it a night. Tomorrow we will try laundry again - Scott doesn't want to "go commando"!